E-identification technologies for e-government interoperability in the EU

The EU commission has set the Pan-European Interoperability of secure authentication and authorisation systems for access to e-government services as a priority target for 2010. To this effect a large number of EU member states have implemented e-identification schemes. These are at varying stages of completion and use a range of technologies. All of them though aim at meeting the above target for interoperability while at the same time securing their home e-government services thus making them more attractive to their citizens. The number of states reviewed here and the state of the technologies used is not exhaustive but provides a good representation across the EU. This work is ongoing as are the initiatives and pilot schemes studied here.