Self-Sovereign-Identity & eIDAS: a Contradiction? Challenges and Chances of eIDAS 2.0

The proposal for review of the eIDAS Regulation published in June 2021 has opened strong expectations for a deep change in traditional identity models. The user-centric identity model proposed takes as point of departure the creation of European Digital Identity Wallets that will enable citizens’ control over their data in identification and authentication processes without been controlled by part of the entities providing the identification services. Likewise, with the proposed legal rules for giving legal certainty to electronic ledgers and blockchains, eIDAS 2.0 opens possibilities to decentralization, in particular, for the provision and management of user’s attributes. Simultaneously the implementation of qualified trust services for attestations or electronic ledgers limits decentralization by requirement of a trusted third party.In any case, the success of eIDAS 2.0 relies on the development of common solutions. Standardization will be key in assuring interoperability at the EU level.What are the challenges and opportunities of eIDAS 2.0? And what are the main focuses and needs of (European) standardization? These and other questions will be analysed and discussed in the paper.