Global accelerated digital transformation, shaped by disruptive technologies (AI and Big Data, Metaverses and Web3, etc.), brings both unprecedented opportunities for EU citizens and businesses and emerging and increased challenges: surge in sophisticated cyber-attacks, multifarious forms of data abuse and the corresponding growth of public concern over loss of data control or identity-related crimes. In this context, preserving trust among stakeholders with strong data protection guarantees is vital for digital services delivery in more secure online environments which benefit from the upcoming EU Digital Identity ecosystem and for fully developing EU data spaces for data exchange in federated computation scenarios.

With its results accurately oriented towards Digital Decade’s cardinal points and target areas, fully aligned with EU’s Digital Identity and Data Strategy, directly contributing to strengthening EU’s digital and data sovereignty and also complementing outcomes from EUDI Wallet Large Scale Pilots, LICORICE Innovation Action delivers 2 highly advanced, reliable and trustworthy self-sovereign identity and privacy-preserving toolsets (>10 tools) for user-centric, cryptographically secure identity management and verifiable federated data sharing and computing. They will align with latest EUDI Wallets specifications and data space blueprints, models and frameworks to deliver high scalability and efficiency, also featuring usability and ease-of-adoption (including by SMEs), with solid open source strategy oriented to large developer communities and boosting commercial exploitation by its industrial partners. Results will be fully validated over 2 iterations of piloting, demonstrating integration of toolset prototypes in operational environments of two high-impact pilots in domains of Cyber Threat Intelligence AI-based assistance and sharing, and eHealth services and biomedical research.