A single European Identity: what SSEDIC is all about

One of the things we like talking about at Public-i is identity . That’s because, for governmental authorities – whether local, regional, national or supra-national – it’s a big deal.

After all, having confidence that the people you are engaging online are relevant to you is important. To give a blunt example, there’s no point having 20,000 followers on Twitter if all of them have no relationship with your authority.

That said, of course, just because someone doesn’t live in your constituency doesn’t mean that they aren’t important: What if they work or study there? What if they own a cottage or a flat there? What if they have elderly relatives who live there and need round-the-clock care?

It’s these sorts of issues – among very many others – that a project we’re involved in, Scoping the Single European Digital Identity Community (SSEDIC, for short), has been set up to consider. As the name broadly implies, this isn’t a project to create a European single digital identity, but simply the process of bringing together a community of experts who will consider what that might look like.

At Public-i, we’ll be helping to find the people who will be those experts. In Eurospeak that is part of ‘Building a Thematic Network for European eID’, and it’ll take into account views from a very wide range of people – from government, society, business, leisure, finance and transport. For Public-i, that is going to be about finding folk who, like us, are interested in eParticipation – whether they’re our customers, friends or our competitors.

Getting involved

Of course, it’s not just about finding them, but will also involve talking about the SSEDIC. Indeed we hope that at least in some ways we can start to contribute to that conversation ourselves. And we hope you will too!

A good (first) way to get involved is by completing this survey – but this is for people who are really interested in this issue and already feel that they can engage.

For the time being, we’d also like to hear what people think about the project and how a European Singal ID can help improve eParticipation projects. Check the website and the documentation here to find out more. We’ll be getting in touch with people, but don’t hesitate to tell us what you think by commenting below.