Europe Creates Its Own Infrastructure to Escape Google and Apple’s Grip
450 million Europeans will have access to the European digital identity wallet by the end of 2026. This digital sovereignty infrastructure aims to counter the dominance of American technology giants in online authentication. Yet the system paradoxically places control in the hands of Google and Apple, raising crucial questions about surveillance and technological independence.
Each member state will offer at least one version of the European digital identity wallet by December 2026, creating for the first time a European alternative to Google and Apple’s authentication systems. This gradual transformation redefines the relationship between citizens and digital services while revealing the paradoxes of European technological autonomy.
Europe Creates Its Own Digital Identity Infrastructure
Each member state will provide at least one wallet to all its citizens, residents, and businesses, allowing them to prove who they are and to securely store, share, and sign important digital documents. The European Digital Identity system (EUDI) will allow citizens to open a bank account online, identify themselves when obtaining a SIM card, and store their digital driver’s license.
Regulated sectors must accept the wallet by the end of December 2027, including transport services, energy, banking and financial services, social security, health, water, postal services, digital infrastructure, education, and telecommunications. This obligation also extends to very large online platforms under the Digital Services Act and to “gatekeepers” under the Digital Markets Act, which must recognize the wallet for user authentication at the user’s request.
European ambition goes beyond mere convenience. Citizens should be able to carry their digital identity with them across the EU, moving seamlessly across borders without ever losing control of their data, with privacy and security at the heart of the project. This infrastructure explicitly aims to reduce European dependence on American solutions.
Google and Apple Paradoxically Keep Technical Control
The fundamental contradiction in the European project lies in its technical dependence on mobile operating systems. The security model of the EUDI wallet component relies on the Trusted Execution Environment layer provided by mobile OS manufacturers: it abandons advanced cryptography to remain compatible with an API controlled by a few foreign technology giants. This places control of the EUDI algorithms, and potentially the monitoring of all transactions, in the hands of Google and Apple.
Only a handful of mobile phones in the world possess certified HSMs, all high-end and extremely expensive. This also casts a shadow on the legitimacy of double standards for security, with a situation where nation-states provide unsecured infrastructure for citizens who cannot afford to access secure means.
This technical dependence drastically limits European autonomy. Current technical specifications allow existing passkey solutions, such as Google Passkeys or iCloud Keychain, to serve as a substitute for true EUDI wallet integration. “This means we are stuck with the same proprietary options as before, while regulation gives the impression of having solved the problem.”
Generalized Surveillance as a Side Effect
Cryptography experts are warning of the risks of mass surveillance. The implementation of unique and persistent identifiers in the EUDI wallet could facilitate extensive tracking of individuals’ online behavior. This raises concerns about the potential for omnipresent surveillance and profiling by government agencies and private entities, infringing on personal freedoms and privacy rights.
Once connected, services could request identification data to which they have no right, and the wallet would have no mechanism to refuse, depriving users of the ability to use a pseudonym instead of their real name. This would lead to drastic over-identification and many online and offline situations in which anonymity or pseudonymity would no longer be an option.
The European Commission even plans to include a mandatory biometric portrait photo in the minimum dataset that each EUDI wallet must contain. Each use—proving your age, ordering books, signing a contract, etc.—would potentially transmit a facial image.
Member States Struggle to Meet Deadlines
The reality of deployment reveals considerable difficulties. The Netherlands has already reported that it is unlikely to meet the deadline, while Malta believes the product will be available but not fully functional. Other countries, such as Bulgaria, have not even begun work on a state-provided digital identity wallet.
The main cause of potential delays is that standards are still evolving. Work continues on the Architecture and Reference Framework (ARF), the foundation for the project’s reference implementation, with new versions of specifications continuing to emerge. This technical instability complicates the task of national developers.
Countries are starting from very different baselines. While some European countries already operate mature national eID schemes with broad adoption, others are still consolidating basic identity infrastructure or attribute sources such as population registries, education records, or business registers.
The Geopolitical Confrontation with Technology Giants
Europe is transforming its digital regulation into a weapon of sovereignty against American giants. European leaders, led by French President Emmanuel Macron, are flexing their digital sovereignty muscles, with the bloc’s updated antitrust rulebook attracting greater attention as a possible way to reduce Silicon Valley’s dominance and create space for “Made in Europe” alternatives.
“The Digital Markets Act was approved to protect European citizens and safeguard Europe’s digital sovereignty and competitiveness,” emphasizes a European Parliament member, adding that the bloc “must be autonomous and competitive, but not at any price and certainly not by selling its model, rooted in fair laws and rules, to the interests of large American technology companies.” “This is about sending a strong political message at a time of tension with the American administration.”
The Trump administration has stated that regulations “that dictate how American companies interact with consumers” in the EU, including the DMA and the Digital Services Act, “will be subject to review” and “violate American sovereignty.” The administration has threatened retaliatory tariffs and other trade actions in response to actions it views as foreign overreach against American companies.
This tension reveals the fundamental issue: the EU depends on non-EU countries for more than 80% of digital products, services, infrastructure, and intellectual property. While the American industry has created six companies with a market capitalization of 1 trillion euros or more, the EU has created none.
The Impossible Equation of Digital Sovereignty
The European digital identity wallet illustrates the central contradiction in digital sovereignty ambitions. Europe is simultaneously attempting to free itself from American guardianship while remaining dependent on the technical infrastructure of Google and Apple. This structural dependence limits the real autonomy of the system, transforming the sovereigntist ambition into an exercise in political communication.
European citizens find themselves caught between two logics: that of their governments, which promise digital independence, and that of technology giants, which retain effective control of infrastructure. 2026 will reveal whether Europe manages to create a genuine alternative or whether it merely repackages its technological dependence.