Digital identity wallets will let people store and present credentials such as national ID, driving licenses, and diplomas from their phone. Under the EU's revised eIDAS regulation (Regulation (EU) 2024/1183), all member states must offer a European Digital Identity Wallet, and the Norwegian Digitalisation Agency is developing a Norwegian digital wallet with a national sandbox for testing. Whether these wallets protect privacy and are trusted and used depends on the cryptography, and just as much on how they are regulated, governed, and designed for real people.

Our project studies digital identity wallets as sociotechnical systems. On the technical side, we work on privacy-preserving and post-quantum secure credentials, building on anonymous credentials. On the social side, we study trust, governance, and inclusion. The goal is secure, privacy-preserving, and democratically aligned digital identity wallets for Norway. For a longer introduction to the technology and the open challenges, see this overview of digital identity wallets.

The project is part of Cryptology and Social Life, funded by NTNU through the strategic initiative "A more resilient society", and runs from 2025 to 2031.

We are hiring four PhD candidates, one in each participating department, who will work together across cryptography, computer science and the social sciences. The positions will be announced on 1 November 2026. The four projects and their main supervisors are:

• Quantum-safe verifiable credentials – Kristian Gjøsteen, Department of Mathematical Sciences
• Privacy technologies and system analysis of digital wallets – Tjerand Silde, Department of Information Security and Communication Technology
• Digital infrastructure in the public sector – Eric Monteiro, Department of Computer Science
• Security culture, trust and society – Emil André Røyrvik, Department of Sociology and Political Science

Feel free to contact the supervisors if you are interested in the positions.