Updated on October 2023
The Italian eID card (Carta d'identità Elettronica Italiana) started to roll out throughout Italy in 2016. Rome, Milan, Naples, and Turin were the first cities to launch the project in July 2016.
• All 7,982 municipalities can issue the new Italian national eID card.
• Around 33 million ID cards are expected to be delivered by the end of 2023.
• Over 500K eIDs are delivered every month according to the Poligrafico e Zecca Dello Stato.
The Minister of Interior's dedicated website ( www.cartaidentita.interno.gov.it ) gives useful information on applying for the new national ID card, booking an appointment with the municipal offices, and indicating the delivery address at home or the Town Hall. The card is delivered within six working days.
Italy is one of the 70+ countries to invest in a national eID card, as revealed in our dossier National IDs: facts and trends.
The new eID card comes to Naples - Nuova carta d'identità, Napoli è prima in Italia
Thales is proud to bring its contribution and provides its digital security technologies to the Italian eID initiative.
What is the new national ID card? How much does it cost?
The 2016 Electronic Identity Card is a personal identification document that certifies the holder's identity and a means of authentication for online Government services.
It aims to streamline and speed up communication between the state and citizens.
The 2016 Carta d'identità elettronica (CIE 3.0)has a credit card format.
The Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance set the cost by decree at 16.79 Euros, VAT included. Municipalities add some administrative costs. The average price for citizens is 23 Euros.
In Italy, it is not compulsory to carry the card itself. But the official document is very handy to prove who you are in public offices, for example.
What data does the national ID contain?
Today, the contactless electronic identity card is a polycarbonate document including:
- full name,
- date, and place of birth,
- fiscal number,
- residence and citizenship,
- code of the city of issuance,
- issuance and expiration dates,
- authentication certificate,
- fingerprints and a digital version of the photo.
That's not all.
As an option, the Italian citizen can give their consent to organ donation.
But what are the goals of the new Italian ELECTRONIC id card?
Boosting efficiency and economic development for Italy
The ID document offers greater document security to better protect against identity fraud and an easier travel experience in Europe (do you see the ICAO logo on the top left corner of the card?).
There's more.
The card can be used with a PIN code to authenticate and access online services leveraging the national identity framework SPID (see below).
By reading the card with a smart phone with NFC capability and CieID app, you can access sites with the highest level of security (Level 3 authentication).
It can also be used as an advanced electronic signature device (FEA) to sign electronic documents.
Why?
Like more than 70 countries, Italy leaps to digital identity and is engaged in a national eID scheme.
Italy believes that eID can become a real catalyst for its e-Government strategy and can be an efficient tool for exercising and protecting citizens' rights with added value for citizens, government authorities, and businesses.
The authorities seek to boost efficiency, economic development, and inclusion to better serve their citizens in a reliable, secure, and transparent way.
The electronic identity card project is now activated in almost all municipalities of Italy.
But what's the starting point?
Transforming Italy with a new framework of trust
Let's start with the political decision: the President of the Council of Ministers decree.
On 9 December 2014, Italy published the goals and defined the organization and the national eID system's roadmap.
It is part of two major national plans to reach the European digital agenda's objectives: the "ultra-fast broadband" and the "digital growth" plans.
- With the "ultra-fast broadband" plan, the goal is to cover, within 2020, 85% of the population with very high-speed connectivity, setting the basis for dematerialization and new e-services.
- The "digital growth" plan aims to boost technology usage and the intensive and secure use of digital exchanges to stimulate economic growth and social cohesion. The digital growth plan seeks to strengthen the framework of trust in digital exchanges.
Two projects illustrate this move:
- The "digital security" project aims to increase the security level of information and digital communication. With this initiative, digital and online services can ensure privacy, integrity, and continuity of services.
- The SPID project (sistema pubblico per la gestione dell'identità digitale di cittadini e imprese) aims to create a new public system for digital identity management.
It provides access to offer e-government services to citizens and companies alike.
SPID also includes an ambitious plan to digitalize health, school, and justice and a scheme for electronic payments and electronic invoicing for transactions with the public administration.
The digital identity scheme in Italy
Who's the driver for the Italian digital identity scheme?
The Digital Agency for Italy (AgID - Agenzia per l'Italia Digitale) drives the digital transformation of the Italian Government.
It involves infrastructure and platform projects, particularly with the objective – and challenge – to boost Italian digital Identity Card usage.
Italy's plans align with the eIDAS regulation as interoperability is a key success factor of Italy's digital transformation.
Over 33 million digital identities in 2023
- In January 2017, SPID announced that over 1 million Italians use the new Identità Digitale, digital identity distributed by central and local authorities.
- In December 2017, over 2 million digital identities were created. On 18 December, Aruba, one of the SPID providers, launched an offer to Italian companies: SPID for free until 31 May 2018.
- In May 2019, over 4 million digital identities were generated, a robust increase compared to 3.4m in January. Poste is the largest supplier, activating over 80% of digital identities.
- By December 2023, there were over 33 million digital identities, demonstrating a huge success
The digital transformation progress can be visualized on this dashboard.
In the future, SPID can be used to access the digital services of all European Union member states.
Two popular initiatives have boosted the use:
- Those turning 18 get a €500 bonus to spend on cinema, museums, concerts, cultural events, and books. This measure is known as "Bonus Cultura."
- Teachers are granted the same amount for educational resources such as books, courses, and tickets to museums and theatres.
In January 2018, the Ministry of Education also implemented SPID, to be used for the online registration of primary and secondary school children.
Visit 18app, the dedicated site.
How can we help you get the most out of your digital identity project?
At Thales, we promote the emergence of a free and more sustainable society by making it more secure.
We have built a structured approach and contribution mode to government programs, sharing international experience and industrial know-how and working as partners with public authorities in numerous countries.
This approach addresses three main areas:
- Securing the identity of citizens
- Protecting their privacy, personal data, and digital rights
- Promoting an optimal framework of trust for digital exchanges to create the conditions for reliable deployment of online services.
In the same spirit, we collaborate with our customers to analyze and promote best practices in these areas across the planet.
More on digital ID facts and trends.