Research

A-SIT’s duties require a high degree of technical expertise and knowing the state-of-the-art. Aside its technology monitoring  activities, A-SIT advances the state-of-the-art in its strategically relevant areas by carrying out own scientific research.

We draw the attention to our contributions to national and international research programmes. A selection of projects and the contribution of A-SIT is:

  • POTENTIAL (since 2023) is a Large Scale Pilot that is co-funded by the European Commission. The objective is to test the European Digital Identity Framework “EUDI Wallet” between 19 states and in 6 Use Cases (eGovernment, account opening, SIM registration, mobile driving license, qualified electronic signature, ePrescription). A-SIT is leading the use case qualified electronic signature and coordinates the Austrian participation through a national consortium consisting of 13 Austrian organisations. The funded EU project “POTENTIAL” deals with the development of an EU Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI) in conjunction with the proposed European regulation on digital identities. It is a so-called “large scale pilot” (LSP) project. This LSP is used to develop technical specifications in coordination with the technical architecture and reference framework (ARF) for the EU Digital Identity Wallet and to test a software prototype. The ARF is created as part of a toolbox with the eIDAS Expert Group. That means that in the future it will be possible to provide identification to authorities or companies in the digital space using for instance smartphones or tablets by using this wallet app. This means that it should be possible to identify users in order to, for instance open up a bank account or to electronically sign documents in a qualified manner, i.e., with legal status compared to that of a handwritten signature. Other use cases include identification such as an official photo ID, and the processing of official procedures (e.g. applying for a birth certificate or criminal record). A digital drivers license or a proof of age should also be implemented across Europe.
  • mGOV4EU (since 2021) pushes forward the practical use of inclusive mobile Government services in Europe, bringing such services in line with EU citizens’ expectations for safe, resilient and sustainable mobile communication. Innovating electronic identity management, storage of data and the exchange of electronic documents are key elements. Starting from the foundation of Single Digital Gateway Regulation (SDGR), mGov4EU provides new ways of cross-border service provision correlated and interlinked with eIDAS Regulation on cross-border identification and authentication.
  • EBSI4Austria (2021), funded by the European CEF framework, is a project focusing on the one hand with the setup and operation of the Austrian EBSI node and on the other hand with the achievement of the university diploma use-case. A-SIT contributes expertise of blockchain-based digital identities as well as competences from ESSIF to this project.
  • SEMPER (2019-2020) is funded by the European CEF framework.
    It enables the use of representation powers in a cross-border authentication process by extending the eIDAS infrastructure. A-SIT contributes its expertise with eIDAS and the Austrian eID as well as mandate systems.
  • eID4U (2018-2019) is a project in the European CEF framework that facilitates student mobility by integrating eIDAS to university platforms. A-SIT contributes its eIDAS expertise, as well as its experience from predecessor projects eSENS und STORK (see below).
  • TOOP (2017-2019) is funded by the EU Horizon 2020  Research and Innovation programme. The project pilots the Once-Only principle where citizens and businesses provide data to public administrations only once and enable administrations to reuse these data in other processes rather than re-asking the same data. A-SIT supports the project with its eIDAS expertise on secure identification of the persons concerned.
  • FutureTrust (2016-2019) is a project in the EU Horizon 2020  Research and Innovation programme that develops and tests solutions on eIDAS, in particular also on recognition of third country trust service providers. A-SIT develops evaluation criteria of trust services, as well as pilot evaluation criteria.
  • SUNFISH (2015-2017) is funded by the EU Horizon 2020  Research and Innovation programme. It develops solutions on secure federation of public sector private clouds. A-SIT was involved in the requirements analysis and in developing the data security components.
  • Secure eGov (2014-2015) was a research project under the Austrian security research programme KIRAS. It developed a standard for the security certification of eGovernment applications that is based on international standards, but pays particular attention to eGovernment requirements. A-SIT contributed to the development of the standard and its further maintenance.
  • eSENS (2013-2017) was a large scale pilot under the European Commission’s CIP ICT-PSP programme that was based on a set of predecessors large scale pilots and consolidated their building blocks (electronic signature, electronic identity, electronic delivery, electronic documents, and semantics). A-SIT has coordinated the Austrian consortium that participated in the project.
  • STORK / STORK 2.0 (2008-2011 / 2012-2015) under the European Commission’s CIP ICT-PSP programme were the large scale pilots in charge of cross-border electronic identity. It developed solutions on cross-border federation of national eID schemes. A-SIT coordinated the Austrian contribution to the project.

Links

In addition to the collaborative research projects listed above, the A-SIT technology server publishes further A-SIT research results.