In the past, citizen identity has been used within siloed data areas, and where government agencies have linked citizens across different services. Often these identifiers were simple alphanumeric strings, and which were assigned by government agencies. These identifiers are then linked in some way to the citizen, and where citizens often have to request access to documents that prove certain aspects of their citizenship. These systems, too, often use paper-based approaches and have little in the way of real digital trust. But, in an information age, we now have the ability to provide unique digital identifiers for each citizen, and then for them to claim access to their citizenship documents. This might be in the form of their academic qualifications, their tax status, or even their driver's licence. While, at one time, these documents were either held by the trusted issuers of the information, or in a paper form, we now have the opportunity for these documents to be linked to a citizen wallet. This would allow citizens the opportunity to request documents once, but use them many times. A core part of this is the unique private key associated with the citizen, and in the usage of digital signing by trusted entities. While many countries have struggled to implement a digital identity scheme, the EU Commission has the ambition to provide every EU citizen with a digital wallet, and thus moved towards improved freedom of movement and integration of the countries within the EU. The scale of this cannot be underestimated, and it could break down the barriers that have been created by legacy systems. In order to harmonise the integration of both citizens and trusted signers, the EU Commission proposes the usage of EBSI (European Blockchain Services Infrastructure).

翻译：过去，公民身份被用于孤立的数据领域，政府机构在不同服务中关联公民身份。这些标识符通常是由政府机构分配的简单字母数字字符串，并以某种方式与公民相链接，而公民往往需要申请访问能够证明其公民身份某些方面的文件。此类系统通常采用纸质化方式，缺乏真正的数字信任。但在信息时代，我们现在能够为每位公民提供唯一的数字标识符，并让他们申领其公民身份文件。这些文件可能以学历证明、纳税状态或驾驶执照等形式呈现。虽然这些文件曾由可信信息颁发机构持有或为纸质形式，但现在我们有机会将这些文件与公民数字钱包相关联。这将使公民能够一次申请文件，并多次使用。其核心要素包括与公民关联的唯一私钥，以及可信实体对数字签名的使用。尽管许多国家在实施数字身份方案方面面临困难，但欧盟委员会立志为每位欧盟公民提供数字钱包，从而推动欧盟内部人员自由流动与成员国一体化进程。这一计划的规模不可低估，它可能打破遗留系统所设置的障碍。为协调公民与可信签名者的整合，欧盟委员会提议采用EBSI（欧洲区块链服务基础设施）。