Scaling interop, tackling delegated authority, and expanding global reach

The OpenID Foundation Board was proud to present its ‘Take on the Landscape’ session on June 2, 2025, at Identiverse. Moderated by Executive Director Gail Hodges, the panel explored the OpenID Foundation’s rapidly expanding impact across the identity ecosystem, from scaled up interoperability testing to critical new specifications supporting use cases like Agentic AI, age assurance, and digital estate planning.

Scaling interoperability - 15 hackathons in 8 Months

The session opened with a focus on the momentum behind interoperability events and proving out the effectiveness of several families of OIDF specs. In just eight months, the OpenID Foundation has supported 15 interop events and hackathons globally. These efforts are accelerating the adoption and testing of OpenID specs in real world implementations.

Board members highlighted the tangible benefits. Atul Tulshibagwale (SGNL), who has led three Shared Signals interop events in just over a year, emphasized that these events give implementers a clear target and a pressure testing ground for deployments. At this same event, the first interop event for the AuthZen specification was also held. The results of those two interop events were published April 2nd, with “lines going out the door” for Gartner IAM Summit attendees to observe the specs in person.

Nancy Cam-Winget, OpenID Foundation’s Treasurer, echoed this, noting her Cisco team’s participation in the recent California DMV hackathons co-hosted by the OpenID Foundation. The event enabled multiple vendors to mature the specifications in the Digital Credentials Protocols (DCP) working group while also demonstrating that the many use cases in varying industries are enabled through the use of these decentralized credentials.

Dima Postnikov, Vice Chair, spotlighted the energy and collaboration at a recent interop event in Sweden, where OpenID Federation experts were able to identify and close residual spec gaps in a trusted environment. 

Gail added that in the most recent OpenID for Verifiable Credentials test event on May 5, implementers achieved a 90% plus passing rate (in both pairwise aggregate results, and multi-wallet tests with a single verifier), offering strong validation that the specs are both rigorous and interoperable.

Delegated authority - a cross cutting specification priority

A standout theme in the panel was the growing demand for an OIDF specification addressing delegated authority, a foundational requirement across multiple emerging use cases. From protecting children online through age assurance, to enabling secure Agentic AI interactions and digital estate management after death, this theme resonated as one of the most critical specification needs on the horizon. This spec is being progressed in the OIDF eKYC & IDA Working Group.

Board Chair Nat Sakimura emphasized the agility of the OpenID Foundation’s spec development model. Just two interoperable implementations and a 60 day public review are required to push a draft toward finalization, as long as all other processes have been followed, including a consensus on the approach. This flexible yet robust process is well suited to the evolving demands at the intersection of identity and AI.

Supporting 26 ecosystems, and growing

Gail introduced the breadth of the 26 ecosystems currently supported by the OpenID Foundation through specification due diligence, certification, and strategic engagement. This includes efforts in open banking, health, data, and identity, many in emerging markets. Gail mentioned that this work spans Global South and North countries, with multiple ecosystems in some jurisdictions: 

Ali Adnan highlighted Authlete’s firsthand experience working across diverse ecosystems around the world, and emphasized the critical role that the OpenID Foundation plays in helping these ecosystems bring their deployments to market. He addressed how the OpenID Foundation supports their objectives through consistent specification deployment, self-certification programs, and ongoing relationship management.

Nat Sakimura stressed the importance of prioritizing the needs of countries where the majority of the world’s population resides. Listening to these markets ensures the OpenID Foundation specifications can truly deliver on the promise of global interoperability.

Dima expanded on the work of the new Ecosystem Community Group, which is developing reference architectures to help governments and implementers accelerate adoption across sectors. Gail also noted the importance of the OpenID Foundation’s role as a co-organizer in multi stakeholder initiatives like SIDI Hub, where the focus is on enabling cross border interoperability for digital identity.

Convergence of Themes

As part of the context setting, the Board also reflected on the convergence we see of Faster Payments, Open Data and Digital Identity with some countries starting with these use cases linked together, and some starting by approaching them separately. 

The Board also observed that these three use cases are often combined with a few others under the umbrella or “new packaging” and called  “Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI)."  DPI is terminology used commonly amongst global south community participants but less so in the global north. The OIDF noted that DPI tends to also include a couple of additional areas around eSignatures, Digital Government, and Civil Registries. However, the Board highlighted that the linking of DPI under a single umbrella can complicate the governance picture where some areas like Faster Payments and Digital Identity have more reliance on institutions and private entities outside of the control of a single jurisdiction.

However, whatever lens one takes on these use cases, the Board reinforced that layers sit below these use cases and they are required to deliver secure and interoperable implementations and ecosystems. As an expert provider of specifications that underpin these use cases, and as a scalable provider of certification services, the OpenID Foundation Board is keen to continue playing a central role supporting existing and emerging ecosystem partners (public and private sector led)  in achieving their goals of security, interoperability, global scale, and operational efficiency. 

Thank you to the community

The OpenID Foundation Board extends its deep thanks to all the panellists and contributors: Nat Sakimura, Dima Postnikov, Nancy Cam-Winget, Atul Tulshibagwale, and Ali Adnan, with Gail Hodges moderating the conversation. Special thanks to Andi Hindle and the Identiverse content development team for featuring this important topic. 

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, FAPI 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.