Digital integration, the key to a united Europe

During the pandemic, technology was one of the tools used by European countries to overcome common obstacles. The EU Digital Covid Certificate has driven an important new step on the path towards European digital citizenship.

by Paolo de Rosa (Digital Transformation Department of the Italian Government) Serena Battilomo (Ministry of Health), Marco Marsella (European Commission)*. This blogpost is also available in Italian

The Covid-19 pandemic posed a political, economic and health challenge to the European Union. Member States were able to respond to this crisis with strong and innovative instruments, as proven by #NextGenerationEU, an unprecedented stimulus package to support economic recovery in the Old Continent.

However, while the common response to the economic crisis was the approval of National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs), there were different approaches at healthcare level. One of these has led to an intensification of technological cooperation, thanks to the European Commission and a voluntary network of Member States, the eHealth network (eHN).

This collaboration allowed, in the initial phase of the pandemic, to define a common toolbox for the development of national contact tracing apps and, subsequently, to design, develop and implement the EU Digital Covid Certificate, the Green Certificate designed to facilitate a free and secure movement of citizens within the European Union.

Thanks to technology, an innovative collaboration was substantiated at European level, where digital tools were used to solve a cross-border problem. Above all, it represented a new element of cooperation and integration, highlighting how it is possible to develop common digital tools to make life easier for European citizens.

The strategy and methods used during the pandemic emergency should now find their place in an even broader path towards a full implementation of an integrated and recognized EU-wide digital citizenship. It has been shown that it can be done, and now it has to be done.

The eHealth network

Although the development and deployment of eHealth solutions in health systems is a national competence, in recent years, the EU has committed itself to provide support, through funding and platforms in which Member States could collaborate. Some aspects — such as interoperability and quality standards — are addressed at European level through coordinated action.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Member States have been working together to come up with innovative solutions to try to safeguard some of the fundamental rights defended by the EU — including freedom of movement — and also to join forces to contain the spread of the Sars-COV-2 virus.

A first experiment took place at the peak of the virus’ spread, and led to the approval of a common approach for the development and implementation of effective and secure contact tracing apps. These apps, installed on a voluntary basis and in full respect of privacy, alerted citizens who had come into contact with people who tested positive for Covid-19.

Thanks to the European contribution, the different apps developed by Member States have been designed to communicate with each other, facilitating the traceability of infection chains even across several countries. Within a few weeks, European interoperability was achieved through the implementation of a gateway that would soon enable the operation of the EU Digital Covid Certificate.

The EU Digital Covid Certificate

With the start of the vaccination campaign, the requirements for the gradual resumption of cross-border circulation have changed. In early March 2021, the European Commission proposed legislation to establish a common framework for a European Covid-19 certificate and therefore facilitate safe travel between Member States during the pandemic.

The work focused on defining the main technical specifications for generating, issuing and recognizing vaccination, cure and confirmed negativity certificates for Covid-19 and to ensure their interoperability between Member States. Specifically, by establishing common rules regarding:

• certificate formats and management;
• European gateway operation;
• two-dimensional barcode;
• recovery and verification applications;
• governance of public key certificates;
• definition and application of cross-border validation rules.

This work was also carried out in cooperation with EU agencies, the Health Security Committee, the World Health Organization and other institutions. At the request of the European Commission, the project has been made available in open source (here to access Github), allowing anyone to get into the specifics of the work done, and all States to implement the EU Digital Covid Certificate.

Above all, this type of collaboration, on such a large scale, has made it possible to test the great benefits of interoperability in practice. The European gateway (a term that indicates how different computer networks talk to each other in a common language) has enabled the databases of the Member States to communicate.

The gateway made it possible to verify the digital signatures of the different Member States contained in the QR codes of all certificates, without having to process personal data. The signature keys required for verification are stored on national servers, and, through the gateway, they become accessible to apps and national verification systems throughout the EU (in Italy, VerificaC19).

In just a few months, each EU Country has developed and implemented a digital document fed by national data, capable of communicating with a central database, thus allowing its citizens to travel with greater ease and security.

This action was also based on important political and technological choices, considering that the EU gateway is hosted at the Commission’s data centre in Luxembourg, a choice that also symbolically marks a significant claim to technological leadership by the Commission itself.

The importance of the first step

The dramatic consequences of the pandemic have forced Europe to accelerate the path of digital integration. The collaboration — intensified during the pandemic — for the development of eHealth solutions has, above all, made it possible to outline, test and implement an unprecedented cross-border collaboration method to build on, also learning from the mistakes that have obviously been made.

It has become even clearer, for example, that institutions must make a greater and better effort to accompany all sections of the population, even the most wary, towards the use of digital tools, especially in times of crisis and emergency.

At the same time, the centrality of the complex yet necessary dialogue with the various institutional stakeholders involved emerged: European Commission, European Council and European Parliament above all. These stakeholders have been fundamental in defining the regulatory framework within which we have been moving in recent months. While this dialogue between the political and technical tables has been a source of possible conflict, it has also provided an opportunity to bring together different visions for common goals in a synergic manner.

The journey must not stop here. Further steps with even more ambitious goals are needed: breaking down national walls towards full European digital citizenship.

A European digital citizenship

Digital innovation has helped to shape the idea of European integration in new ways. Cooperation in the field of health for the development of interoperable eHealth solutions is a first step in the construction of a European digital identity.

“Every time an App or website asks us to create a new digital identity or to easily log on via a big platform, we have no idea what happens to our data in reality. That is why the Commission will propose a secure European e-identity. One that we trust and that any citizen can use anywhere in Europe to do anything from paying your taxes to renting a bicycle. A technology where we can control ourselves what data is used and how.” Ursula von der Leyen, during her speech on the State of the Union, on 16 September 2020

The future of digital identity, the key to accessing digital public services, is the new test to assess the validity of the path traced in recent months. Recently te EU Commissione showed the way with the prospect of every EU citizen and resident being able to use a personal digital ‘wallet’ in the future. The aim is to enable every person with a national identity card to have a digital identity recognized everywhere in the EU.

Many citizens already use digital wallets on their smartphones to have boarding passes available when traveling or to store virtual bank cards for convenient payments.

European Digital Identity Wallets will be personal digital wallets allowing citizens to identify themselves digitally and to store and manage their identity data and official documents in electronic format, such as driving licences, medical prescriptions or educational qualifications. With this wallet, citizens will be able, if necessary, to prove their identity to access online services across Europe or share digital documents without revealing their identity or other personal data. Citizens will always have full control over the data they share.

A new, digital and ambitious perspective. The aim is that, by September 2022, Member States, in close cooperation with the EU Commission, will reach agreement on the toolkit to implement the European framework for a common digital identity, and that the Commission will publish the toolkit in October 2022. Once the technical framework is agreed, it will be possible to test it through pilot projects.

The wallet will have the chance to become a way to claim a number of fundamental rights: free choice, with respect to how to identify and authenticate oneself online, and privacy, with respect to the possibility to selectively share one’s identity attributes according to the service requested. This is an advantage for citizens, and also for service providers, whether public or private, who will have the certainty of recognizing certain, verified and verifiable identity attributes.

Conclusions

The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for effective and easily accessible digital services across the European Union. The interoperability of contact tracing apps of the different Member States, as well as the EU Digital Covid Certificate, were a first concrete step in this direction.

In this context, the role of the Digital Transformation Department of the Italian Government, headed by the Minister for Technological Innovation and Digital Transition, should increasingly be that of a strategic facilitator in the implementation of these solutions. A path followed in synergy with the various institutional stakeholders, both at national and European level, involved in the development of the various projects. In the case of the EU Digital Covid Certificate, the work carried out with the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Emergency Commission Structure, SOGEI and PagoPA Spa has shown how much it is possible to work together at an inter-institutional level, respecting each other’s competences, to achieve successful results.

Digital tools must increasingly be a way to simplify and improve citizens lives, and, in the European context, this ambition can and must unfold its potential at the highest levels of innovation and security.

*Paolo de Rosa (Digital Transformation Department of the Italian Government, Chief Technology Officer)
Serena Battilomo (Ministry of Health, DG for the digitalization of the health system and statistics)
Marco Marsella (EU Commission, DG CONNECT, Head of Unit eHealth, Well-being and Aging)