The regulation (EU) No 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market, which is commonly known as “eIDAS-Regulation” was introduced in 2014 and has been fully in force since 1st July 2016. On 29th September 2018 a major milestone has been reached, as the EU-wide recognition of notified eID-schemes started.

Against this background, leading European associations, projects and expert organisations in the sector of eID and trust joined forces to launch the non-profit go.eIDAS-Initiative. First steps and initial focus areal of this initiative comprise the creation and maintenance of localisable and extensible eIDAS-related information material, the provision of local eIDAS-related webinars and the creation and maintenance or eIDAS-related open source software.

go.eIDAS is an open initiative, which welcomes all interested organisations and individual people which are committed to the aforementioned goals. The go.eIDAS-Initiative invites all stakeholders within the eIDAS-Ecosystem, such as application providers, eID-related stakeholders, trust service providers, conformity assessment bodies, other service providers, regulatory authorities and other public sector bodies, publicly funded projects and initiatives, academic institutions and standard development organisations, whereas commercial organisations shall demonstrate reasonable pro bono aspects related to their participation.

The main goals of the go.eIDAS initiative may be summarised as follows:

• Raise awareness for eIDAS in Europe and beyond
• Point out the benefits of eIDAS within application services and illustrate the huge trade opportunity for the EU related to pushing the eIDAS model and framework internationally
• Demonstrate the ease of use of eID and trust services
• Support the integration of eID and trust services into application services, with a special focus on small and medium enterprises in in selected sectors, such as transportation, financial services and online-platforms
• Promote the use and uptake of eIDAS in mobile environments
• Support the development of the eIDAS-Ecosystem and the internal market
• Promote interoperability among eIDAS-related solution components
• Support the creation of a sustainable network of eIDAS stakeholders

The go.eIDAS initiative is an open initiative for interested organisations and individual persons which are committed to the mentioned goals.

go.eIDAS welcomes all stakeholders within the eIDAS-ecosystem, such as

• Application providers
• eID-related stakeholders
• trust service providers
• conformity assessment bodies
• regulatory authorities and other public sector bodies
• publicly funded projects and initiatives
• academic institutions
• standard development organisations

whereas commercial organisations shall demonstrate reasonable pro bono aspects related to their participation.