Preamble 51 to 60
(51) Due consideration should be given to ensure effective cooperation between the supervisory bodies designated pursuant to Article 46b of Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 and the competent authorities designated or established pursuant to Article 8(1) of Directive (EU) 2022/2555.
Where such a supervisory body is different from such a competent authority, they should cooperate closely, in a timely manner by exchanging the relevant information in order to ensure effective supervision and compliance of trust service providers with the requirements set out in Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 and in Directive (EU) 2022/2555.
In particular, supervisory bodies designated pursuant to Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 should be entitled to request competent authorities designated or established pursuant Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to provide relevant information needed to grant the qualified status and to carry out supervisory actions to verify compliance of the trust service providers with the relevant requirements under Directive (EU) 2022/2555 or to require them to remedy non-compliance.
(52) It is essential to provide for a legal framework to facilitate cross-border recognition between existing national legal systems related to electronic registered delivery services. That framework could also open new market opportunities for Union trust service providers to offer new Union-wide electronic registered delivery services.
In order to ensure that data using a qualified electronic registered delivery service is delivered to the correct addressee, qualified electronic registered delivery services should ensure complete certainty the identification of the addressee while a high level of confidence would suffice as regards the identification of the sender.
Providers of qualified electronic registered delivery services should be encouraged by Member States to make their services interoperable with qualified electronic registered delivery services provided by other qualified trust service providers in order to easily transfer electronic registered data between two or more qualified trust service providers and to promote fair practices in the internal market.
(53) In most cases, Union citizens and residents in the Union are unable to exchange digital information relating to their identity, such as their address, age, professional qualifications, driving licence and other permits and payment data, across borders, securely and with a high level of data protection.
(54) It should be possible to issue and handle trustworthy electronic attributes and contribute to reducing administrative burden, empowering Union citizens and residents in the Union to use them in their private and public transactions.
Union citizens and residents in the Union should be able, for instance, to demonstrate ownership of a valid driving licence issued by an authority in one Member State, which can be verified and relied upon by the relevant authorities in other Member States, to rely on their social security credentials or on future digital travel documents in a cross border context.
(55) Any service provider that issues attested attributes in electronic form such as diplomas, licences, birth certificates or powers and mandates to represent or act on behalf of natural or legal persons should be considered to be a trust service provider of electronic attestation of attributes. An electronic attestation of attributes should not be denied legal effect on the grounds that it is in an electronic form or that it does not meet the requirements of the qualified electronic attestation of attributes.
General requirements should be laid down to ensure that a qualified electronic attestation of attributes has the equivalent legal effect of lawfully issued attestations in paper form. However, those requirements should apply without prejudice to Union or national law defining additional sector-specific requirements as regards form with underlying legal effects and, in particular, the cross-border recognition of qualified electronic attestation of attributes, where appropriate.
(56) The wide availability and usability of European Digital Identity Wallets should enhance their acceptance and trust in them both by private individuals and by private service providers.
Therefore, private relying parties providing services, for example in the areas of transport, energy, banking and financial services, social security, health, drinking water, postal services, digital infrastructure, telecommunications or education, should accept the use of European Digital Identity Wallets for the provision of services where strong user authentication for online identification is required by Union or national law or by contractual obligation.
Any request by the relying party for information from the user of a European Digital Identity Wallet should be necessary for, and proportionate to, the intended use in a given case, should be in line with the principle of data minimisation and should ensure transparency as regards which data is shared and for what purposes. To facilitate the use and acceptance of European Digital Identity Wallets, widely accepted industry standards and specifications should be taken into account in their deployment.
(57) Where very large online platforms within the meaning of Article 33(1) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and of the Council require users to be authenticated in order to access online services, those platforms should be required to accept the use of European Digital Identity Wallets upon the voluntary request of the user.
Users should be under no obligation to use a European Digital Identity Wallet to access private services and should not be restricted or hindered in their access to services on the grounds that they do not use a European Digital Identity Wallet. However, if users wish to do so, very large online platforms should accept them for that purpose, while respecting the principle of data minimisation and the right of the users to use freely chosen pseudonyms.
Given the importance of very large online platforms, due to their reach, in particular as expressed in number of recipients of the service and economic transactions, the obligation to accept European Digital Identity Wallets is necessary to increase the protection of users from fraud and to secure a high level of data protection.
(58) Codes of conduct at Union level should be developed in order to contribute to the widespread availability and usability of electronic identification means, including European Digital Identity Wallets within the scope of this Regulation. The codes of conduct should facilitate broad acceptance of electronic identification means including European Digital Identity Wallets by those service providers which do not qualify as very large platforms and which rely on third party electronic identification services for user authentication.
(59) Selective disclosure is a concept empowering the owner of data to disclose only certain parts of a larger data set, in order for the receiving entity to obtain only such information as is necessary for the provision of a service requested by a user.
The European Digital Identity Wallet should technically enable the selective disclosure of attributes to relying parties. It should be technically possible for the user to selectively disclose attributes, including from multiple, distinct electronic attestations, and to combine and present them seamlessly to relying parties. This feature should become a basic design feature of European Digital Identity Wallets, thereby reinforcing convenience and the protection of personal data, including data minimisation.
(60) Unless specific rules of Union or national law require users to identify themselves, accessing services by using a pseudonym should not be prohibited.
Note: This is the final text of Regulation (EU) 2024/1183 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 April 2024, establishing the European Digital Identity Framework.