The OpenID Foundation is delighted to announce its re-election to the OpenWallet Foundation’s (OWF) Board of Directors as an Observer. This position allows the OpenID Foundation to continue representing the OWF’s associate sponsors, which include a diverse array of non-profit, academic, and government entities.

For the year ahead, the OpenID Foundation is especially focused on fostering proactive communication amongst the associate members, and ensuring the technical developments of the OWF deliver on the OpenID Foundation’s mission and roadmap for 2025. 

Joseph Heenan, Standards Special and Certification Director at the OpenID Foundation and CTO at Authlete, will once again serve as the associate members’ representative on the Board, with Gail Hodges, Executive Director at the OpenID Foundation, as the alternate representative. Their leadership will help ensure that the OpenID Foundation and other associate members remain actively engaged in key discussions and decisions that shape the future of digital identity.

A commitment to open, secure, and interoperable digital wallets

The OWF is a collaborative, open initiative under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation, headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. It provides a secure environment where developers work together on standards-based open-source components. These components empower issuers, wallet providers, and relying parties to build implementations that prioritize user choice, security, and privacy.

A continued role in shaping the digital identity landscape

This marks the second time the OpenID Foundation has been elected to this role. Since the OWF’s inception in 2023, the OpenID Foundation has been an active contributor, and its continued presence on the Board underscores the value of its expertise. The one-year term allows the OpenID Foundation to participate in all Board meetings, share insights, provide feedback, and influence critical developments in this space.

A key takeaway from this engagement with the OWF is the growing adoption of OpenID Foundation’s standards across OWF projects. The OpenID Foundation is particularly pleased that many OWF initiatives are integrating these standards and participating in the testing of the OpenID Foundation’s conformance tools for the OpenID for Verifiable Credentials family of specifications. This adoption underscores the importance of secure, standardized approaches in digital identity and wallet implementations. 

Looking ahead

The OpenID Foundation remains committed to fostering innovation and security in the digital identity landscape. By sharing its extensive experience with OWF and other ecosystems, the Foundation continues to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of identity standards.

About the OpenID Foundation

The OpenID Foundation (OIDF) is a global open standards body committed to helping people assert their identity wherever they choose. Founded in 2007, we are a community of technical experts leading the creation of open identity standards that are secure, interoperable, and privacy preserving. The Foundation’s OpenID Connect standard is now used by billions of people across millions of applications. In the last five years, the Financial Grade API has become the standard of choice for Open Banking and Open Data implementations, allowing people to access and share data across entities. Today, the OpenID Foundation’s standards are the connective tissue to enable people to assert their identity and access their data at scale, the scale of the internet, enabling “networks of networks” to interoperate globally. Individuals, companies, governments and non-profits are encouraged to join or participate. Find out more at openid.net.