The Open Identity Exchange (OIX) and Trust over IP Foundation (ToIP) have unified their expertise to deliver a digitally secure future for a record number of organisations and their consumers.
It represents a new era in digital identity trust. OIX and ToIP have a combined worldwide membership of over 360 organisations, including some of the world’s largest stakeholders in a digital ID future. They are now ideally placed to forge ahead to enable a shared, user-focused agenda of global digital trust that works for everyone.
Speaking on the merger, John Jordan, Executive Director of ToIP said that the “two organisations have a common vision – building trust online and simplifying and standardising how trust is established. Our collective knowledge, expertise and research will be a powerful force ensuring the benefits of digital ID are realised by everyone involved – the end consumers, governments, relying parties and ID providers.”
Nick Mothershaw, Chief Identity Strategist at IOX added that: “The goals and strategies of both organisations highly complement each other. We have both already made significant progress, which has been reflected in the growth of our memberships and the self-sovereign alignment of the new OIX trust framework.”
It Stacks Up
Born from the self-sovereign identity movement, ToIP’s widely recognised ToIP Stack is defining a complete architecture for internet-scale digital trust that combines the technical requirements for cryptographic trust at the machine layer with the governance requirements for human trust at the business, legal, and social layers.
Equally, the OIX’s comprehensive work around the governance of digital ID has been highly influential and widely accepted. It complements the governance elements of the ToIP stack. A prime example is OIX’s recently launched Guide to Trust Frameworks for Smart Digital ID that encompasses over 10 years of research and in-depth evaluation of existing Trust Frameworks around the world.
A Unified Front
OIX’s guide outlines how both a simple digital ID (such as digitised credentials within a wallet) and a smart digital ID (one that understands rules ‘to selectively disclose, derivate a specific attribute and aggregate several single attributes’ per the EU’s new eIDAS2 ARF) can meet the needs of all the parties involved in a digital relationship or transaction. With a specific focus on placing the needs of the end users at the forefront (also a key driver for ToIP), the guide defines the roles, responsibilities, principles, policies, procedures, and standards needed.
While remaining technology agnostic, a particular feature of the guide is its alignment with the self-sovereign paradigm of decentralised identifiers (DIDs) and verifiable credentials stored in individual digital wallets. This mapping of OIX Trust Framework roles to self-sovereign identity roles is clearly explained in the guide.
The lack of a globally interoperable digital trust infrastructure has presented an urgent and widely acknowledged need for both technical standards and governance that ensure trust can be established quickly and safely across all sectors and borders.
John Jordan,
Executive Director, ToIP
Interoperability for All
In the merger’s aftermath, digital ID security is on its way to a much more inclusive future, with Jordan outlining the problem their solution solves as: “The lack of a globally interoperable digital trust infrastructure has presented an urgent and widely acknowledged need for both technical standards and governance that ensure trust can be established quickly and safely across all sectors and borders.”
Mothershaw echoed these sentiments, adding that: “Various initiatives around the world are trying to address the same issue with differing approaches. It is a highly complex global challenge that needs a united global response, and one that ensures the needs of all parties are met.”
If the needs of all parties are indeed met, self-sovereign digital identity could have a bright future indeed.
Want to Learn More About the Evolution of Trust?
Why not register to attend our exclusive Chief Wine Officer networking event with Adobe, discussing how customer data can help you build trust and improve your ROI – tailored to UK-based C-level and senior Marketing, IT, and CX leaders
