Italian government allocates funds to integrate digital ID providers
The Italian government has allocated €40 million to reconcile differences between the country’s two digital identification schemes: one managed by private enterprises and the other by the Ministry of the Interior. The goal is to simplify and improve access to public services by integrating both systems. The initiative aims to benefit families and schools by enhancing national identification processes.
The Italian government has granted €40 million in the hopes of resolving a disagreement between SPID and CIE, the country’s two digital identification schemes.
The former, which private enterprises control, enables access to online public services with three levels of protection. The latter is a physical document with a chip storing personal data issued by the Ministry of the Interior. It used to require a dedicated reader for use, but an update includes a novel authentication procedure, similar to SPID, for more simplicity and user-friendliness.
The services had nearly equal registered user counts, with 33.5 million for SPID and 32.7 million for CIE. Nevertheless, the public digital identity system witnessed a remarkable one billion accesses to public services, in contrast to the 21 million accesses recorded for the electronic identity card (due to its previously inconvenient accessibility).
This initiative, explained in a promotional video, aims to facilitate identification nationwide, specifically citing advantages for families and schools. By folding the ID systems together, Rome would be able to monitor both of them more closely. The agreement under consideration is scheduled to be completed by the end of June and would likely last two years to settle lingering digital identity challenges in Italy.