Canada and the European Union are teaming up on controversial new digital agreements covering everything from artificial intelligence to digital identity and media censorship.
Canada and the European Union are teaming up on controversial new digital agreements covering everything from artificial intelligence to digital identity and media censorship. The move has sparked immediate warnings from civil-liberties groups about a looming threat to privacy and online freedom.
The agreements were announced Monday in Montreal during the first meeting of the EU–Canada Digital Partnership Council, held alongside the G7 Industry, Digital and Technology Ministerial meeting.
The Council was co-chaired by EU Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen and Canada’s Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, Evan Solomon.
In a joint statement, both sides said the initiative aims to “boost competitiveness, innovation and economic resilience.” Specific commitments include developing “trustworthy artificial intelligence technologies that respect fundamental rights” and accelerating AI adoption across healthcare, manufacturing, energy, culture and public services.
To advance this work, Canada and the EU signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Artificial Intelligence. It will support joint standards development, expand research collaboration and create shared access to large AI infrastructures and computing capacity.
They also agreed to create a structured dialogue on data spaces used to train advanced AI models.
A second memorandum, focused on digital credentials and trust services, commits the two jurisdictions to explore interoperability between digital identity systems. This includes pilot testing, technical standards and “solutions based on digital identity wallets,” according to the EU summary of the agreement.
The EU said the partnership marks “a significant step in strengthening our cooperation to build the economy of tomorrow,” with Virkkunen noting that “no single region can face the digital transformation alone.”
Solomon said the initiative reflects long-standing ties between the two partners, adding: “The Canada-EU relationship is based on shared values and interests, a long history of close cooperation and strong people-to-people ties. Through the Digital Partnership, Canada and the EU are shaping a digital future that benefits people, grows the economy and builds trust between countries.”
The section of the agreement dealing with digital identity systems has drawn criticism from constitutional rights advocates.
The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms said in a post on X that cooperation on “digital credentials and trust services… including solutions based on digital identity wallets” represents a step toward a nationwide digital identification regime. The group warned that the framework risks “pushing citizens into a Digital ID system that will control and track our money and reduce our freedom.”
The partnership also includes working together on ‘supporting independent media, combating foreign information manipulation and addressing risks posed by generative AI’.
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EU-Canada Digital Partnership Zeroes In on Digital Identity Wallets
The European Union and Canada have placed interoperable digital identity wallets at the center of a newly formalized digital partnership, signaling a potential cross-Atlantic alignment on digital credentials and trust services that could reshape how citizens and businesses authenticate in both jurisdictions. The first meeting of the Canada-EU Digital Partnership Council was held in Montreal on December 8, co-chaired by Canada’s Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Evan Solomon and European Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen.
The Council builds on the EU-Canada Digital Partnership announced in late 2023 and the Strategic Partnership of the Future joint statement adopted at the June 2025 EU-Canada summit. Those earlier documents explicitly called out digital identity and digital credentials as areas for deeper cooperation, including an intent to establish interoperable digital identities and digital credentials that can support cross-border interactions between citizens and enterprises. The Montreal meeting translates that high-level commitment into a more concrete roadmap.
According to a joint statement and a Canadian government news release, the two sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Digital Credentials and Trust Services that commits them to collaborative action on technical interoperability, standards alignment and pilot projects. The MoU envisages a forum where EU and Canadian authorities will jointly test digital credential technologies, share information on regulatory and technical approaches, and develop real-world use cases and pilots aimed at interoperability between digital identity wallets and associated trust services. A parallel MoU on artificial intelligence focuses on AI standards and infrastructure, but the digital identity work is framed as equally important for building trusted digital ecosystems.
For the EU, the partnership provides another anchor point for the European Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet initiative, which aims to give EU citizens a standardized way to hold government credentials and use them across public and private services. Canada, meanwhile, has been advancing its own digital credential agenda through initiatives such as the Pan-Canadian Trust Framework and a patchwork of provincial pilots, but has not yet launched a single national wallet. The new MoU suggests that any Canadian federal wallet or credential system will be developed with cross-border interoperability in mind, likely drawing on international standards such as W3C Verifiable Credentials and eIDAS-aligned trust frameworks.
From an industry perspective, the EU-Canada digital partnership could open new opportunities for vendors working on wallet infrastructures, verifiable credential issuance and cross-border trust services. It also raises policy questions that will matter to corporate identity teams, including how liability and assurance levels will be handled when credentials are accepted across jurisdictions, how attributes from a foreign wallet can be consumed under local privacy and AML rules, and whether mutual recognition of trust services could eventually extend to private sector identity providers. With both sides emphasizing digital sovereignty and resilience, the pilot work on wallets and credentials will be watched closely as a test case for international alignment on high-assurance digital identity.
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EU and Canada agree to collaborate on digital ID mutual recognition, pilots
New Digital Partnership Council inks MoU in first meeting Representatives of the European Union and Canada emerged from the meeting of the EU-Canada Digital Partnership Council on Monday with an agreement to work together on making their respective digital IDs work in each jurisdiction. The continental bloc and the country signed a Memorandum of Understanding on “Digital Credentials, Digital Identity Wallets and Trust Services,” one of several deals to work together on emerging technologies.
The MoU refers to the Canada-EU Summit Joint Statement of June 23, 2025. That statement included a commitment by each to align their digital frameworks “to establish interoperable digital identities and digital credentials to facilitate interactions between our citizens and our businesses.”
In the wake of that statement, the Digital ID & Authentication Council of Canada (DIACC) endorsed the prospective digital trade agreement and chance for mutual recognition of digital IDs.
Now, the EU and Canada will explore the creation of a “dedicated forum for regular expert dialogue” to facilitate joint testing of credentials, including those using digital identity wallets. They will collaborate on joint use cases and pilot projects to advance cross-border interoperability, building on Canada’s new digital ID framework and the EU Digital Identity Wallet framework. The respective governments will also work together on sharing information and best practices, jointly test digital credential technologies and explore approaches to standards formation, and discuss the path to future mutual recognition, according to the MoU contained within the parties’ joint statement.
Monday’s meeting was co-chaired by Canadian Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Evan Solomon and European Commission EVP for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy Henna Virkkunen.
The parties also agreed to cooperate on AI research and adoption, standards development for the digital economy, R&D on quantum technologies and weather forecasting.
The EU and Singapore held their second Digital Partnership Council meeting last Monday, where they outlined similar plans to collaborate on digital identity interoperability.
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EU & Canada Begin Making The GLOBAL Digital ID System By Linking Their Tech
European and Canadian officials have expanded their cooperation on digital policy with new agreements that link digital identity infrastructure, artificial intelligence development, and management of online information.
The partnership, presented as a joint effort to strengthen “trust” and “information integrity,” commits both sides to exploring systems that would connect citizens’ digital credentials across borders while sharing data for AI research.
Two memoranda of understanding were signed: one on Digital Credentials and Trust Services and another on Artificial Intelligence.
The digital credentials agreement creates a working forum for joint experiments, technical coordination, and the testing of “digital identity wallets.”
These wallets are software tools that store verified identity documents, allowing people to confirm their identity online or in person using standardized credentials backed by government trust frameworks.
The artificial intelligence memorandum focuses on the infrastructure behind large AI systems.
It establishes a “structured dialogue on data spaces,” a term referring to controlled environments where data can be exchanged among multiple organizations under a common governance framework.
While the purpose is described as supporting innovation, such data-sharing arrangements could also increase the circulation of personal or behavioral data between jurisdictions, raising questions about oversight and consent.
Beyond technical matters, the AI plan promises to “accelerate AI adoption in strategic sectors” and to develop “advanced AI models for the public good.” It sets out to align Europe’s and Canada’s approaches on infrastructure, standards, and regulation, drawing the two regions closer in how they design and control large AI ecosystems.
Another section of the partnership turns to media and information control. The governments agreed to “cooperation on enhancing information integrity online” and pledged to fund efforts “strengthening independent media by supporting local journalism.”
Officially, this is aimed at combating “foreign information manipulation” and addressing the challenges of generative AI.
The phrase “information integrity” appears with growing frequency in international policy documents, and its use in the EU–Canada partnership lands in the middle of an already expanding global trend.
The wording may sound neutral, but it often signals a preference for managed information flows rather than open public debate. A July 2025 development at the United Nations illustrates why the term can raise concerns.
The UN’s first Global Risk Report placed what it called “mis- and disinformation” among the most severe global threats. Inside that same report, the organization announced a new task force whose purpose is to examine how unauthorized narratives might interfere with the UN’s operations, particularly the 2030 Agenda.
The framing is presented as a matter of public welfare, yet the described mission is not about encouraging transparency or open discussion. It is about maintaining a communication environment that protects institutional priorities.
According to the report, survey participants from governments, NGOs, companies, and other groups broadly supported coordinated government action and multistakeholder coalitions to confront the identified risks.
What is missing is any call for more open communication or stronger protections for free expression. The dominant approach favors centralized management of public narratives, reinforcing the idea that the solution to contested information is tighter control rather than broader participation.
The first meeting of the Canada–EU Digital Partnership Council was held in Montreal on December 8, co-chaired by Canada’s Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Evan Solomon and European Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen.
This meeting put earlier commitments into action, following the EU–Canada Digital Partnership announced in late 2023 and the Strategic Partnership of the Future statement adopted at the June 2025 summit.
For the European Union, this partnership supports its European Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet initiative, which aims to give citizens a unified digital container for verified credentials usable across public and private services.
Canada has been pursuing similar goals through its Pan-Canadian Trust Framework and several provincial pilots, but it has not yet introduced a single national wallet. The cross-border cooperation suggests that any federal system in Canada will be built with global standards such as W3C Verifiable Credentials and eIDAS in mind.