As governments around the world step up to regulate artificial intelligence and biometrics, a different class of technology aims to disrupt digital identity: digital wallets. Caribou is leading a research project that aims to advance migrants’ identification needs in digital identity wallet policy and technology design. Explore the project.
Since 2018, the Smart Country Convention has set out to bring together Germany’s digital economy and political decision-makers, as well as other stakeholders in the ever-growing field of public sector digital transformation.
The event is hosted by Messe Berlin, the Berlin Expo Center, and bitkom e.V., one of Germany’s largest industry associations for the digital economy. According to its website, the Smart Country Convention — or SCCON for short — has become “the biggest event for smart cities, smart regions and e-government” in Germany. Indeed, with more than 18,000 attendees, over 17,000 square meters of exhibition space and a conference program featuring more than 650 speakers on 7 stages, the event is a large-scale, upbeat demonstration of what the future of the German public sector might look like — or at least what technology vendors, policymakers and other professionals in this field imagine it will.
In between ping-pong matches, live podcast recordings, and free frozen yoghurt, keynote speakers and panelists discussed the current state of digital transformation in the German public sector. They shed light on challenges, best practices and how to work towards Germany’s policy priorities for digital transformation, as outlined in the 2022 Digital Strategy of the now defunct Traffic Light Coalition. These insights also revealed the stark discrepancy between the image projected by SCCON and where the country actually stands. Take the opening keynote by Kai Wegner, the governing mayor of Berlin, on the second day of SCCON. He announced that Berliners can now register/change their address online — if they have downloaded the AusweisApp, opened a BundID account, have an NFC-enabled smartphone or special card reader, and either the German national ID card, the eID card for citizens of the European Union and the European Economic Area, or an electronic residence card with an active eID function (and remember the PIN code they need for all of this to work).
The excitement and sense of digital awakening evoked by Wegner’s keynote, set against a backdrop of flashing lights and cinema-size screens, illustrates the immense undertaking Germany has ahead of it. So far, the country has fallen far short of its stated goal of digitizing access to nearly 600 public services by 2022. On the day of the deadline, only 19% of these services were available online. By the beginning of 2024, only 153 services had gone online nationwide. In terms of the overall target, this represents an implementation rate of just 26.6% — a full year after the original deadline. Germany’s sluggish pace makes the city-state of Hamburg, where 284 public services are available online, the (literal) North Star of this ongoing restructuring process.
At the heart of this public administration overhaul is the issue of digital identity management and how governments, whether at the federal, regional or local level, enable access to services. It’s against this backdrop that another name has emerged in the competition for the most innovative city: Wiesbaden. Maral Koohestanian, Deputy Mayor of Wiesbaden, was one of four panelists who discussed the state of digital identity in Germany at this year’s SCCON, moderated by Clemens Schleupner of bitkom. Koohestanian, who is now leading the Bundestag election campaign for Volt, emphasized Wiesbaden’s pragmatic approach. Working with WebID and ekom, the city has adopted VideoID to provide access to public services.
According to Koohestanian, Wiesbaden’s approach is unique in Germany. Many people have already been introduced to VideoID, for example when opening a bank account. So the process is known and accepted. In comparison, the identity verification approach taken by Berlin and other cities is based on the national eID infrastructure, as mentioned above. While Germany’s national eID infrastructure covers three types of documents (i.e. the national identity card [Personalausweis], the eID card for EU/EAA citizens, the electronic residence permit), VideoID can be used to verify around 200 international identity documents. VideoID therefore is open to more users, also because it requires less specific equipment.
During the panel discussion, Koohestanian underlined the advantage that VideoID offers in terms of the inclusiveness of the approach and its overall user acceptance. The numbers she presented seem to speak for themselves: When registering a wedding date at the Wiesbaden registry office, 98% opted to do so online, compared to 2% of people who preferred to register in person (in all cases, the ceremony itself takes place in person). Of the online users, 92.5% chose VideoID, compared to 7.5% who preferred the eID option. If people want to register/change their address online, in Wiesbaden this service is for now carried out exclusively via VideoID.
Koohestanian’s emphasis foreshadowed the theme of the next day’s opening keynote by Federal Minister Lisa Paus (Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth). “Some people today are afraid that the digitalization train could leave without them,” Paus said in her speech, stressing the need to strengthen inclusion, participation and accessibility of the digital transformation in Germany. While focusing on the inclusion of the elderly, Paus raised the question of how to ensure that digitalization is for all. As important as this question is, it however first requires a definition of what ‘for all’ means.
Looking at the emerging digital identity ecosystem in Germany, ‘all’ currently seems to include only those who have access to the country’s existing eID infrastructure, i.e. people with German citizenship, EU citizens living in Germany, and non-EU citizens who have successfully applied for a residence permit. This may sound like Germany has all its citizens and residents covered. But the situation is more complicated than it might seem at first glance. Take, for example, non-EU citizens who come to Germany to take up a job offer. If they enter on a work visa, this title is usually valid for up to 12 months. During this time, they will have to deal with the German bureaucracy, especially the immigration authorities at their place of residence to apply for and receive their electronic residence permit.
At present, this interaction can be a largely paper-based, face-to-face process, depending on the local authority, a topic that was the subject of another panel discussion at SCCON. During this panel discussion, Engelhard Mazanke, head of the Berlin Landesamt für Einwanderung, the city-state’s immigration authority, explained that practices vary widely across Germany. Not every immigration authority allows things to be sent to them as PDFs. Often documents have to be submitted in the original, perhaps even with an apostille. Mazanke criticized the fact that migration-related procedures are always dealt with on the assumption of potential misuse, even when processing applications for what he described as the ‘Rolls-Royce’ category of all residence permits, the EU Blue Card. Opportunities for digitizing processes and simplifying bureaucracy are limited if this is the default attitude towards non-Germans, he explained.
Concerns about misuse are also a reason for criticism of the use of VideoID in Wiesbaden. The German eID infrastructure, on the other hand, is regarded as highly secure. In the context of eIDAS 2.0, it provides the only means of identification suitable for verifying the identity of Germany-based EUDI wallet users in accordance with LoA high requirements. At the SCCON panel on digital identity, the representative of the German Federal Ministry of the Interior raised the issue of the reliability of identity systems outside Europe when asked how people in Germany who are outside the national eID infrastructure could be integrated into the country’s emerging wallet ecosystem. About an hour later, on another stage, Tobias Lindner, Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office, emphasized the need for attractive migration processes and for Germany to present itself as welcoming and service-oriented to new residents and citizens.
As such, SCCON brought to the fore another challenge for Germany’s digital transformation efforts. Not only is there a tension between inclusion and security concerns. The messages from government officials and policymakers tell different stories, illustrating the fragmentation of political decision-making and implementation processes. Given the centrality of digital identity to Germany’s vision of modern statehood, it would certainly be a good topic for the country to start speaking with one voice.
