A digital wallet. Which, like a wallet, will have all our information inside: personal, financial, information relating to health. And like a wallet it will stay in your pocket, or bag, not in the form of a physical object but of an application downloaded onto a smartphone. It will be called IT Wallet. It will be released by 2024, according to what is contained in the Pnrr decree which came into force in March. And it will be the place where all the services provided by digital citizenship will be contained. IT Wallet will present itself as an evolution of the ‘IO’ App, active since 2020. But with better usability, the possibility of integrating services offered by private companies and doing so in a European way, because it will have to be able to communicate with the Eudi Wallet, the digital wallet of the European Union. It is the last mile of a journey towards the digitalisation of public administration services. It began in 2001 with Italia.it and the Citizen’s Portal. Accelerated in 2012 with the Italian Digital Agenda, the birth of Spid (the public digital identity system). Became necessary with the Covid-19 pandemic when apps like ‘IO’ and other portals became the only way to access healthcare or tax services. A path that is preparing to take the last stage, when the entire digital life of citizens will flow into a single app. From identification documents, to those that concern our health, to payments, to professional ones.
IT Wallet, the timetable
According to what our newspaper has learned, the timing of It Wallet has already been decided. And we are trying to speed up this process, which has become a priority of the Undersecretary to the Prime Minister Alessio Butti. There is a timetable. In three main stages. By July 2024, the first three digital versions of the Health Card, European Sickness Assistance Card (EHIC), Driving License and European Disability Card will be activated, initially on the IO App. Starting in September, the IT Wallet will be made available to a wider audience, upon user request. By December 2024 there will be the public launch of IT Wallet, officially as an update to the IO App itself. The new access will be done with Spid or Cie. From then on the new services will be gradually implemented.
How It Wallet will work
The ‘Digital Wallet’ will be public later this year. In a single application you will have the possibility to manage all the PA services. It is designed to be the central point for digital identity management and to facilitate interactions with PAs and private companies. Access will take place via the IO App (38 million Italians use it, 16 thousand active entities, 305 thousand services available). In fact, IT Wallet is an evolution of App io. When issued for the first time, you will have a health card, driving license and European disability card. In the future also identity cards, qualifications and certificates.
When the digital wallet is complete, each citizen will have within it all the necessary documents to show for example during a police check, or to access services where identification is required (all under construction, from renting a car to booking a hotel). Objective: no more need to carry paper documents with you.
Everything should flow into the app: from services related to identity, healthcare, digital payments, up to a series of connected services that should be created thanks to the agreement with private companies, such as companies that offer rentals and hotel reservations. All hypotheses at the moment. But the desire is to make digital wallets a tool capable of managing a large part of citizens’ online activities, safely and quickly.
Digital identity tools: Spid and Cie
The IT Wallet, as well as the Io App, will be accessed via Spid and Cie. The two digital identity tools active in Italy. The two keys to access digital services of the public administration. Spid is the most used to date with 37.6 million digital identities registered, 35 with Cie. 91% of Italians who access the IO App do so via Spid, the rest with Cie. Percentages which, it is assumed, will be inherited from the IT Wallet, even if the government is pushing hard on Cie, as demonstrated by the promotional campaign launched by the Presidency of the Council.
Online authentication is the way to access digital wallet services. All the services that will be integrated into the digital wallet will require authentication to be used: payments, refunds, reservations. Yet not all the data contained in our digital identity will be shared with third parties. For example, if you need to access a booking service, only the requested information will be shared with the organization or company that provides it: age or domicile, not necessarily all identification data. Furthermore, in the new version of the IO app it is no longer necessary to authenticate each time you log in. It will be enough to do it once and the login will last one year. And if you need to prove or confirm your identity, an app on your phone will suffice. Even during police checks.
Payment and banking services, the project
There is no wallet without money. And a key part of the digital wallet will be the ability to make payments. Towards the PA and private individuals. And the reference infrastructure for public administration payments is PagoPa. From 2016 to today, PagoPa has processed 1.2 billion transactions, for a value of 234 billion euros for an average of 203 euros per payment. It is integrated into App Io, therefore it will be integrated into IT Wallet. On the payments side there are many ongoing projects. And it all starts from an already consolidated structure with the Cashback mechanism, the reimbursement of part of the expenses incurred during the months of the pandemic.
Credit and debit cards are already registered on App Io. The possibility of integrating payment systems such as Bancomat, Postepay and Satispay into the app is now being studied. Effectively opening up the possibility for private individuals to integrate with the digital wallet. We are studying the possibility of making payments via QR code and NFC – contactless payments, those generally made with a smartphone. To store payment cards. To view your card balance and transactions, manage current accounts or pay bank transfers. To request loans or financing directly from the single app. Hypothesis. All linked to the type of services that banks and private institutions decide to integrate.
Health data and visit bookings
As with other aspects, the healthcare chapter is also evolving. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Italians learned to use App IO for post-vaccination or swab certifications: they arrived there. All the digital health services provided so far will be collected in the IT Wallet, others should be added over time. There will be a digital version of the health card, which will allow access to services such as booking visits and tests, collecting reports, paying co-pays and consulting the electronic health record (EHR).
The ESF is a digital archive that contains the clinical history of a patient: reports of visits, tests, prescriptions, vaccinations or treatment plans. Integrating all these functions will take time. Here – from what we learn – the issue is a little more complex and touches on legal aspects concerning privacy, which are still under discussion with the guarantor authorities. It is hypothesized that a little further on, telemedicine services, such as medical or specialist video consultations, could also be integrated into the digital portfolio. The success of this aspect of digital citizenship will depend greatly on how easy the use of these services is made. Especially given that it will mainly be used by people who are no longer very young.