Improving the user experience of cross-border eID
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Today’s world is increasingly globalised and connected, as more people are living, working and travelling across borders. While Europe allows freedom of movement and the ability to conduct business seamlessly across borders, the administrative burden of conducting secure, online cross-border transactions with public and private sector entities is still high. A key enabler for these transactions is electronic identification (eID), the mechanism through which citizens and businesses are able to digitally prove who they are when interacting with governments and businesses. Nine European countries have already notified their eID scheme for mutual recognition across borders and six others will follow shortly.
The European Union (EU) is a key promoter of initiatives for digitalising the identity verification process of individuals and companies in their relationships with public and private services. The eIDAS Regulation (EU) 910/2014, on electronic identification, authentication and trust services, aims at making national eID schemes interoperable across Europe in order to facilitate access to online services. eIDAS is primarily designed to tackle identification challenges experienced by digital public services. Member States are also encouraged to support the voluntary reuse of eIDAS-based eIDs by the private sector.
As the number of eID schemes available for cross-border use within the eIDAS network grow, so does the number of solutions for identification and authentication. The eIDAS regulation enables a legal, semantic and technical interoperability of the schemes. Yet, the diversity of approach and types of means used in each EU Member States for electronic identification leads to a potential fragmentation of the cross-border user journey.
Through the CEF Programme, the European Commission is supporting Member States in better coordinating their approaches to improve the overall cross-border authentication journey. This short paper explores potential pain points for users and provides recommendations to the EU Member States for designing their services taking into account users of other national eID schemes.
The following section summarises issues and recommendations related to the eIDAS eID cross-border authentication journey that have been found in collaboration with an informal working group of national experts.
Main UX findings and potential solutions
During each phase of the cross-border authentication journey citizens may encounter the following issues, affecting their experience:
- Phase 1 - Apply for an eID: The eID application process can be confusing and difficult for users, even for those who are citizens or residents, and the lack of remote onboarding services for obtaining an eID presents problems for global mobility.
Proposed solution: Removing or at least limiting the need for face-to-face touchpoints during the eID application process will not only remove barriers to eID uptake at the national level (by making the overall process more frictionless) but will also give citizens that are living overseas the ability to obtain an eID remotely. In addition, for countries that present the user with multiple eID options, providing a step-by-step online guide that tailors the onboarding experience to the user’s needs would be beneficial.
- Phase 2 - Understand and discover the possibilities offered by eIDAS (cross-border authentication): Citizens may already use their eID in their home country but are unaware that they can use it to access foreign public services. Current interface designs may mislead users into not choosing the cross-border authentication option (e.g. cross-border authentication options hidden behind a national branded log-in option).
Proposed solution: This situation can be improved by bearing in mind the need of foreign users when designing the “point of discovery” of eIDAS log-in on eGovernment websites and ensuring access to more information about eID and eIDAS. Attention should be given to the fact that a majority of users are not familiar with the concept of eIDAS or EU cross-border eID and should be guided with concepts that they recognise (e.g. their national branded solution).
- Phase 3 - Use your eID across-border: Users may not be able to authenticate when overseas in the same way they could at home (e.g. different paths, need for a national phone number to receive a multi-factor authentication code), and they may also face difficulties during cross-border identification due to a mismatch of citizen data between countries (e.g. difficulty to reconcile multiple identities).
Proposed solution: Ensuring all steps of the authentication journey are streamlined between Member States (e.g. request for consent) to the extent possible, providing users with a sense of "feels like home". Guaranteeing an optimisation of the authentication journey for mobile, avoiding disruption and low completion rates.
- Phase 4 - Manage and renew your eID: Some eID renewal processes require physical presence in the country of issuance. It may also be particularly difficult to change attributes (e.g. change of name) and get in touch with support services from abroad .
Proposed solution: Considering the situation of citizens living overseas when designing renewal and modification procedures and ensuring there are always international options for technical support which provide users with rapid assistance.
Next steps
To facilitate the ability of a Government to deliver best practice user experience applied to eID, the report recommends as next steps that:
- Member States construct a common approach to user-centric design through coordinated oversight at the national level, encourage closer collaboration between central and local authorities by using the correct incentives and enablers and raise awareness on eIDAS across all government authorities using a combination of targeted and general communication.
- Public service providers build necessary UX skills gradually, transitioning from out-sourced help to in-house competencies, integrate UX practitioners with other teams using a Hub-and-Spoke approach, raise awareness and promote the value of UX within the administration, ensure user research and testing is embedded into delivery processes, explore Agile delivery methods and provide dedicated physical spaces for collaboration and experimentation.
In 2019, additional activities will be organised by the European Commission in collaboration with EU Member States.
For a more detailed view of the findings and recommendations to improve the cross-border authentication user experience, please consult our UX community: