As digital identity wallets move rapidly from pilots to production, trust and interoperability have become the defining challenges for global adoption. This SIDI Hub workshop report captures the outcomes of a high-level, multi-stakeholder discussion convened in Paris to examine how trust can be built, managed, and scaled across digital identity ecosystems—within and across borders.
Bringing together policy makers, technologists, standards experts, and implementers from Europe, Africa, and beyond, the workshop explored trust not as a single technical feature, but as a systemic property of digital identity ecosystems. The discussions highlight that true interoperability depends as much on legal frameworks, governance models, and certification regimes as it does on protocols and cryptography.
Key themes and insights
Trust frameworks as the policy foundation
The report emphasizes that interoperability is not only technical, but also legal. National trust frameworks reflect domestic legal systems, yet must be made comparable and translatable to support cross-border use. SIDI Hub’s work demonstrates how explicit policy mapping—across legal authority, governance, assurance, data protection, and accountability—can reduce friction and enable scalable global interoperability without forcing harmonization.
From technical interoperability to trust management
Participants agreed that existing approaches to trust are fragmented and often implicit. The report introduces trust management as a core architectural challenge, identifying key “trust vectors” between issuers, wallets, verifiers, users, and ecosystems. Certification, attestation, consent, and revocation are all necessary elements, but today they operate in silos. Moving beyond regional mechanisms toward shared conceptual models is essential for global scale.
Wallet security as a prerequisite for trust
As digital identity wallets support high-risk and legally significant transactions, wallet security has become foundational. The report examines different deployment models—on-device, cloud-based, and browser wallets—and concludes that no single architecture fits all contexts. Hybrid approaches, combining on-device authentication with remote cryptographic services backed by Hardware Security Modules (HSMs), are emerging as a practical and inclusive solution, particularly given uneven access to secure hardware worldwide.
Real-world constraints and inclusion
A dedicated study on device capabilities across European and African markets grounds the discussion in empirical evidence. The findings challenge assumptions about universal access to high-end smartphones and secure elements, underscoring the need to segment users by device capability rather than geography. Designing wallets that start with lower-assurance use cases and scale over time is key to inclusion and adoption.
From pilots to production
Case studies from France, Italy, Norway, East Africa, and Morocco demonstrate that digital identity wallets are already live and operating at scale. These experiences show that trust infrastructure is complex and performance-sensitive, and that success depends as much on governance, institutional continuity, and narrative as on technology itself.
Looking ahead
The report concludes with a set of actionable next steps, from advancing trust framework mapping and standardizing policy metadata, to developing scalable trust discovery mechanisms and anchoring interoperability pilots in major international events. Together, these actions aim to strengthen SIDI Hub’s role as a neutral platform for collaboration, shared tools, and evidence-based guidance.
This workshop report is a resource for governments, ecosystem designers, standards bodies, and implementers seeking to move from fragmented solutions toward trustworthy, interoperable digital identity ecosystems at global scale.
This workshop has been ‘Partly funded by the European Union within the framework of the InDiCo-Global under Grant Agreement No 101136022. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Commission.
