A Japanese student can present a university credential to a European verifier, and have it accepted. A new European Commission report on Digital Identity Educational Credentials confirms that the EU-Japan Interoperability Pilot successfully demonstrated that cross-border digital credential exchange can be achieved using established international standards between countries or regions with different technical and regulatory frameworks.
It is the first practical evidence that two of the world's most advanced digital identity frameworks can interoperate. The pilot supports the Memorandum of Cooperation on Digital Identities and Trust Services signed in April 2024 by the European Union and Japan's Digital Agency, which seeks to facilitate data free flow with trust between the two regions.
The exercise was designed to verify whether the respective technical and governance frameworks are genuinely capable of supporting an interoperable environment. Academic credentials were the chosen use case. In a controlled sandbox replicating real-world conditions, the EUDI Wallet prototype interacted with issuers and verifiers created by Japan, while the Japanese wallet interacted with EU issuers and verifiers.
Four scenarios were covered: a Japanese student presenting a learning credential to a European verifier, a European student using an EUDI wallet presenting learning credential to a Japanese verifier, and issuance in both directions.
Credentials could be issued, stored, presented and verified across regions using established international standards, even where technical and regulatory frameworks differ. International interoperability can be ensured through existing architectures, even when governance models diverge.
The finding that international alignment is reachable between regions with different regulations, describes exactly what the INSTAR European Task Force (ETF) on Cybersecurity and Digital Identity set out to do.
The ETF brought together European experts to develop a Cybersecurity/eID Priorities for International Collaboration on Standards (PICS) document, designed from the outset to identify common EU-Japan standardisation priorities and provide a basis for future cooperation on standards.
We have applied that method alongside our Japanese partners Japan Business Council in Europe (JBCE) and Telecommunication Technology Committee (TTC), both MoU signatories. Our EU-Japan workshop series brought together policymakers, standardisation bodies, industry and technical experts from both sides to advance alignment on shared cybersecurity standardisation priorities, laying the groundwork for the StandICT.eu Technical Working Group now mapping the EU Cyber Resilience Act security requirements against those of Japan’s JC-STAR scheme.
Identifying shared ground between differently regulated regions is what turns a demonstration into a durable basis for international cooperation.
