The Trustnet Initiative

In addition to the key tasks outlined above on the way to the Trustnet, there are other unresolved technical development steps as well as technical, economic and legal barriers to innovation that need to be removed. Let's start with the technical aspects. There is currently no standardised basis for technical interoperability that would enable any wallet app, consisting of a wallet and agent, to address various DID methods and underlying data infrastructures (blockchains, PKIs, DLTs, etc.) at the level of basic technologies. Thanks to the OpenWallet Foundation activities, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Any player planning to develop a wallet app, whether at national level, EU level or from the private sector, should make this technical interoperability their own maxim. Although there are conceptual considerations for the trustworthy registers at levels 1 to 4 shown on the right-hand side of the Trustnet stack, there are currently no examples of best practice in practice. There is still pioneering work to be done here. The same applies to product innovations such as privacy tools and cloud-based wallet apps. The Trustnet Community platform is still under construction. A transfer platform for products and services and a training platform are also in the works. Anyone who would like to get involved is welcome to do so. As with comparable initiatives, a democratic organisation of the community is required. Anyone who wants to have a say in the canonisation of regulations and standards must also contribute to the financing of the necessary structures.

The second major barrier is of a psychological nature - the sheer scale of the overall task and the many doubts that a pioneering region has to dispel, both internally and externally. During a presentation, we often receive the response: "Surely the big Internet companies are doing this." No, they don't. Only a Trustnet Community does that. Just like the energy transition, the development of the Trustnet is a joint task for business, society, politics and administration. And the nucleus of the Trustnet Community has precisely this composition.

Irrespective of the eIDAS Regulation, which regulates the use of digital identities of natural persons and, in the long term, organisations, the necessary legal framework for many Trustnet applications is not in place or is not suitable. Written form requirements or earmarking of documents still frequently limit or prevent the use of digital credentials. The planned Bureaucracy Relief Act will hopefully remove some of these obstacles, at least in Germany, but due to the complexity of the legal framework, it is to be expected that many legal barriers to innovation for the Trustnet at EU, federal, state, district and municipal level will survive this planned "decluttering" and only become apparent when applications are implemented in practice.

Approach:

The Trustnet Community's approach to overcoming the still low level of development maturity is to gradually fill in the blank spots on the development map in the course of piloting, practical realisation and scaling of applications in administration, industry, trade, mobility and other areas of digital interaction. To this end, best practice examples for technology, governance and infrastructure are to be developed on the basis of the above-mentioned roadmap, which can serve as a basis for transfer to other areas of application. The roadmap will be continuously updated within the Trustnet Community in order to take account of the technological and political development dynamics. For the geographical expansion of the community, the transfer of these best practice examples follows a frontrunner-follower approach. We achieve the necessary credibility and acceptance through visibility and proof of the practicality of broad-based, low-threshold applications. Digital pilot applications such as social passes, public transport tickets, digital product passes, eBon and green electricity/CO2 certificates have already been developed as part of the preliminary work. Further use cases have reached demonstrator status. Field tests, explanatory videos and hands-on demos are intended to make it possible to experience the technological and application maturity of these pilots in practice. The development of the Trustnet also requires innovation in the legal framework. The political instrument of regulatory sandboxes exists for the purpose of trialling technology-based innovations that collide with the current legal framework. With the help of experimentation clauses and exemptions, it is possible to gain knowledge in the short term as to whether and in what form an adaptation of the legal framework makes sense. Of course, there are many other aspects to consider when planning a real-world laboratory in order to satisfy the political and administrative interest in knowledge as well as the interests of other stakeholders. A process was therefore developed as part of the preliminary work for the first real-world lab on the "Digital Citizens' Petition" use case, which will be used in the course of the first community project in the state capital of Dresden and form the basis for further real-world labs. We have been coordinating this with the Saxon State Chancellery and the state capital of Dresden since spring 2023. Several lawyers are currently concretising the initial need for further regulatory sandboxes. Irrespective of the bottom-up development of the Trustnet Community, the topic of Trustnet must be put on the political agenda. The construction sites and barriers to innovation highlighted make it clear that the social benefits of the Trustnet will not materialise on their own. The development and establishment of the Trustnet must be viewed as a complex social innovation project with tasks for all political departments. Germany needs a Trustnet strategy. The alternative would be digital insignificance and only those who profit from the current potential for fraud and abuse in the digital space can want that.