DISINFO: The EU will use digital identity programme to create a totalitarian surveillance system
SUMMARY
Quietly, the European Union is introducing digital IDs for its citizens. By 2030, each of us will be a part of a vast surveillance system. The implementation of digital IDs in the European Union is clearly accelerating. Last year, the European Commission allocated 46 million euros to the development of a European digital identity wallet, a smartphone app that will enable citizens of all 27 Member States to store and share their digital identity. We live in an age where totalitarian practices have never been so easy. Technology gives those in power great opportunities that can be used against us. The digital identity is an example of such a technology.
RESPONSE
This is a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about a supposedly undemocratic EU that distorts the EU’s official Digital Identity initiative.
The European Digital Identity (EDI) effort aims to give every EU citizen a harmonised digital wallet to access public and some private services across the EU, with data minimisation and user control as guiding principles. It is designed to enable online and offline verification while reducing unnecessary data sharing. The EU has repeatedly framed digital identity as a means to simplify cross-border service access while strengthening privacy and security, not to enable ubiquitous government or corporate monitoring.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that the European Union is a democratic dictatorship, that European citizens have no say in European Council and Commission appointments, or that the EU is not a democratic entity, it is NATO’s political arm.