Draft Royal Decree adopting the conditions, procedure and consequences of recognition of services for electronic identification for e-government applications

The proposed draft royal decree falls within the framework of the government’s digital transformation policy and the Mobile Identification project under the Digital Belgium action plan. It implements Article 10, §2, of the Electronic Identification Act of X July 2017.

This draft royal decree describes the conditions for recognition of providers of a service for electronic identification with a view to offering their services for access to Belgian e-government applications. Once the recognising authority (BOSA/DG DT) has granted the recognition, these providers shall be permitted to offer their identification service for e-government applications via the Federal Authentication Service (FAS).

Recognition shall be granted exclusively based on criteria specified in the Royal Decree, in areas such as reliability of the service provider, security and privacy protection. These criteria were inspired by the eIDAS Regulation and based on technical standards. Every provider of a service for electronic identification that meets all conditions may apply for recognition. Recognition may be granted for services for electronic identification with substantial or high reliability as defined in the eIDAS Regulation. Recognition only applies for provision of the service for access to government applications in Belgium and is entirely separate from any registration at the European level.