[To Eurosmart members only]

Digital Europe: eIDAS Wallet, cybersecurity certification, AI and more

On 10 November, the European Commission published the much-awaited work planning for its funding programme Digital Europe. These documents give a detailed overview of the calls for proposals and procurements to expect in 2021 and 2022. The first calls will be published by the end of this month.

The Digital Europe programme funds activities in the following areas: AI, cybersecurity, advanced computing, data infrastructure, governance and processing, deployment of these technologies and best use for critical sectors. Most actions foreseen in the Programme require co-investments from the public and private sectors.

The work programmes describe the upcoming actions to support the implementation of the European Digital Identity Framework. Interestingly, the European Commission insists on the need to leverage electronic ledgers. The European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) will receive significant funding in the coming year (38 million euros).

Concerning cybersecurity, one call will be dedicated to supporting certification capabilities. It will nevertheless receive a small total amount of 5 million euros.

It is also worth noting the European Commission intends to fund the secretariat of the Semiconductor Alliance via Digital Europe. A dedicated call should be launched soon.

Many calls are restricted, meaning that calls for proposals and calls for tenders shall be restricted to legal entities established or deemed to be established in Member States and controlled by Member States or by nationals of Member States (Article 12(5) Digital Europe Programme (DEP) Regulation). More details further below.  

You will find hereafter the link to the work programme and a summary of the key actions. Please note that this is not an exhaustive summary. For the exhaustive lists of funded activities and detailed scopes, please refer to the Commission’s documents.

Digital identity

The calls relating to implementing the European Digital Identity Framework will take place at the beginning of next year. The Commission describes this topic as follows:

The topic aims to develop and pilot tools supporting the implementation of the new European electronic identity for all relevant stakeholders. It also intends to develop and deploy use-cases, including innovative solutions, for the new EU-eID ecosystem leveraging and using synergies with decentralised technologies and the work for a self-sovereign identity framework undertaken at EBSI and developed in the context of the new trust service for electronic ledgers.

The first work strand will be implemented using procurement and will cover the technical infrastructure to support interoperability and implementation of the European Digital Identity Wallet and its ecosystem (e.g. technical references, standards, components and solutions) as well as cross-border exchange of evidence in line with article 14 of the Single Digital Gateway Regulation. This will include: supporting the creation of the common services required for mapping evidence and locating data providers as well as other common needs; supporting the standardisation of evidence and the development of tools and support services to Member States both in the development phase and during implementation; and, developing an application for the European Digital Identity  Wallet and other relevant components to offer them to Member States and other stakeholders for implementing the requirements of the Regulation on a Framework for a European Digital Identity.

Work under this work-strand will exploit available synergies with the work of the European Blockchain Partnership for exchanging verifiable credentials using electronic ledgers. The activities of this work-strand will also contribute to the work done in the context of the Data Spaces Support Centre (see topic 2.2.2.1).

The second work-strand will be implemented using grants and focus on:

-Pilot implementations of the European Digital Identity Wallet and its ecosystem and piloting of use cases in priority areas as relevant for the once-only principle under the Single Digital Gateway regulation, as well as validating technical references, standards, components and solutions. Use-cases may build on decentralised technologies such as the exchange of credentials leveraging electronic ledgers.

-Implementation activities by public and private sector service providers to integrate their systems with the European Digital Identity Wallet and its ecosystem, in particular for the purpose of exchanging digital attestations of attributes and identity credentials by means of a personalised digital wallet. These activities may also include innovative technical solutions based on electronic ledgers such as those developed by EBSI.

Expected outcome for the first work strand: a set of technical references, standards, components and solutions including an application of the European Digital Identity Wallet enabling the new European Digital Identity framework to be made available to Member States.

Expected outcome of the second work strand: at least four large scale pilots to test the deployment of the European Digital Identity Wallet in priority use cases and regarding the once-only principle under the Single Digital Gateway regulation. These pilots will deploy the Wallet in national eID ecosystems by Member States.

In addition, Digital Europe will support the further deployment of the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure and its regulatory sandbox, including blockchain standardisation.

Therefore, upcoming actions include:

Cybersecurity

The European Cybersecurity Competence Centre should implement the actions relating to cybersecurity, except for the EuroQCI. However, the Centre is not fully operational yet. The European Commission will be managing these activities in the meantime. A total of 269 million euros is dedicated to cybersecurity -not including the quantum-related actions. In addition, 42 million euros in procurement are envisaged (3 million euros for 2021, 39 million euros for 2022).

Upcoming actions include:

Cloud & data spaces

In total, 410 million euros will support the deployment of common data spaces and the supporting cloud-to-edge infrastructure and services.

Upcoming actions include:

In addition, many actions relate to the establishment of sectorial data spaces (green deal, health, mobility, finance, security and law enforcement etc.).

Artificial Intelligence

Two topics are important here:

-the AI on demand platform, which will be a catalogue of AI-based resources and marketplace for trustworthy AI tools made in Europe

-testing and experimentation facilities for AI. The European Commission envisages sectorial facilities with four priority sectors: health, smart communities, manufacturing and agriculture. In addition, the EU will fund the deployment of a testing and experimentation facility for edge AI hardware

Upcoming actions include:

Quantum

170 million euros are allocated for the deployment of a secure quantum communication infrastructure. On top of this amount, the initiative EuroHPC (quantum computers) will have a budget of 556 million euros for 2021-2022.

Upcoming actions include:

Industrial Alliances

It is worth noting the European Commission will launch a call for the Secretariat of the Alliance on industrial data, edge and cloud, and a call the Secretariat of the Alliance on Processors and Semiconductor technologies.

These calls will be launched by the end of this year. They are allocated one million euros each for three years.

Green deal: digital product passport

The European Commission will dedicate 2 million euros to the digital product passport over two years (single grant).

Participation of third countries

The European Commission observes that “European data can end up in the hands of third country authorities (national intelligence and security agencies in particular) even without the knowledge of the individuals, businesses or public administrations in the EU to which the data relates […]. This is particularly because of the application of national surveillance legislation of third countries and their jurisdiction over the service providers, such as cloud computing providers […] which may also extend to their subsidiaries established in the Union […]. Uncontrolled access to data by foreign intelligence and security agencies, could expose the Union to security risks”.

The European Commission also explains that quantum communication is critical for the EU to deploy secure applications and dual-use technologies. Therefore, all activities from section 3 of the work programme are subject to Art 12(5) of the DEP Regulation. This means that calls for proposals and calls for tenders shall be restricted to legal entities established in Member States and controlled by Member States or by nationals of Member States.

The same reasoning applies for all calls relating to cybersecurity. The European Commission explains that “in order to protect essential security interests of the Union, the implementation of cybersecurity topics (calls for proposals and calls for tenders) under the Digital Europe Programme should depend on legal entities (e.g. providers) established or deemed to be established in Member States and controlled by Member States or by nationals of Member States.”  Article 12(5) of the DEP Regulation applies here again.   

However, third country participants are still welcome to take part in some other calls of the Digital Europe Programme.

Next steps:

The first calls of proposal will be published by the end of this month. More calls will be published in 2022.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Camille Dornier - Policy Manager: camille.dornier@eurosmart.com