The FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance has announced a new initiative designed to accelerate the adoption of verifiable digital credentials and identity wallets. Its undertaking hopes to let technology organisations build a trust-based ecosystem for digital identities, helping move the industry beyond the fragmented and sometimes incompatible solutions currently prevalent. Its initiative will provide a framework for best practice.
The initiative arrives at a time when governments and large businesses worldwide are focused on providing (and increasingly, insisting on) digital identities, such as the increased momentum behind the European Digital Identity Wallet, which will be required to do business online by EU and EU-trading businesses next year. The need for secure and interoperable digital credentials is apparent, therefore, driven by a need for greater convenience, better security, and the ability to access services (especially public sector providers) and verify identity online.
“The FIDO Alliance united the industry to solve the password problem, and the world is now embracing the simplicity and security of passkeys – with billions of accounts now benefiting from this significant shift in user authentication,” said Andrew Shikiar, CEO of FIDO Alliance.
The new initiative builds directly on the success of passkeys, and aims to extend the principles of secure and user-friendly authentication to the realm of digital credentials and identity for organisations and digital entities.
A three-pillar strategy for a trusted ecosystem
The FIDO Alliance’s approach centres around a three-part programme, developed in collaboration with industry partners including ISO, EMVCo, The OpenID Foundation, and W3C. A collaborative approach helped ensure the initiative’s success and cohesive implementation, FIDO says.
Wallet certification establishes the certification criteria for digital wallets, based on requirements that govern user privacy, security protocols, and compatibility with credential issuers and relying parties; the entities that need to verify credentials when presented. Certification will provide assurance to users and developers that digital wallets are built by trustworthy parties and thus are capable of handling sensitive information responsibly.
The second pillar focuses on specification development. This work will concentrate on refining and expanding existing protocols developed by collaborating organisations. FIDO Alliance will contribute to the discussion and development by improving cross-device credential presentation regardless of device used. It will also define credential schemes tailored to emerging online needs such as loyalty programmes and digital payments. The Alliance hopes a proactive approach will anticipate future requirements and ensure the framework remains relevant and ultimately, adaptable to change.
The usability and relying party (RP) enablement work is to boost the adoption of the framework and any emerging standards. Drawing on its experience from passkeys, the FIDO Alliance will provide branding resources, tools, and guidance from its staff and website. Support is hoped to streamline implementations, reduce barriers to entry for new players, and help ensure parties can integrate acceptable digital credential verification systems into existing systems.
The overall goal is to simplify the process of issuing and verifying digital credentials and help identity services operate smoothly across different wallet providers and issuers. The required level of interoperability is important for widespread adoption, the Alliance says, and will prevent the emergence of siloed systems of limited use in the wilds of the internet.
Loffie Jordaan, Business Solutions Architect at AAMVA and Convenor of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC17/WG10, spoke of the importance of wallets meeting WG10 protocols and any additional security requirements required by credential issuers. “The FIDO work will allow issuing authorities to confirm if a wallet being presented for provisioning has been certified against a profile representing the issuing authority’s protocol… ” he said.
The framework aims to ensure a consistent level of assurance and security across the entire digital credential ecosystem. While still in its early stages, the FIDO Alliance’s initiative represents a step towards digital credentials being a reliable and convenient way to verifying identity online. Initial publications from the programme are expected to be released in 2026.
(Image source: “Obscuring Identity” by Riggzy is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.)
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