eEpoch purpose is to be a proof of concept of eEurope Smart Card Charter. A lot of work has been carried out under this initiative and eEpoch aims at applying part of its outputs to demonstrate its feasibility. In particular, eEpoch is focusing on Interoperability aspects, mainly in those concerning the electronic identification, to be a showcase where the benefits of the Interoperability will be demonstrated and evaluated. This demonstration will be at European scale in a group of seven pilots in six countries that have an active involvement in eEpoch. eEpoch is addressing one of the more important challenges in the Information Society, i.e. the electronic integration of the citizens with the rest of advanced e-technologies and services through a trusted, secure and confident digital identity. The aim of eEpoch is to demonstrate interoperable and secure smart card based digital identification systems, which provide the levels of trust and confidence necessary for citizens to interact digitally with their national and municipal administrations and other European Institutions.

As eEpoch is a project limited on the time, a set of specific objectives have been defined to reach its aims and purposes.

Objectives

One objective is to establish a knowledge base for e-signature & e-transaction communities to support easier decisions for widespread implementations and management of further deployments

A second objective is to demonstrate the capabilities of the Smart card technology to be a mainstream computing platform for implementing a secure and authenticated digital identity in support of e-government services and the private e-commerce market based on the common unique set of identifying personal data.

Another objective is to demonstrate the interoperability of the services and solutions according to the requirements of the users and the legal frameworks. To do that, compliance with the requirements set in the relevant documents of the European Electronic Signature Standardisation Initiative, and European directive on Electronic signature will be addressed.

Next objective is to propose solutions to harmonise smart card infrastructures to support the interoperability across sectors and countries and demonstrate the potential for coherence of e-Government services all overEurope.

Last but not least, it is necessary to prepare the necessary tools to disseminate targeted information about the implementations and the lessons learned among the user community, and all involved in the smart card business to encourage exploitation of interoperable and compatible access mechanisms and infrastructures; provide guidelines / recommendations for the large scale deployment resulting from the practical implementation and experimentation carried out in the pilots.

Expected Results

At the mid-term of eEpoch the results of the project are more precisely defined. eEpoch has made a valuable progress in the formulation of technical specifications for a new generation of Smart Cards supporting interoperability features in terms of eID. This will lead to the following measurable results:

• Technical Specifications for IOP Smart Cards ready to be used by key industrial players in the market
• Technical Specifications delivered to the Standardisation Technical Commitees to be part of the European Standards on Electronic Identity.
• Implementation of a Virtual European Certification Authority (in the scope of the project) to evaluate its viability.
• Information to the decision makers working in eID in Europe at the four eEpoch Conferences.
• Best practices and lessons learned in the eEpoch Pilots from the incorporation of the IOP specifications into their actual rollouts.
• Guidelines for achieving IOP in eID with Smart Cards.