PCP
The rejected model did not remove the state
The proposal provided for the Confederation to verify identity and authorise an e-ID’s issue. Recognised, supervised providers would handle technical implementation. They could be businesses, but also cantons and municipalities. The state therefore retained verification, recognition and supervision.
This clarification does not decide the debate in the project’s favour. It frames it accurately: how should functions be distributed, and what creates trust in infrastructure involving several actors? Describing a complete state withdrawal would be inaccurate. Treating supervision as making the issuer’s identity irrelevant would nevertheless avoid the actual political choice.
The official dossier described acquisition as voluntary and provided data-protection duties. The disagreement should not be reconstructed as though the text promised unrestricted sales of personal information. The questions concerned the strength, intelligibility and enforceability of guarantees.
Trust also depends on what happens when things fail
Debate about e-ID readily addresses speed and convenience. It must equally consider errors: incorrect records, a lost credential, an unavailable device or an inaccessible account. Who restores access, with which evidence, within what period and with what appeal route? Public-service quality is also measured along these pathways.
Where several actors divide responsibilities, the individual should not become their compulsory intermediary. Provider and administration cannot simply refer people back to each other without an identified responsible body. Requirements must address correction, continuity and possible service termination as well as normal operation.
A provider may change strategy, ownership or business conditions. The public should know what protects credential continuity and how another solution can be adopted. Technology working at launch is insufficient; rights must remain accessible throughout its life.
Voluntary use has a practical dimension
Not legally requiring a digital tool is a necessary guarantee. But if an ordinary procedure becomes much slower, dearer or harder without it, the choice narrows in practice. Alternative access must therefore be examined in actual services, including people with limited equipment, those needing support and those choosing another route.
A physical counter is more than a technological leftover. It can help explain circumstances that do not fit a form, correct records and prevent a login problem interrupting a right. Digitalisation can simplify procedures while retaining that human function. Assistance costs should not be hidden by transferring them to families or unpaid third parties.
This also provides a test for promised savings. A real administrative saving reduces the total work needed for a procedure. Unacknowledged transfer of that work to the person produces a different result. Delays, mistakes and support needs should be measured from users’ perspectives, rather than only the issuer’s.
A different discussion already in September
On 2 September 2021, the Federal Council opened a public consultation on a working paper for a state e-ID. The March rejection therefore did not end every discussion of digital identification. Nor did the consultation mean a new system was already available in 2021. Design discussion and an operational service remain separate stages.
For the PCP, the historical lesson is to place electronic identity within understandable public responsibility: minimise necessary information, provide accessible correction and retain effective routes to services. Providers can perform specified technical tasks; democratic guarantees must follow the whole journey. Progress is judged through simplicity gained and rights maintained, including when the tool does not work for someone.