AGID: Agenzia per l'Italia Digitale

AGID (Agenzia per l'Italia Digitale) is the Italian government agency responsible for promoting innovation and digital transformation across the Italian public sector. Established under the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, AGID plays a central role in Italy's digital identity infrastructure, overseeing the development of the IT-Wallet -- Italy's national EUDI Wallet implementation. With its track record of successfully deploying SPID (serving over 30 million users), the PagoPA digital payment platform, and the App IO government services application, AGID brings significant expertise to the European digital identity ecosystem.

Before the EUDI Wallet, AGID built one of Europe's most successful national digital identity systems. SPID (Sistema Pubblico di Identita Digitale), launched in 2016, provides Italian citizens with a unified digital identity for accessing public and private online services. With over 30 million active users and more than 14,000 connected services, SPID demonstrated Italy's ability to deploy digital identity infrastructure at scale.

Alongside SPID, AGID oversees the CIE (Carta d'Identita Elettronica), Italy's electronic identity card, which contains an NFC chip enabling digital authentication. The CIE serves as both a physical identity document and a digital authentication tool, and its infrastructure forms a key building block for the IT-Wallet. Citizens can use their CIE to activate their EUDI Wallet through NFC-based identity verification.

The App IO mobile application, also under AGID's purview, serves as the primary citizen-facing platform for Italian government services. App IO already hosts digital versions of several documents and serves as the distribution channel for the IT-Wallet. This existing installed base of millions of App IO users provides Italy with an immediate deployment platform for EUDI Wallet credentials.

The IT-Wallet is Italy's national implementation of the EUDI Wallet, designed to comply fully with the eIDAS 2.0 regulation while using Italy's existing digital identity infrastructure. The IT-Wallet was among the first EUDI Wallet implementations to enter public pilot, beginning its rollout in late 2024 with digital driving license and health insurance card (Tessera Sanitaria) credentials.

AGID's approach to the IT-Wallet emphasizes integration with existing systems. SPID identity providers serve as initial credential issuers, the CIE provides the high-assurance identity proofing mechanism required by eIDAS 2.0, and App IO serves as the wallet application platform. This integration strategy minimizes the deployment overhead and accelerates citizen adoption by building on familiar tools and workflows.

The IT-Wallet supports both ISO 18013-5 (mdoc) and SD-JWT VC credential formats, ensuring interoperability with other EU member state wallets. AGID participates actively in the EU Digital Identity Wallet Consortium (EWC) large-scale pilot projects, testing cross-border scenarios including educational credential recognition, healthcare access, and travel document verification.

AGID contributes to the development of European technical standards for digital identity through its participation in ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute), CEN (European Committee for Standardization), and the eIDAS Expert Group. Italy's practical experience with large-scale digital identity deployment through SPID and CIE informs the technical requirements and architectural decisions at the EU level.

As one of the four largest EU member states, Italy's IT-Wallet implementation serves as a reference for other countries developing their own EUDI Wallets. AGID shares its technical specifications, security assessments, and deployment lessons through the EU Digital Identity Wallet technical working groups, helping to establish common practices and interoperability standards.

AGID also collaborates closely with other national agencies, particularly Germany's BSI and France's ANSSI, on security certification frameworks and cross-border testing protocols. This trilateral cooperation has been instrumental in defining the common security requirements that all EUDI Wallet implementations must meet.