Improving cross-border educational services with eIDAS

Abstract

The eIDAS regulation and the technical infrastructure for its implementation enable secure cross-border electronic transactions between businesses, organizations, citizens and public authorities. This article shows how eIDAS can be used to improve the reliability of the identification of foreign students, while at the same time reduce the administrative burden of higher education institutions in dealing with those students. The students can use their national identification means for accessing the services, and the required information about them can be transmitted electronically from reliable sources. Several eID4U (“eID for University” project) improvements to existing procedures and services are described in the paper, including an upgrade of the EU reference implementation of the eIDAS node, integration of trusted sources of academic attributes into the eIDAS infrastructure, and three upgraded cross-border e-services based on electronic identities and trusted academic information.