Every EU Member State must offer citizens a digital identity wallet by the end of 2026. That’s the legal obligation under the European Digital Identity Regulation, and the clock is running. Whether people will actually use it is another matter.
The question appeared in a Euronews opinion piece by Jacques Van Zijp, Executive Vice President Europe at IN Groupe, a French state-owned company specializing in secure identity and document systems. He argues that the European Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet could become a trust layer for the European economy and help a single market operate at digital speed. But the sharpest passage in his own text is a warning: availability alone won’t ensure adoption.
The Cost of Friction
Van Zijp begins with everyday hassles. Opening a bank account, renting a flat or signing up for a service can involve photographing an identity document, uploading proof of address, entering the same details again and waiting for verification. Try the process in another Member State, and it can grow even more cumbersome. These procedures, he says, weigh on European economies through abandoned transactions, duplicated verification costs, slow onboarding, fraud losses and cross-border friction.
The Wallet, he writes, isn’t just a digital copy of an identity document on a smartphone. It shifts identity systems away from identification, where a person reveals who they are and another party decides whether they qualify, toward verifying a specific fact. A citizen could prove they’re over eighteen without disclosing a name, address or date of birth. People would have more control over what they share, while less personal data would circulate through the economy.
For two decades, digital services have largely assumed security, privacy and performance must compete. Van Zijp argues that a credential certified by a trusted authority could be verified instantly, in person or remotely, without manual review. His shorthand: “Less data disclosed. Stronger assurance. Faster transactions.”
Business Case, Sovereignty Question
The potential uses he lists include verified bank account and employment information, driving licences and diplomas, electronic signatures, and proof that someone can act for another person or a company. For businesses, he says, the Wallet could lower costs, speed up onboarding, strengthen authentication and reduce abandoned journeys. Trusted professional credentials could simplify secure access in energy, transport, health and defense supply chains.
He also pitches digital trust rooted in European law, standards and identity infrastructure, combining interoperability with privacy and innovation with democratic control. Governments across Africa, Asia and Latin America are developing their own digital identity systems, and Van Zijp suggests the European approach could have value beyond the continent. Proportionality, user control and data protection, he says, are fundamental to its success.
What Adoption Requires
Here, optimism meets practical problems. Drawing on IN Groupe’s work supporting Wallet and credential pilots for public and private issuers across several Member States, Van Zijp identifies four conditions. Enrolment must be simple, reliable and accessible from the start. Inclusion requires support, alternative channels and delegation mechanisms for citizens with different levels of digital confidence, so digitalisation doesn’t create new barriers. People need clear ways to correct wrong information and recover access, because credentials can fail and devices can be lost. And a functioning ecosystem must emerge: businesses may hesitate to invest without enough users, while citizens may see little reason to adopt a Wallet until it works with services they value.
That’s a chicken-and-egg problem. Van Zijp says governments can help by enabling high-value public services and working with private-sector providers to develop compelling everyday use cases.
His verdict is blunt. The regulatory framework has created the opportunity, and the technology is ready, but services still need to be built that citizens choose to use. “Europe has legislated trust. Now we must earn it. The growth will follow.”
Why This Matters:
Brussels has set a hard deadline, but the real test is voluntary uptake, not legal compliance. A wallet that sits unused delivers none of the promised savings, and national administrations and private firms—not the legislation itself—must make it work. That’s a subsidiarity point worth watching: the EU can require availability, but only member states and businesses can build services that make citizens want it. There’s also a democratic-accountability dimension. Van Zijp stresses proportionality, user control and data protection, and public trust will hinge on how those safeguards work in practice. Note, too, that the author leads a French state-owned identity firm with a commercial stake in the outcome. The growth case remains, for now, an argument rather than a result.