The image of a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car comes to mind whenever I remember the eIDAS deadlines for verifiable credentials to be made available by the end of 2027 for all regulated bodies in the EU, the end of 2026 for public administrations.

This podcast outlines the transformative potential of Digital Wallets, detailing their functionality, benefits, and the different models emerging, particularly within the EU. Digital Wallets are presented as a secure, efficient, and private means for managing various credentials and facilitating complex transactions. The EU's proactive approach, coupled with regulations like eIDAS 2.0 and the Digital Services Act, positions Digital Wallets to become a cornerstone of digital interaction across the single market by 2026.

Governments are increasingly turning to digital platforms to deliver smarter public services, driven by the promise of significant efficiency gains and time savings for citizens. Yet, this transformation presents a critical challenge: how to ensure that these services remain accessible to everyone, regardless of their digital capabilities or circumstances.

There needs to be a comprehensive list of fundamental non-technical specifications to ensure a solid future Digital Wallet based society:

1) Function 2) Trust 3) Use 4) Automation 5) Confidentiality 6) Cost 7) Accessibility 8) Universality 9) Transferability 10) Resilience

This podcast explores the evolution of digital signing solutions for organisations, contrasting traditional non-cloud methods with cloud-based Remote Secure Element (RSE) technology. While older systems, often relying on on-premises hardware, offer strong physical security, they typically present challenges in scalability and operational costs. Conversely, RSE solutions centralise cryptographic elements in the cloud, enabling remote access via mobile devices, streamlining management, and offering features like real-time updates and interoperability for verifiable credentials.

It is holiday-time and systems that rely on human-beings are under stress, with the deficiencies of those systems designed to supplement human-beings also being exposed.

Two issues, alike to an extent but in different academic organisations, have occurred during this holiday season and these have revolved around passwords. With a lack of IT Support during this period, comes chaos. I am sure that the issues experienced are SYSTEMATIC and are no doubt affecting many users at these institutions. Bu what is the real problem?

I received ethical criticism from am unlikely source recently, and one very close to home. Actually, that criticism hit a very strong ethical point and it should be noted and also discussed further. There have been many discussions online regarding the thorny topic of AI and its ethical impact on society. Most have taken place around Agentic AI and Generative AI. However, this is neither and a lot more basic.

Verifiable credentials (VCs) are digital attestations designed for secure and decentralized identity management within the European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI Wallet). They use cryptographic signatures, and decentralized identifiers (DIDs) for authentication, privacy, and interoperability. The EUDI Wallet integrates VCs for secure storage, presentation, and real-time revocation checks, supporting various applications such as cross-border identity verification, academic credential recognition, and healthcare access. There are in fact, a myriad of use cases for verifiable credentials, both in the private and public sectors and many thousands of organisations across the EU who will need to issue VCs under the eIDAS regulation.

The question is how those VCs will be issued and who will issue them.