The eID solution allows citizens from Member States to prove and verify their identification when accessing on-line services in other Member States. It allows citizens to authenticate themselves by using their national eIDs and connecting with their Identity Provider (IdP) from their country. A high level process is as follows:

1. A citizen requests an on-line service in another Member State.
2. The citizen is requested to authenticate themselves by the on-line service.
3. The citizen chooses to authenticate with an eIDAS eID (from their Member State).
4. Authentication request is sent to the citizen’s country for authentication, through the eIDAS network, to the citizen’s Identity Provider (IdP) where authentication takes place).
5. The authentication result is returned to the service provider.
6. Authentication is complete and the citizen can proceed with accessing the service.

The notification process refers to the selection, peer review and official addition of national eID schemes to the eIDAS Network.

Notification ensures that the eID schemes connected to the eIDAS Network satisfy the conditions of quality and security set out by the EUDI Framework. As a general rule, all eID schemes connected to the eIDAS Network must be notified, though in some specific cases, service providers may make use of non-notified eID schemes.

Each Member State is responsible for the notification of its own national eID scheme(s).

No. As an identity provider you need to contact your Member State representative and convince them to notify your eID so that it can be used over the eIDAS network. As a service provider, you need to contact your Member State representative in order to get the necessary details to connect to their national eIDAS node.

The EUDI Framework(opens in a new tab) foresees that if a Member State offers an online public service to citizens/businesses for which access is granted based on an electronic identification scheme, then they must also recognise the notified eIDs of other Member States by 29 September 2018. This applies to online services that correspond to an assurance level of 'substantial' or 'high' in relation to accessing that service online. Member States remain free, in accordance with EU law, to recognise electronic identification means that have lower identity assurance levels. The EUDI Framework thus ensures that people and businesses can use their own national eIDs to access online public services in other EU countries, where eIDs are available.