The EU is in the midst of a reform that could drastically change our right to anonymity online. The European Digital Identity Wallet aims to bring a legally binding way to identify citizens online and offline with governments and companies. The system also allows to prove attributes about a person like their age, driver licence or covid/vaccination status. The EU also mandates large online platforms like Facebook, YouTube or Amazon to support this system to login to their services. The risk for discrimination, over-identification and surveillance of all areas of life is unprecedented. Well over two years into the negotiations we give an update about the status of the reform, what to expect and how to engage.

Additionally, this session will also give an introduction about the EU legislative proposal for a digital Euro and how it could impact our financial privacy. The goal of this session is to make EU policy more accessible for the audience and help the digital rights community to express their positions in the EU policy arena. Thomas Lohninger is Executive Director of the Austrian digital rights NGO Epicenter.works and VP of EDRi.