Deon Policy Institute has published its new report, Modernizing Consular Services for the Greek Diaspora: A Remote Identity Assurance Framework for Greeks Abroad, authored by Dimitrios Pilitsis and Nexus Apex Partners, available here.
Citizens in Greece now transact with the state almost entirely online through gov.gr, which offers more than 2,250 digital services. That channel, however, is not readily available for many of the services offered to the five million Greeks of the Diaspora. Obtaining a tax number, registering contact details, registering a wedding or a birth, and granting a power of attorney all still rely on a physical visit to the closest consulate — at a cost to citizens who must travel to the consulate or to Greece, and at a cost in delay as consular backlogs compound.
The report identifies a single cause behind all of it. Consular attendance is required not because these acts demand physical presence, but because the state has no way to establish, at a distance and to a sufficient standard, that the person is who they claim to be. Everything else — the representative, the travel, the appointment queue — follows from that one missing capability.
The Remote Identity Assurance Framework adds a single new way for a citizen abroad to prove who they are: a smartphone reads the chip in their passport or Greek e-ID, and a live photo of their face is checked against the photograph the chip holds. Existing routes — video calls and consulate visits — remain untouched, and the check itself is deliberately narrow, with no biometric database created and no image kept.