[38c3, Hamburg/Online] EU's Digital Identity Systems - Reality Check and Techniques for Better Privacy

Digital Identity solutions are on the rise all around the world. In particular the European Union is establishing a range of ambitious proposals like eIDAS to establish a general purpose platform for identification, authentication and transfer of personal data that will be used by eGovernment, logging into Facebook, public transport, eCommerce and doctor visits. With the Digital Euro, the EU Digital Travel App, Age Verification Apps and many other proposals we can see the scary trajectory the EU is headed towards. This talk provides a critical reality check about the underlying technology, the impact these systems will have on our privacy on a daily basis and what security (hell) we can expect.

The talk will also give an overview of the proposed technical eIDAS architecture, and the Cryptographers' Feedback on the EU Digital Identity’s ARF. We will also provide a brief introduction into zero-knowledge proofs, the security and privacy properties they can provide for Digital Identities, and what is missing to bring these technologies into reality.

Thomas Lohninger has worked for the digital rights NGO epicenter.works to advocate for strong privacy in the eIDAS law on EU level. He is a member of the Ad-Hoc Technical Advisory Group of the EU-Commission on eIDAS Wallet and the only civil society Jury member of the SPRIND EUDI WALLET Prototype of the German government.

Anja Lehmann is a professor for cryptography at the Hasso-Plattner-Institute, University of Potsdam, with a focus on developing privacy-enhancing technologies, in particular enabling privacy-preserving authentication. She is a Jury member of the SPRIND Funke on EUDI WALLET Prototypes and also supports the SPRIND EUDI project on the integration of zero-knowledge proofs since October 2024.