itsme® now available for 16 and 17-years-old
Identity app focuses on promoting digital self-reliance among young people
From now on, young people aged 16 and over can also create an account with itsme®. The ID app wants to help reducing the digital divide among our youth. In fact, one-third of young people in Belgium appear to be struggling with the digital (r)evolution.
Around 80% of adult Belgians (6.5 million of them, to be precise) have an itsme® account, which they use to log in digitally to their bank, telecoms provider, health insurance fund, government services, etc. But until now, young people have been unable to create their own profile on the popular login app, whereas there are an increasing number of situations in which under-18s would also find it of value to use an itsme® account: enrolling for higher education, dealing with the admin department for a holiday job, registering for a driving test, registering online for the European elections, voting online at the Flemish Youth Council, requesting personal information from your Flemish Citizen Profile app (Burgerprofiel), logging in to the CovidSafeBE app – and so on.
Activation via the bank
After a technical and legal review, itsme® has decided to open up the identity app to 16 and 17-year-olds in Belgium as well. This means they will now be able to create their own itsme® account via their bank (Belfius, BNP Paribas Fortis, ING, KBC, CBC, Fintro or Hello Bank), if they have recently had their eID card scanned in a bank branch. Creating an itsme® account via the electronic identity card is not technically possible. This is because the signature certificate on the eID that is required to confirm your itsme® registration is only activated from the age of 18 onwards.