SIDE-CIC - Social Identity Cards in Construction – Social Dialogue Project

Brief description and main aims:

The construction industry in Europe has evolved dramatically over the past few decades, both in terms of technology, but also the sociology of the people working on and running construction sites. The sector can take advantage of the new technologies to improve transparency on construction sites, especially in the context of the growing fragmentation and increasing mobility of workers in the construction industry. This has led to more complexity of subcontracting chains and demands new ways to identify and verify workers and companies present on construction sites.

Across Europe, numerous sectoral social ID card schemes have been developed at national, regional, and local levels, all with various characteristics and functions. The project will identify good practice, the possibility for interconnection and propose input for a possible framework in the area of sectoral social ID cards.

The objective of this project is to guarantee the enforcement of EU rules, create a more transparent environment for workers, employers, and labour authorities and to foster fairer mobility of labour in the construction sector. The approach that the European social partners propose is:

• To map the current situation of social identity cards in the EU, particularly as they pertain to the construction sector.
• To carry out a feasibility study, focusing on the interconnectivity of the existing national schemes and contribute to defining the needs and possible regulatory gaps in the EU framework. The study should address two main aspects: the legal and technical framework.

Why FIEC is dealing with this topic:

 In the project conclusions on social ID cards in the construction industry carried out by EFBWW and FIEC in 2015, it is recommended that “possible EU initiatives related to social ID card schemes should serve as a complementary tool to the existing national social ID schemes and must demonstrate a clear added value to the national scheme”. Similarly, a key question - which was raised during the 2015 project proceedings and which, regrettably, could not be resolved within the scope of the study - relates to the use, storage and processing of personal data. This question should be seen in relation to the various objectives of the social ID card schemes and the possibility to cross-border data.

Considering the latest developments in this field, it became clear that the approach taken by the present project should be a different one. Following an in-depth mapping exercise, the main idea of this project – i.e., the feasibility part of the project – is to focus on the interconnectivity of the existing national schemes (that would opt to be involved in this study) and shall also contribute to defining the needs and possible regulatory gaps in the EU framework.