SPID will be with us for at least another two years, perhaps for another five. In fact, the agreement between AgID (Agenzia Italia Digitale, which represents the government) and Assocertificari (which represents digital identity providers) was renewed to maintain the SPID as a tool for accessing digital identity for another 24 months with a possible extension of another 36 months, therefore possibly until 2030. The agreement, signed on 8 October, arrived one day before the expiry of the agreement: if it had not been signed it would have meant the divestment of SPID as a tool for managing one’s digital identity in Italy, in favor of a system based on the combination of CIE (Electronic Identity Card) and IT-Wallet. SPID is currently used by 41 million Italians, 89% of the active citizenship in our country.
What happens now that the SPID has been renewed
The renewal of the agreement guarantees that the SPID can continue to be used as before, but it does not mean that it will remain forever. Indeed, the government has repeatedly reiterated its intention to migrate digital identity management in Italy from a public system based on SPID to one based on CIE and IT-Wallet. There are essentially two reasons: the costs of managing the service and the security of the service itself. This intention was also reiterated on the occasion of the renewal of the agreement by the Undersecretary for Innovation Alessio Butti:
Italy (…) now looks to the future with an increasingly complete and interoperable IT-Wallet system. The growth of CIE and these conventions will allow us to accompany the transition towards a single model (…) fully integrated with European standards.
The guarantee that the SPID system will last for at least another two years will therefore help to make a smooth transition between the two systems.
SPID with the Italian Post Office for a fee? The economic sustainability of the system
Now that the SPID is officially “safe”, at least for now, the big issue concerns the economic sustainability of this service, which requires the influx of substantial public funds. The contracts between AgID and digital identity managers were in fact only extended until 2023, and the funds provided for by the PNRR (40 million euros) only arrived in March this year.
This has led some providers to introduce paid tariffs: the latest in chronological order is InfoCert, which since July has been asking its users 5.98 euros per year. Aruba (4.90 euros + VAT), Register (9.90 euros) and Intesi Group (14.90 euros + VAT) have also introduced annual fees. However, attention is now focused above all on Poste Italiane, by far the largest digital identity provider in Italy with 72% of national users, which is considering adopting the same measure by making the SPID-enabled PosteID service a paid service at a cost of 5 euros per year.
