Digital identity goes for the wallet but Spid holds out with 39 million users

Europe's race towards digital identity consolidation continues. And 2024 marked a turning point in this respect. The entry into force of the eIDAS2 regulation has outlined a clear perimeter within which public and private actors must move between now and the next few years for the transition to the digital identity wallet. At the same time, some countries - including Italy with the It wallet - have started to study action plans so as not to arrive unprepared. By 2026, in fact, all EU countries will have to have at least one digital identity wallet conforming to the model of the It wallet.

But the renewal has not sent the integrated realities of daily practice into the dustbin. Or at least not yet. Against the backdrop of the experiments, Spid and Cie resist, which, far from the exploit of the early years, register moderate but stable numbers. As confirmed by the latest report of the Digital Identity Observatory of the Milan Polytechnic, Digital Identity: spectators or protagonists? - to be presented on 14 November -, Spid continues to register a more or less constant increase, net of a certain decline in interest on the part of companies.

In fact, looking at active identities, there are 38.9 million for over 18s and 33 thousand for under 18s. And, in line with a moderate growth rate (+5% from January to October 2024 against +9% in 2023), the number of uses for accessing digital services does not return exponential figures either: from January to September there were 862 million (an average of 22 per user), only 7% more than in the same time range in 2023. A trend that, rather than the difficulties encountered in the activation process by users, seems linked to another reason.

"We are facing a consolidation, which can be explained by reaching a plateau with respect to the number of releases. Therefore, on the user front, the targets that do not have Spid at the moment, or those that could potentially be involved in encouraging an increase, are either the elderly, who are unfamiliar with the technology, or minors, for whom there is a lack of useful services to push the spread of Spid,' explains Giorgia Dragoni, director of the Observatory. "The discourse changes, however, if we look at services. In that case, there has not been the hoped-for growth in terms of Spid adoption by private companies, a key element in ensuring growth'.

Not only that: as Dragoni makes clear, it was also the institutional communication that held companies back. Which, by choosing at one point to focus more on the Cie, 'discouraged the willingness to invest in a system with an uncertain future'. For now, the agreements with the providers remain active until 2025 and the hypothesis of renewal is not excluded, but everything is being defined.