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The FIDO Alliance has launched an initiative to accelerate the adoption of verifiable digital credentials and identity wallets.
The initiative will be led by the Alliance’s Digital Credentials Working Group (DCWG), EMVCo, the International Standardization Organization, The OpenID Foundation, and the Worldwide Web Consortium are also partnering on the initiative to help create a “trusted and interoperable identity wallet ecosystem,” the Alliance says.
Identity wallets are secure apps that store, manage, and share verified digital versions of personal credentials, such as driver’s licenses and passports, and help simplify online identity verification without the need for physical documents.
The DCWG will develop specifications and certification programs, collaborate with other standards organizations, implement global adoption initiatives, and unite stakeholders, the organization says. The DCWG’s goal is to pave the way for digital credentials to be as pervasive and user-friendly as passkeys and help secure the entire identity account lifecycle for consumers and businesses globally, the FIDO Alliance says. FIDO stands for fast identity online.
Specifically, the DCWG will establish certification criteria for digital wallets and develop specifications to complement existing protocols and frameworks from industry partners, such as the OpenID Foundation, ISO, and other standards organizations. In the case of the latter, The FIDO Alliance will develop specifications for presenting credentials across devices by expanding the existing FIDO cross-device protocol.
The FIDO alliance says it also intends to define credential schemes to address new use cases as they emerge and provide the payments industry with the tools, branding, and best-practice guidelines for implementation.
“It will take the cooperation of many to address the challenges and opportunities of digital identities on the Web,” Seth Dobbs, president and chief executive of the World Wide Web Consortium, says in a statement. “W3C is pleased to work with FIDO Alliance and others on the technical foundation for interoperable, secure, privacy-preserving digital credentials that work across different platforms and systems.”
