eIDas public digital identity systems: Beyond online authentication to support urban security

Abstract

The European regulation eIDAS introduces in EU States interoperable public digital identity systems whose native application is secure authentication on online services. In this paper, we try to offer an enhanced view of the potential benefits that such systems can have in our physical environments. Indeed, cities have seen a dramatic increase in the number of violent acts and crimes. The possibility of monitoring people access to physical critical places is certainly an important issue because this gives the possibility to deny the access to dangerous people, to find the offender of a crime, and, in general, to track suspicions activities. In this paper, we show how to exploit an eIDAS-compliant public digital identity system to meet the above requirements, thus offering a concrete solution with high level of interoperability.