Six STORK Pilots Go Live to Achieve Electronic Identity Interoperability Across Europe

Oct. 25, 2010 - PRLog -- STORK, a project co-funded by the EU ICT Policy Support Programme under the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP), implements a EU-wide platform for interoperability of electronic identities (eIDs) and announces today that six pilots: ‘Cross border Authentication for Electronic Services’; ‘SaferChat’; ‘Student Mobility’; ‘Cross Border eDelivery’; ‘Change of Address’ and ‘Commission Services’ are now available for public access. This platform enables citizens to use their national eIDs for eGovernment services in several European countries. The six pilots now officially launched will gradually be enhanced and will prove and test the integration into existing real live portal services of the underlying STORK interoperability platform.

STORK Co-Chair, Prof. Antonio Lioy from the Politecnico di Torino in Italy, explains the impact that the work completed during the pilots will have on the way citizens use eIDs to access public services: “The pilots will demonstrate to citizens and public administrations that interoperability of electronic identities is achievable in eGovernment services. They will highlight the added value citizens will receive by being able to assert their identities electronically in a protected, secure and private environment.” He adds: “The eID framework will save public money, reduce time for both government and citizens, lessen the risk of misuse or fraud and create a wealth of opportunities. It is one more step towards a borderless EU marketplace.”

The other STORK Co-Chair, senior advisor Arvid Welin from Sweden, adds: “The STORK concept may also be an important stepping stone for private sector entities to develop new business models based on this secure cross-border authentication of citizens.”


The six live STORK pilots  

Cross border Authentication for Electronic Services: The scope of the pilot is to enable existing Member State online public services to be accessed securely by citizens from other Member States. Citizens will use their own nationally issued electronic identity credentials to access these services.

SaferChat: Focused on improving Internet safety for children and teenagers, teachers in different countries will create tasks and safer chat rooms for their students within specified age groups for cross-border e-learning purposes. Students will be encouraged to work with their peers in other countries and create peer-to-peer educational packages with the emphasis on raised awareness of Internet safety.

Student Mobility: This pilot enables students to get access to online administrative services offered by the universities using their own national electronic credential (identity cards, digital certificates) for registration (i.e. to Erasmus Programmes), authentication and use of other relevant academic services. Additionally, the pilot serves as a necessary preliminary milestone for the analysis of future data exchange among universities belonging to different countries within the European Credit Transfer System.

Cross Border eDelivery: The objective of this pilot is to make national eDelivery portals accessible for citizens of foreign countries using their national eIDs. Furthermore, this pilot aims to create a basic framework enabling public administrations to send documents to citizens of different countries directly through the citizen’s domestic eDelivery portal.

Change of Address: The aim of this pilot is to develop a framework for an interoperable Change of Address service that allows foreign citizens (using their own eID credentials) to notify all relevant parties involved in an address change, without changing processes currently in place in each Member State. This will be achieved by using the STORK defined interoperability platform to identify and authenticate the citizen’s eID and by defining two scenarios for the service (retrieval and update of address).

Commission Services: The European Commission Authentication Service (ECAS) supports log in to an ecosystem of a multitude of Commission applications. By amending ECAS by the STORK framework, national eID is seamlessly integrated. Having recently completed the technical integration, the services will gradually be enhanced by European Commission’s production services.

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STORK is an ICT Policy Support Programme under the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) involving 17 EU Member States: Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, the UK and Iceland. The EU's Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) aims to encourage the competitiveness of European enterprises. Part of CIP, the ICT Policy Support Programme, focuses on stimulating innovation and competitiveness through the wider uptake and optimal use of ICT by citizens, businesses and governments. In the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan, EU Member States recognized the importance of electronic identification management aiming to provide secure and convenient electronic systems for European citizens and businesses accessing public services in any country of the EU. These should work at local, regional or national levels and comply with data protection regulations.