While most discussions around the European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI Wallet) are still taking place at the level of strategy, standards, and regulation, a Romanian university has already taken a concrete step toward testing this technology in practice.
Babeș-Bolyai University (BBU) has implemented and tested the EUDI Wallet Sandbox developed by certSIGN, demonstrating how students can receive electronic attestations of attributes into the European Digital Identity Wallet, and present them both for accessing university services and for interacting with the “Lucian Blaga” Central University Library in Cluj-Napoca.
From student ID to interoperable digital services
The scenarios implemented by BBU show how a user can receive electronic attestations of identity attributes, stored in the EUDI Wallet, and present them instantly whenever proof of student status is required, without the need for paper documents.
How the integration worked
On the technical side, the project was built using the EUDI Wallet Sandbox infrastructure developed by certSIGN, a complete and fully functional environment covering digital identity issuance, the issuance and verification of electronic attestations of attributes, advanced authentication, and qualified electronic signatures.
A significant aspect of the implementation was the creation of a mechanism allowing organizations to integrate quickly.
In the initial phase, the schemas for the electronic attestations of attributes were defined, specifically which information is included in the student ID. These schemas were built based on existing official documents and include both mandatory attributes and optional information that can be used depending on context.
Subsequently, the participating organizations registered the technical elements required for secure communication with the platform: cryptographic keys, unique identifiers, and callback endpoints for the information exchange.
Communication between systems relies on mutual authentication, which verifies the origin of each request and reduces the risk of unauthorized access to data. The infrastructure includes additional security mechanisms, such as client authentication for connected applications, integrity and authenticity verification of exchanged messages through digital signatures, and rate limiting to prevent abuse.
For the end user, all these processes are invisible. In the tested scenario, the user scanned a QR code or confirmed a request within the EUDI Wallet, and the systems involved automatically exchanged the necessary information.
Beyond the university: the first external service integrated into the scenario
Perhaps the most significant aspect of the pilot is that the electronic attestations of attributes issued within the scenario were not designed for use exclusively on campus.
The first scenario built with an external partner focused on access to the “Lucian Blaga” Central University Library in Cluj-Napoca.
The scenario covers the full cycle, from the issuance of one attestation to using it to obtain another:
- BBU issues the student ID directly into the EUDI Wallet
- The student uses the student ID from the wallet to request access to the “Lucian Blaga” Central University Library
- The library verifies the student ID presented from the wallet and, in turn, issues a library card, also stored in the student’s Digital Identity Wallet
This scenario brings together the fundamental components of the EUDI Wallet ecosystem: an Authentic Source that issues attestations, a wallet that stores and presents them, and a Relying Party, an organization that verifies them to deliver a service. BBU acts as the Authentic Source and issuer of attestations for the student ID. The library initially acts as the Relying Party, verifying the presented attestation, but itself becomes an Authentic Source when it generates the library card.
Future developments include authentication within the university’s AcademicInfo platform and access to campus resources. Beyond these, certSIGN’s EUDI Wallet Sandbox can also be used by other public or private service providers in Cluj-Napoca to test integration scenarios with university services.
A model that can be replicated across any sector
What Babeș-Bolyai University has tested is relevant well beyond the academic world.
The same model can be applied to the relationship between banks and customers, between telecom operators and users, in public administration, and in recruitment and professional certification processes.
Once an organization can issue digital attestations of attributes and other organizations can accept and validate them automatically, a wide range of bureaucratic processes can become unnecessary.
From this perspective, the project carried out by Babeș-Bolyai University represents more than the digitization of a student ID. It is a concrete example of how Europe’s future digital identity infrastructure could function, and of how Romanian institutions can prepare themselves to use it.
