Europe’s pan-industry e-identity platform preps for launch
The platform now has a name: verimi
A joint European pan-industry platform for online registration, e-identity and data services is readying for launch at the turn of the year with new partners on board.
As reported in May, Deutsche Bank and a variety of German and European companies teamed up for the plan to “make online registration simpler and more secure for clients”.
The platform now has a name: verimi, a combination of the words “verify” and “me”. The venture will be based in Berlin and employ over 30 people. It will go live with an online digital “master key” (single-sign-on) at the turn of the year.
New partners to the venture are Deutsche Lufthansa, Deutsche Telekom as well as Bundesdruckerei, an IT security company, all of which have signed an agreement with the founding partners Allianz, Axel Springer, Daimler, Deutsche Bank with Postbank; as well as technology think tank Core, and location services provider Here Technologies. The new partners’ joining still requires the approval of the relevant antitrust authorities.
Timotheus Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom, says: “We will ensure that our clients’ digital identities remain within EU jurisdiction and enjoy the security afforded by German data protection rules.”
At launch, the platform will cover a broad market and is not limited to fintech. The firms say it has attracted partners from the automotive, aviation, insurance, IT, media and telecommunication industries.
According to Deutsche Bank, the master key requires users to log onto the platform once using their name and a password. They can then access participating companies’ applications that are already connected to the platform at that point in time.
Logging onto a new application will “no longer require personal data to be laboriously entered each time”. Nor will users require several passwords for different websites. When they register, users are asked for their express consent to data being passed on to partner companies. Once they have consented, they can then decide which data they allow to be passed on. This feature means that verimi complies with the European Regulation on Privacy and Electronic Communications.
More features will gradually be added to the registration and identification platform, for instance digital access to authorities or digital payment and financial services. And the bank says this basis will enable new digital business models to be developed. Further details will be announced in the coming weeks.
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