Today, navigating digital ecosystems is more complex than it needs to be! Users face increased onboarding times, fragmented processes, and inconsistent access methods across different platforms.
Making things worse, the everyday identification and access management mechanisms, like identity cards, passports and employee badges, are often not usable here, due to technological gaps. This can make end-users reluctant to even start interacting with the data and services of an ecosystem, or worse, to introduce shortcuts that jeopardize security, like simple or reusable passwords, to make their lives easier.
At T-Systems, we believe that gaining access to data and services across ecosystems should be simple, secure, and stress-free, and that the solution lies in the seamless usage of Digital Credentials. That’s why we’re embracing a future where open, interoperable identity solutions redefine how we interact in digital spaces.
Pontus-X: Enabling a secure and open data economy
The evolution of digital identity is accelerating, and Gaia-X ecosystems are leading the way by leveraging Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) principles for security, scalability and openness. In the European Union, the EUDI Wallet initiative is setting OpenID for Verifiable Credentials as the future standard for credential exchange, ensuring seamless interoperability. At its foundation, the eIDAS Architecture and Reference Framework (ARF) establishes standardized European identities for both legal entities and individuals.
By aligning with these standards, the Pontus-X Data Space Lighthouse and Gaia-X are fostering an open, competitive marketplace where identity solutions are scalable, interoperable, and free from vendor lock-in. However, while open identity ecosystems are crucial, secure, managed solutions are equally important for businesses looking to operate confidently in this new digital landscape.
That’s where T-Systems Trust & Participate comes in—filling the gap between open identity frameworks and enterprise-ready solutions. Our services ensure that both custodial and non-custodial identity solutions are available to organizations and users alike, providing scalability, compliance, and security without sacrificing ease of use.
How it works: A glimpse into the user journey
While gaining access to relevant data and services is highly dependent on the ecosystem, its governance rules, technology stack and business processes, on a high level, it usually consists of five steps:
- User discovers the service that they would like to use
- User ensures that the provider can be trusted and that they agree with the Provider’s Terms and Conditions
- User request access to the data / service
- Provider ensures that the user can be trusted, and that they fulfill the access / usage criteria associated with the data / service
- Provider grants access to the requested asset
This bidirectional verification is one of the core principles of data ecosystems, ensuring that each participant, be it a consumer or provider, is trusted.
Pontus-X Marketplace already has a robust mechanism for both data/service discovery and provider verification, and to make this end-to-end flow secure and seamless, we will be introducing additional capabilities, allowing the consumer to be verified as well, by leveraging managed Credential Wallet, through T-Systems Trust & Participate. Let’s see it in action!
Demo
The journey starts with the user finding a service offer on the Pontus-X Marketplace they would like to consume. To ensure interoperability across ecosystems, every service offer in the Marketplace is described according to Gaia-X principles, allowing the user to verify both the service offer and its provider.
To prove they meet the qualifications for accessing the offer, the user would scan the provided QR code with their Credential Wallet, allowing them to present necessary Credentials to the provider, for verification purposes. On the service provider side, another component of the T-Systems Trust & Participate, called the Verifier, is doing the heavy lifting, interacting with Credential Wallets, both T-Systems and non-T-Systems ones, to obtain relevant information.
Image 1. Service offer page on the Marketplace, with the verification QR code
After scanning the QR code with their phone, the Credential Wallet app, part of the T-Systems Trust & Participate solution, shows the user the information about what is requested from them and what can be shared, based on the current content of the Wallet. In this demonstration, the user is requested to prove they are a Gaia-X Compliant participant.
The user can see who is requesting the information, for which purpose, and how their data will be handled after it is shared. Users should carefully inspect the request, ensuring it matches what was described in the service offer page they scanned the QR code from, to ensure they are not sharing data with an unauthorized party, or sharing more data than expected.
If everything looks correct, upon agreeing to share the data, the Credentials are collected, signed, to prove user’s intent to share them with the requester, and then sent to the service provider for verification.
(Right) Step by step execution of the presentation
With the data sent, the service provider can now decide whether to allow access to the user or not. In this demonstration, the Verifier component will pass the provided Credentials to the Compliance service of a Gaia-X Digital Clearing House node, to confirm that the user is a Gaia-X Compliant participant.
After the Gaia-X Compliance check, the result is shared with the provider, who can use it, together with any other results they have, such as proof of payment, to decide whether to grant access to the service or not. In our case, the verification was successful, so the Use button has been enabled. The consumer can now successfully gain access to the service, fully verified!
A new era in digital identity – powered by T-Systems
By leveraging open standards, interoperable identity solutions, and user-centric design, we are accelerating access to digital ecosystems. The combination of SSI, OpenID, and eIDAS frameworks allows for seamless, secure, and efficient credential management—bringing us closer to a future where accessing data spaces is no more complicated than using your phone.
Discover how T-Systems Trust & Participate can help you navigate the future of digital identity.
