Veridos Sees the Road Ahead

The future of sovereign identity documents such as ID cards, passports and driving licences is virtual – according to leading provider of integrated identity solutions, Veridos. However, there are still some key challenges to overcome, with IDs remaining ‘phygital’ for the time being.

ID cards, passports and driving licences are increasingly phygital across much of the world. This sees physical and digital components combined with documents containing electronic chips that store data identifying their holders. Unlike purely physical ones, phygital IDs have one key advantage: data that establishes a citizen’s identity can be transferred to digital platforms without friction. Thus, they are indispensable for efficient eGovernment processes.

At the recent Optical & Digital Document Security conference in Vienna (11–13 April), Xavier Prost expanded on this theme in his paper ‘Phygital IDs and the Vision and Implementation of a Federated eGovernment Ecosystem’ in which he set out the objectives and scope of the European GAIA-X project.