ID matching

ID matching makes it safe to use your digital identity across borders

Both today's eIDAS network (eIDAS 1.0) and the new European digital identity wallets (eIDAS 2.0) are meant to let you use your eID in every European country. But one challenge remains: how do we recognize a digital user who has been in Norway before?

Try ID matching

ID matching makes it safe to use your digital identity across borders

Recognize users across borders

A Norwegian service knows you as the person registered in the Norwegian National Population Register. If you log in with a Swedish ID, the service only sees the Swedish ID. It does not know your Norwegian identity.

Kantega ID matching solves this by matching your home country ID with an ID in another country. This gives you secure and efficient access to digital services in other countries, and helps service providers recognize returning users. When you use services across borders, identity matching is what makes authentication work in practice.

Together with NOBID (The Nordic-Baltic eID Project), we have developed a solution for testing and piloting ID matching between the Nordic and Baltic countries.

Diagram of NOBID ID matching: The user logs in to a service in the host country with their home country wallet. The matching service authenticates the user with their home country PID, fetches the identity record from the host country population register and matches the two. If a match is found, a linked ID is issued to the wallet, which the user presents to access the service. If no match is found, the user is redirected to an ID registration service. — How Kantega ID matching works with eIDAS 2.0. The user logs in with the identity in the wallet from their home country (PID). The matching service links the PID to the identity registered in the population register of the host country. If the match succeeds, the user receives proof of this link, here called a Linked ID, and can then use the Linked ID together with their home country PID to log in to services in the host country.

How does it work?

An example: You are Swedish, but you have lived and worked in Norway. So you have both a Swedish and a Norwegian identity. Now you want to log in to a Norwegian service with your Swedish eID. The service only knows you as the person in the National Population Register, and does not know that the Swedish ID is also you. Here we describe how this can work with the digital identity wallet that will be available in Norway in 2027.

Log in to the service with a wallet

You choose to log in with a digital wallet and your personal ID, .

The service asks for two credentials: the Swedish PID and proof of a valid ID match. The proof shows that the Swedish ID and your Norwegian identity belong together. If you already have proof of a valid ID match, you share both and you are logged in.

If you do not have this proof, you can get it. The service then sends you to a matching service, such as Kantega ID matching.

Present your foreign PID to the matching service

The matching service asks you to log in with the Swedish PID. You scan a QR code with your phone and share the PID from your .

The service only asks for the details it needs to find you in the National Population Register. You see what it asks for, and you choose whether to share.

Search the National Population Register

The ID matching service searches the Norwegian National Population Register for identities with matching attributes. If an approved match is found, your Norwegian identity, together with the Swedish ID number, is passed on to the service.

Issuing proof of a valid ID match

After an approved identity match, proof of a valid ID match between the Swedish PID and your Norwegian identity is issued.

This proof can then be used together with the Swedish ID to log in to Norwegian services.

Once the proof has been issued, you are sent back to the service where you started.

Log in with PID and proof of a valid ID match

Now that you have received proof of a valid ID match in your wallet, this proof can be used together with the Swedish PID to log in to the service.

The next time you log in to the service, you share the same credentials again and do not need to go through the matching process again.

Beyond Norway and Sweden

The process above is just one example: a Swedish wallet and a Norwegian service with eIDAS 2.0. But the matching service is not limited to these two countries, and you do not have to wait for the wallets either. It also works with today's solutions in the eIDAS network.

Built for the Nordic and Baltic countries

We have built the matching service so that the other NOBID countries can use it too. In each country, we connect it to the population register and the eID solution there. We set up the rules for what counts as a match according to the requirements in that country. In Norway, the service is connected to ID-porten and the National Population Register.

Also with today's eIDAS network

The matching service also supports today's eIDAS network (eIDAS 1.0). There, you can log in to a Norwegian service through ID-porten. You choose eIDAS login and log in with the eID from your home country, for example Swedish BankID.

Try it yourself today

With synthetic test data, you can try ID matching yourself in the NOBID sandbox, both how it can work with today’s solutions and with a digital wallet.

Try ID matching on nobid.id