The Belgian Itsme competitor MyID has been waiting for government approval for the Federal Authentication Service for months so that the solution can once again be an alternative for secure login to government services. This permission was not granted, although competition from abroad is now on the way.

MyID is considering legal action against the Belgian government. Belga knows this. The Belgian company U2U Consult, which developed the competitor Itsme, has been waiting for months for government approval to restart its services. MyID must be allowed on the Federal Authentication Service. This platform consolidates the registration systems of government websites. After a brief launch at the end of 2022, MyID lost this access.

U2U Consult’s app broke Itsme’s monopoly at the beginning of November 2022. However, in the same month, the Belgian Center for Cybersecurity discovered security problems in the application, which was immediately taken offline again. MyID was actually supposed to restart in 2023, but things remained quiet.

No more weak points

Belga says that various studies have now shown that there are no longer any vulnerabilities in the app. However, the government is not giving the green light for a restart. According to U2U Consult, there is no clear reason. Although the company wants to be a partner of the government, it no longer rules out legal action. The goal is to be available again by tax season.

MyID is losing a lot of momentum due to the postponement. Smart-ID from Estonia is now available in Belgium and this app also focuses on online authentication. Smart-ID is the market leader in northern Europe, so the new competitor has a lot of experience. The fact that MyID cannot be made available to the general public, but Smart-ID is now on the rise, is not an ideal situation for U2U Consult.