The NGI Forum 2023 has been created as a vibrant hub where forward-thinking individuals, policymakers, and technologists come together to explore the leading edge of Europe’s digital transformation.
With a diverse agenda that spans various facets of European policy developments, emerging innovation trends, and NGI initiatives, the NGI Forum 2023 delved into a wide range of topics that support the transition to the future Internet. These discussions encompass digital identity, quantum Internet, large language models and web search, decentralized social media, and the security of the open-source supply chain.
An important part of the Forum’s agenda was certainly TrustChain workshop that tackled Digital identity and Digital wallets and common ground to enhance scalability and adoption. The session was opened and moderated by Muttukrishnan Rajarajan, Professor and Director of the Institute of Cyber Security at City, University of London and also part of the TrustChain core team.
The convergence of digital identity and digital wallets holds immense potential to revolutionize the European digital economy. However, the lack of a common set of definitions and a universal taxonomy for digital wallets has been a significant hurdle. This deficiency has led to issues such as subpar user experiences, a lack of cross-border data flow agreements, and slow adoption of standards.
The TrustChain workshop at NGI Forum 2023 addressed these challenges by:
Investigating Challenges: The workshop delved into the obstacles hindering the widespread adoption of digital wallets, including concerns related to privacy, usability, security, and interoperability.
Defining a Universal Taxonomy: It identified potential common definitions for a universal taxonomy of digital wallets. This critical step aims to enable mutual recognition of electronic identities (eIDs), enhance interoperability, and facilitate seamless interactions between digital wallets.
Key Takeaways: The workshop gathered key takeaways for developers and policymakers, focusing on strategies to maximize scalability and adoption of digital identity and wallets across Europe.
In the scope of the session, some of the TrustChain Open Call #1 innovators had presented their work and impressions on the NFI Forum:
Andrea D’Intino describes DidRoom as a multistandard modular SSI Solution, supporting W3C-DID/VC, eIDAS 2.0 and PaDES/CaDES signatures. Focus is on modularity, and the solution is built on the open source cryptographic virtual machine Zenroom which is 100% developed in-house.
[This Forum has been a] Great event! Good energy and quality feedback. Our contribution to TrustChain OC1 is our interoperable microservices for issuance and microservice.
Dominik Beron introduced DID4EU that extends walt.id’s existing open source infrastructurewalt.id offers identity and wallet infrastructure already used by thousands of developers and organizations across the globe. All solutions are open source (Apache 2) and comply with regulations (eIDAS2, GDPR) and standards (e.g. W3C, ISO, IETF, OIDF).
The TrustChain grant and forum are amazing tools to enable innovation in Europe. We're glad to be a part of it!
Ammar Bukhari presented MUSAP, a Unified Signature API that allows the users to choose their preferred key store or security technology i.e giving option for a user to choose their preferred SSCD method for different key management operations. Moreover, MUSAP allows multiple SSCD to be interfaced in the end-user app, so users don’t up their keys in one basket.
Forum highlighted amazing topics. NGI community is supporting MUSAP to ensure that identities issued will be interoperable across the EU and complexity to interface SSCDs with end-user apps reduces.
Sebastian Boender presented on behalf of the The Social Wallet, a digital initiative designed to support vulnerable and marginalized groups by providing an easy-to-use application for receiving and exchanging benefits. This project leverages privacy-preserving SSI-technology to build trust, enhance digital inclusivity, and offer efficient, cost-effective solutions for authorities, sponsors, and suppliers, with proven success.
Without the crucial funding from the EU, the ambitious Trustchain project, encompassing the innovative Social Wallet initiative, would not have been feasible. This support has been instrumental in realizing our vision of empowering marginalized communities through advanced digital solutions.
Lastly, Leandro Navarro presented Orchestral, and focus of their work which is designing and implementing IdHub, an identity and credential management system designed by and for social and solidarity economy actors, tailored to organisations involved with activists and marginalised citizens. They empower these actors to manage and benefit from decentralised digital identity and automated data accreditation across organisations, with access to services or benefits offered by different actors in our community. The solution is based on OpenID Connect, Verifiable Credentials, and common schemas in line with EBSI and eIDAS.
The funding support from Trustchain OC1 and NGI.eu has enabled us to develop the IdHub identity and credentials management service beyond a concept into an open-source solution as a digital commons co-designed by and for social and solidarity actors. This support brings an Internet of trust to the social justice and inclusion sector.
Until the next NGI forum, in case you missed the session, you can find the recording bellow [06:27:32 ]⬇️