The Interoperability Test Bed will be used by the University of the Aegean (UAegean i4m Lab) for conformance testing of service providers (Relying Parties) with wallet providers’ offerings aiming for seamless service integration. The operation is linked to the emerging EUDI infrastructure and unfolds within the context of EU Digital Wallet Consortium (EWC).

The EU Digital Wallet Consortium (EWC) is a project co-funded by the EU’s Digital Europe Programme to contribute to the implementation of the EU Digital Identity Wallet (EUDIW). As part of the EWC , the University of the Aegean (UAegean) is realising a service to leverage digital wallet-based services for travel and academic use cases. Specifically, an international workshop pilot (EWCWorkshop) is foreseen as a facilitator to traveling for conferences, academic and professional workshops, and business purposes; with all steps of the user journey enabled by the use of the EUDI wallet (workshop registration, ticket booking, boarding pass issuing, use of affiliated local services etc.).

A key supporting element of this work in the context of EWCWorkshop and other pilots is a conformance testing service to ensure all participating parties and implementations conform to the underlying specifications and trust frameworks. Users of this service range from wallet vendors aiming to validate their wallet implementations, to EWC issuer and verifier services seeking to establish lists of compliant wallets for their services.

Considering these conformance testing needs, the UAegean reached out to the Interoperability Test Bed team in view of using the Test Bed to realise the envisioned testing service. A successful proof-of-concept phase followed that was completed in October 2023, defining the testing architecture and delivering an initial set of test cases as the starting point for future test development.

The developed test cases triggered identity verification requests for different types of verifiable credentials, orchestrating calls to the UAegean verifier service, and prompting the tester to use her digital wallet and approve credential usage requests.

The resulting service, a GITB Test Bed instance hosted by the UAegean, was brought online in November 2023, initially in proof-of-concept status. As a next step, the UAegean will extend this service with further test cases for a more exhaustive coverage of the foreseen scenarios. In parallel, the UAegean has also already begun to reach out to other members of the EWC to facilitate their onboarding and integration with the testing platform.

It is interesting to note that support for the UAegean and testing around an academic digital identity credential to enable seamless use of various services, is not the first case the Test Bed has been involved with digital wallet conformance testing. In March 2023, a successful collaboration with the Airport Technology Lab of the Rotterdam The Hague Innovation Airport, resulted in a similar service focusing on use of digital wallets to facilitate seamless air travel.

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