EU digital ID wallets are quietly handing Google and Apple the keys

European member states building EUDI identity wallets are wiring in remote-attestation services from Google (Play Integrity API) and Apple (Managed Device Attestation) to confirm that wallet apps run on untampered hardware. The catch, flagged by Waag alongside reporting from Follow the Money and Android Authority, is that Play Integrity does more than check device integrity — it treats the Google Play Store as the source of truth, favors Google-licensed Android, and effectively pushes users toward a Google account and Play-Store installs. That design shuts out de-Googled systems like GrapheneOS and e/OS, which Waag argues amounts to a Digital Markets Act violation baked directly into public infrastructure.

The deeper problem is governance. The EU’s Architecture Reference Framework recommends but does not mandate Google and Apple attestation, and member states have interpreted that recommendation wildly differently. The Netherlands and Italy deploy Play Integrity unconditionally, with Italy treating it as required, while Switzerland dropped it over data-sovereignty and freedom-of-choice concerns and relies on Android’s open Hardware Attestation API instead. That inconsistency undercuts the wallets’ own interoperability mandate and turns governments into de facto enforcers of a private platform’s ecosystem rules.

Waag’s stance is that ID wallets are critical public infrastructure and must stay free of vendor lock-in — accessible regardless of which OS a citizen runs. Its Mobifree research found that compatibility with government and payment apps is a make-or-break condition for people considering de-Googled phones, so excluding those systems from the wallet also kneecaps the alternative-OS ecosystem. The recommended fix is to strike Google and Apple attestation from the reference framework entirely and mandate open, hardware-based attestation, with Switzerland cited as proof it works.