DSI is an indicator that feeds into the annual Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) report, which comes out each year, tracking EU Member States' progress on digital development, including digital skills.

The DSI was first piloted in 2014 and today, it is used to monitor the ambitious policy target of reaching a minimum of 80% of the EU population with at least basic digital skills by 2030. DSI 2.0 comes with an updated methodology to measure digital skills via the tool. The European Commission's Digital Competence Framework (DigComp - now DigComp 2.0) underpins the DSI as an underlying theoretical framework, together with an empirical validation.