Switzerland: E-ID set to go live in early 2026

Written By Dr. Philippe Page -HCF Research Council

E-ID participation meeting, Zollikofen 2024.12.06

Human Colossus Foundation’s Dynamic Data Economy perspective

On December 6, 2024, the Swiss Federal Council made decisions regarding the technical implementation of the Confederation's new electronic identity proof (e-ID) and the underlying operational infrastructure. A press release [1] describes a two-stage launch of the e-ID, with the first delivery planned for 2026. The first stage will introduce a technology used by the European Union. At the same time, work will continue to develop additional solutions that could be used in a second stage to meet even higher privacy protection requirements, in particular the requirement that the various uses of the e-ID not be traceable to an individual.

DVS4U: Integration des E-ID Ökosystems in kantonale und kommunale Systeme

On the same day, representatives of the Human Colossus Foundation attended the annual hybrid participation meeting of the project E-ID, which took place in the Federal Office of Information Technology, Systems and Telecommunication (FOITT) buildings in Zollikofen. The Human Colossus Foundation's (HCF) contribution is the technology for securing and styling the visualisation of the E-ID on mobile devices. E-ID pilots have already implemented HCF's Overlays Capture Architecture (OCA) [2] in different contexts (see for example canton Thurgau proof of concept [3]. The Foundation will continue to support the E-ID team on semantic harmonisation for a stylish but secured visualisation of digital proofs. 

However, our goal at the Human Colossus Foundation is to promote and support E-ID projects beyond the semantic realm. We support E-ID and public service initiatives in Switzerland and abroad. Our Dynamic Data Economy (DDE) approach anticipates the future implementation of national infrastructure components, including distributed governance and decentralised authentication. These technologies go beyond the building of complex verifiable credential use cases. They enable an ecosystem approach, helping integrate many providers of digital proofs, further enabling diverse use cases for E-ID.

We welcome the two-stage approach of the project that confirms a go-live for 2026 while activating research and development for higher security and privacy.

References:

[1] Swiss Federal Council December 6 2024 press release https://www.admin.ch/gov/en/start/documentation/media-releases.msg-id-102922.html

[2] OCA website and specification https://oca.colossi.network/

[3] Canton Thurgau DVS4U: Integration des E-ID Ökosystem in kantonale and kommunale Systeme: https://github.com/e-id-admin/general/blob/main/meetings/20241206_E-ID-Partizipationsmeeting_DVS4U_DE.pdf

Other Informations

Swiss Digital Identity and Trust infrastructure blog posts

Project E-ID Git-Hub: https://github.com/e-id-admin

The Human Colossus Foundation is a neutral but technology-savvy Geneva-based non-profit foundation under the surveillance of the Swiss federal authorities. 

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Dr. Philippe Page -HCF Research Council

Dr. Philippe Page is Head of Research at the Human Colossus Foundation, advancing open protocols for secure, large-scale data exchange. He leads the Data Management Workpackage for the NextGen project, integrating genomic and real-world data for biomedical innovation. With a PhD in theoretical physics, he transitioned from particle physics to applied domains including business development and resource management in banking, previously serving as COO in wealth management.

His key contribution is the Distributed Governance Model, designed to evolve data governance into information governance while preserving innovation and legacy regulatory frameworks. Grounded in the Principal-Agent problem, the model introduces Autonomous Principals — entities with transactional sovereignty — and extends the concept of the privacy sphere into a digital self, to which rights and accountability are attached. Ecosystems of these principals, bound by legitimate authority, enable scalable, self-replicating governance structures mirroring physical institutions. Leveraging decentralized authentication and semantic technologies, the model underpins the Dynamic Data Economy — a framework for multi-jurisdictional, multi-stakeholder systems with embedded human-technological checks and balances. Technical details (e.g., biometric binding) and domain-specific applications are reserved for future publications.

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