The Swiss administration is currently hard at work to establish the groundwork for a Swiss E-ID law and practical framework. While some form of electronic identity already exists in many countries around us, a Swiss variant was rejected in 2021 at the ballot. With various actors attempting to bring E-ID to Switzerland, SI uses this spotlight to inform our members about the going-ons and open challenges of E-ID in Switzerland. Using our international connections, we also bring E-ID concepts from abroad intot the discussion. We as IT professionals can use this opportunity to get involved. To this end, SI hosts events with various stakeholders in the development of E-ID and has small working group on the topic.

E-ID is coming to Switzerland, with the federal administration aiming for a 2026 release. But how can E-ID actually be helpful in everyday life? While the SSI structure sounds promising, the small details and advantages that this paradigm shift would bring are still hard to grasp. This is why the SI E-ID working group, led by SI vice president Dr. Nora Sleumer, set out to show use some actual use cases that would be improved by the inclusion of E-ID. The working group members, Indukumar Vellapillil Hari, Dr. Beat Liver, Helmu Imboden, Dr. Christian Stöcklin and Dr. Nora Sleumer presented three distinct cases during this online talk, how E-book lending via swisscovery could be streamlined with E-ID, how the onboarding process at a bank could benefit from centralized data input through E-ID and call center identification could establish the caller's identity through E-ID. While these three cases showed some clear pathways forward with E-ID, they also highlighted possible inadequacies and made it clear, that there is still a lot of work to be done. SI calls on its members to get involved in the establishment of E-ID now, either by putting forward your own ideas for the Swiss E-ID ecosystem or by getting getting in contact with the SI E-ID working group.

SI hosts the yearly Swiss IT Congress SITC. This year, the topic of the congress was „E-ID in Switzerland“, with speakers from the Swiss government and academia and perspectives from other countries that have already implemented some form of E-ID. 

The SITC offers a platform for participants to discuss the challenges and opportunities of E-ID as well as how a successful implementation in Switzerland could help the country.

You can find out more about the SITC and the presentations on the SITC website.

E-ID is not just a topic in Switzerland. Aadhaar is the biometric ID system used in India. In an online talk, Indukumar Vellapillil-Hari introduced SI members to the complexities and opportunities of the Indian solution but also the challenges that come with it. Indukumar also presented at the SITC 2023.