Today in European Digital
Portugal keeps its ID card next to Europe's new digital wallet
The most useful thing a state can do when it launches a new digital identity is leave the old one in place. Portugal is doing exactly that. Its Cartão de Cidadão will not disappear in 2026, as Pplware reports: the physical card will coexist with the new European Digital Identity Wallet, and citizens choose whether to show the plastic or a digital version on their smartphone.
That choice carries more weight coming from Lisbon. Last week Portugal put an official state service inside WhatsApp, a messaging app the state does not run. The wallet is the opposite bet: an identity layer built to a common European standard, meant to work the same way across member states. Keeping the card beside it is what makes the bet fair: a citizen without a smartphone still has a way to prove who they are.
A wallet people are free to ignore is the only kind they will come to trust.
Smart glasses are moving on a different clock. Worldwide shipments more than doubled to 4.2 million units in the first half of 2026, Heise reports, with Meta driving the growth. New models are launching in Germany, Meta's display glasses among them, and the privacy concerns over their cameras have not gone away. German regulators have answered with warnings so far. Hamburg's data protection officer raised the hidden cameras in August, and German authorities have since told wearers that the legal exposure is their own. A warning to the wearer is not a rule for the maker.
In Germany and France, data centres are the reverse case, with the rule already on the books. AI data centres generate significant waste heat, and Heise reports that it measurably warms the residential areas next to them. Germany and France require operators to put that heat to use. In the United States the same impact remains largely unregulated. That puts the burden where it belongs, on the company that makes the heat.
Consumers…
For Portuguese citizens nothing is taken away. The card stays valid and the phone version is an addition, so the sensible move is to try the wallet when it arrives and keep the card as the fallback.
Anyone in Germany tempted by the new glasses should read the authorities' warning as addressed to them personally. The camera on the frame belongs to the person wearing it, and so, in their reading, does the responsibility for what it records.
Businesses…
For anyone planning AI capacity in Germany or France, heat reuse is a requirement to build around, not a line in a sustainability report. The US leaves it largely unregulated, and with it the warming of the streets next door.
Government…
In August Heise reported that German authorities were considering a sales ban, a measure that would bind the seller rather than the wearer. Whether that option is pursued or quietly dropped decides whether German privacy law reaches the company selling the glasses, or only the people who put them on.
Why this matters for European digital sovereignty
The wallet's real test in the months ahead is not whether Portugal launches it, but whether people reach for their phone when the card would do. That takes everyday uses beyond showing an ID. The one to watch is age verification: in April the Commission urged member states to roll out its age verification app by year-end, an app that can integrate with the EU Digital Identity Wallet. If Portugal's age checks arrive through the wallet, the digital version gains a daily job, and choosing it stops being a matter of principle.
Sources
- Portugal's Cartão de Cidadão will coexist with the European Digital Identity Wallet, with citizens choosing card or smartphone · Pplware
- Smart glasses shipments more than doubled to 4.2 million units in H1 2026, driven by Meta, as new models launch in Germany · Heise Online
- AI data centres measurably warm adjacent residential areas; Germany and France mandate heat reuse · Heise Online
This daily debrief is published every evening. Source links lead to the original reporting.
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