Madrid, Spain - February 26th 2018
Nowadays the cross-border use of government issued or government endorsed electronic identity is still low, but this is about to change. We are moving towards a situation where these so called notified eID and trust services will compete with private eID and will be offered by online service providers to citizens to access their services across borders in a more secure manner. With the eIDAS regulation, the EU has put in place a legal and technical framework that will allow EU Member States to mutually recognize each other’s notified eID schemes for cross-border access to online public sector services, creating at the same time unprecedented opportunities for the private online service providers.
The Connecting Europe Facility, with Digital Service Infrastructures based on building blocks such as eID, aims at bringing down the barriers that are holding back the growth of the EU Digital Single Market. Private sector online service providers uptake of trust services (e.g. authentication) based on notified eID from the other member states is one of such barriers. Here is where LEPS comes into play.
LEPS is a European project financed by Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Telecom EU funding instrument that effectively promotes the use and uptake of the eID in the private sector, demonstrating the usability of eIDAS specifications and contributing to connect the IT infrastructures of different private online services with the eIDAS eID common services through optimal connection strategies and flexible technology options.
With an estimated budget of around 1 million euro, LEPS will reduce costs for private online service providers regarding their back office customization and connection to the eIDAS infrastructure with different tools and services. Through the integration of the CEF eID building block, these companies will be able to accept notified eIDs from other Member States and realize tangible benefits, namely by offering to customers a secure and convenient online cross-border authentication service, while achieving important time and effort savings.
The consortium with 8 partners from Spain and Greece is led by Atos Spain, that also performs the Integration with the Spanish eIDAS node. Two postal services companies in Spain and Greece (Sociedad Estatal de Correos y Telégrafos and Hellenic Post) will integrate online services such as “My Mailbox”, which enables organizations and individuals to create a nexus of safe and secure document based communication. It also integrates notified eID building block with certified eDelivery service Another project partner is online financial service provider from Greece, Athens Exchange Group, aiming to offer remote electronic signature services to EU customers, compliant with eIDAS regulation. Other partners include Universidad de Murcia, Hellenic Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction, University of the Aegean and the National Technical University of Athens.
The project has received funding from the European Union´s Connecting Europe Facility under grant agreement No INEA/CEF/ICT/A2016/1271348.
For further information, please contact Mr. Pedro Soria-Rodríguez at pedro.soria@atos.net
###
