Only a year remains until Latvia must roll out the European digital identity wallet app, yet we have got no further than the tug-of-war over who will drive and deliver this prestigious project – the State Digital Development Agency (VDAA), which comes under VARAM (the Ministry of Smart Administration and Regional Development), or the state-owned company Valsts radio un televīzijas centrs (LVRTC)
VDAA director Jorens Liopa, temporarily demoted (the court has yet to rule on whether the demotion was justified), takes the view that projects of such national strategic importance as the DIM must be delivered by weighing up the particular project's strategic significance, security aspects, available resources and other factors, rather than "trailing along behind whichever organisation can make the loudest noise in the public arena, claiming that it alone is capable of rolling this stone up the right hill"
Although after lengthy talks and heated argument it has been decided that the introduction of the European digital identity wallet (EDIM) will be carried out under the leadership of VARAM and the State Digital Development Agency (VDAA) in cooperation with LVRTC, the project has still not really got moving. It has to be admitted that the public, too, still lacks information about and understanding of the very significant changes in the field of personal data identification that are coming very soon and will affect every European resident.
The EDIM is due to be available to the public from the end of 2026. From 2027 onwards, the wallet will be developed further with services useful to Latvia's residents.
The digital identity wallet is one of the most significant European digital transformation projects of the coming years, and its introduction is required by the regulation on EU digital identity adopted by the European Parliament on 29 March 2024.
It will be a single app in which people can store and use their digital identifiers – from an e-signature and driving licence to bank details, diplomas and health certificates. With the help of this wallet, Latvia's residents will be able to access services securely not only nationally but also at European level. It has now been decided that the project in Latvia will be implemented under the leadership of VARAM and the State Digital Development Agency in cooperation with LVRTC. It should be added that, in essence, the European digital identity wallet is a logical development of the publicly available e-services created by VDAA, transferred to the mobile environment.
Before turning to the story of the digital identification wallet project, it is worth setting out what exactly the European Union has in mind and what it wants to achieve. The deadline is clearly known: the EDIM must be ready in December next year.
As Ēriks Eglītis, Director of Information Technology Services at the University of Latvia, explains: "Everyone knows Google Wallet or Apple's payment solution, where you can store all your credit card details and pay with them. In essence, the phone app provides an identification mechanism using one of the credit cards registered in the wallet. If you build such an app for every type of document that requires identification, that would be an identification wallet in digital form. Such documents could be ID cards, educational certificates, a driving licence, a pensioner's card, a disability card. In other words, a person would not need to carry a lot of documents around physically; it would be enough to install an app on their phone containing all these forms of identification.
A solution like this has to be built at national level, because it needs state recognition and accreditation confirming that it is secure. There is no other way. Where people's data is concerned, everything has to be secure. The idea from the European Union's side is that in future a person can travel to any EU country with their phone and the installed app and, by holding their phone up to any identification device, receive the service they need."
Despite the tight deadline for developing and rolling out the digital identity wallet (EDIM), the procurement for its development has still not been announced. The result – the process of introducing the digital identity wallet in Latvia has been delayed by at least six months.
According to information that has emerged publicly, LVRTC, which comes under the supervision of the Ministry of Transport, has staked its ambition to deliver this project. Interestingly, the Minister for Transport, who until recently is said not to have been informed about such a significant project, turned out to be surprisingly insistent during the talks between the two ministries (as a result of which the announcement of the procurement has been substantially delayed) that LVRTC alone is capable of delivering this project. The minister's insistence is seemingly logical, because, unlike Rail Baltica and airBaltic, this is one of the few projects that has not been hit by serious criticism or storms of negativity (at least so far), and ahead of the Saeima elections it could be used as a successful showcase project.
However, despite the ambitions of the Ministry of Transport and LVRTC, the procurement for the development of the EDIM had to be announced by VARAM. Egita Rudzīte, acting deputy director of the State Digital Development Agency for electronic governance matters, comments on why this has still not been done.
"Responsibility for the digital identification wallet is set out in the by-laws of the VARAM ministry. It is written there that VARAM is precisely the body responsible for delivering the EDIM in Latvia. In February this year, VDAA received an order from the minister to carry out the project, including delivering the ERDF project for introducing the wallet. That was when we began work. We started recruiting people to work on delivering this project. These people have attended all the European Commission working groups connected with the development of the EDIM across Europe. Preparation of the EDIM technical specification was begun and has been completed, and we also started discussions about announcing the procurement.
So, in defining each institution's responsibility, VDAA provides digital services to the public and data solutions, while the digital wallet is an extension of these capabilities, integrating it with VDAA's existing solutions. The result is to give people the widest possible range of options on their mobile phone within a single state app.
The digital wallet must be interoperable across the EU – its operation requires cross-border authentication and cross-border data exchange, which is provided by VDAA.
While arguments over details and ambitions play out at the technical level, at the political level the process has quite literally "hung", and Latvia's ability to introduce digital identity within the deadlines set by Europe is under threat.
As already mentioned, the ambition to run the €6.5 million EDIM rollout project had been staked by LVRTC, which comes under the supervision of the Ministry of Transport and has already developed an EDIM prototype. The total cost of that project is €1.6 million. And it is precisely the successful delivery of the pilot project that is said to be the main reason why the introduction and maintenance of the whole multi-million-euro EDIM project should be entrusted to the state-owned company LVRTC. We asked experts whether that is really so and whether the pilot project really is "worth that money".
Ē. Eglītis believes that €1.6 million for an EDIM pilot project is too much. "One of the things that raises a smile, given the fact that there are these free code components that make up as much as 70% of everything needed, is that LVRTC has spent €1.6 million developing a prototype. I really am astonished by the amount of money invested in this exercise," Ē. Eglītis muses thoughtfully, adding that for that kind of money the entire EDIM project could be delivered.
What does VDAA representative E. Rudzīte think of the pilot project: "VDAA has access to the open source code of the EDIM pilot project created by LVRTC, just as it is available in any other European Union member state, including to any developer wishing to come to the market with its own EDIM version. I would add that there can be more than one EDIM version in a single country, but one of these versions has to be state-recognised. This recognised EDIM version may be built by the Latvian state, by another EU country or by a commercial company. It may be that the Lithuanians produce a wonderful EDIM version and we find it acceptable, and Latvia recognises it.
The VDAA procurement will provide for developers to be able to begin delivering the project on the basis of the open source code. And it is the developer who starts building the full version after the procurement who assesses which pilot project they like and takes it as the basis. That does not necessarily have to be the one developed by LVRTC; it could equally be another country's pilot project."
Ē. Eglītis continues: "I had the honour in November 2005 of working at Latvijas pasts and starting work on creating the electronic signature. Latvijas pasts had committed to doing it within specific deadlines, and in October 2006 the solution was ready. Seen from that perspective, it is rather sad to look at how the development of the e-signature has gone. When hard times came for Latvijas pasts, the solution was bought back by the other company under the supervision of the Ministry of Transport, the state joint-stock company "Latvijas Valsts radio un televīzijas centrs" (LVRTC). In short, the aim was to rescue the post office. Why do I believe that introducing the digital identity wallet should be VARAM's responsibility? One important aspect must be stressed – LVRTC's function is not the provision of "soft" business services, because its core activity is critical infrastructure and national security services (towers, national critical communications), which involve enormous investment and regulated operations, not the provision of flexible, market-oriented IT or consultancy services.
The e-signature, by contrast, is software, and software that is under continuous development at that; it means serving a huge mass of customers. These two mismatches between the e-signature and LVRTC's core profile led to consequences in the form of prolonged stagnation in the development of the e-signature. Because their primary task is to ensure the state's critical infrastructure, and I still hold to the conviction that that is how it should stay. Everywhere else, including at our university, IT infrastructure and software are separate matters.
Would the right solution be to hand everything over to the State Digital Development Agency? Will VDAA be able and allowed to do it? That is debatable, but this agency's task is to provide digital services of national importance."
On the state's circulation, which must not stop
Jorens Liopa agrees with Ē. Eglītis, while analysing the current situation more broadly. "The LVRTC team have done a great job, given the work and professionalism they have invested in the field of the state's critical infrastructure. And that is precisely the direction they should stick to. One of the main arguments is the fact that LVRTC is a state-owned company. And state-owned companies operate according to business logic, whereas the VDAA model (an institution subordinate to VARAM) makes it possible to request funding as a priority of national importance and to manage the most important services for the whole sector in a unified way."
J. Liopa believes that the management of information technology systems and platforms in Latvia is very decentralised (although much has been done over the past three years to put this matter in order, seeking through ICT "building authorities" in individual sectors and in the country as a whole to create theoretical coherence between technological solutions), and as a result the state as a whole lacks a unified approach to ICT management and development, including in the introduction of common security standards.
J. Liopa: "Now would be exactly the right moment to think about centralising and jointly managing the ICT field. State policy in this area should be more purposeful – systems that touch critical infrastructure should be placed under centralised oversight, for example by state data centres or the State Digital Development Agency (VDAA). It is important to understand that money earmarked for strengthening security is not the same as funding for everyday functions – here we are talking about systems that must not stop working in conditions of war or crisis.
For example, VDAA currently manages several important shared solutions – the single payments module, through which payments to state institutions are made, and the single log-in module, through which people authenticate themselves on various state institution portals, including Latvija.lv. If these solutions stop, a substantial part of the flow of state services stops. In effect, the state's digital circulation stops. It is harsh that, disregarding this argument, funding for maintaining technical solutions is at the same time being cut at VDAA, which of course creates enormous risks.
From a political point of view, it would be logical for VDAA's activities to sit under the direct supervision of the Prime Minister or the State Chancellery – as a central state priority. On a par with defence. As it is, the agency is merely one of many ministries' institutions. Digital development and security should be one of the government's main themes, not fragmented between departments. The project to introduce the European digital wallet illustrates this vividly. One important fact must also be borne in mind – LVRTC's current delegation to maintain the e-signature expires in 2026.
That means the state has to take a decision now on developing a new platform and granting the delegation for the next period. If this is not done in good time, there is a risk that at some point the state will simply not have an e-signature service. And the most important thing right now is to achieve clarity – who will be responsible for introducing the digital wallet, how the future of the e-signature will be secured and whether state control over critical infrastructure will be retained. Otherwise there is a risk that, because of political disagreements or bureaucratic delays, Latvia will simply fail to introduce the European digital identity wallet by the set deadline."
And when deadlines start to bite, that is most often when crude and frequently irreversible mistakes are made. The experience with the IT solutions for the local government elections, for example, showed vividly what consequences last-minute decisions bring. Development of the new platform was begun far too late – roughly a year before the deadline, when testing alone required at least three months.
A similar situation is now taking shape with the digital identity wallet. The project's aim is strategic – to allow people to prove their identity and sign documents in all EU member states. Yet if the delays and the uncertainty about responsibility continue, the state risks the very same scenario that led to the crisis in the election system in the summer.
As long as digital development policy is treated as a "technical matter" rather than a government priority, such scenarios cannot be avoided. Digital governance must be the state's highest priority. Otherwise the country's most significant projects will keep getting stuck between ministerial interests and competition between institutions. Ultimately, digital governance today is not an IT question but a question of national security.
https://nra.lv/neatkariga/izpete/504848-varam-un-lvrtc-cina-par-digitalas-identitates-maku-kas-bus-atbildigs.htm