Usually promoting passkey usage for user authentication, the FIDO Alliance is leading an initiative to accelerate digital credentials and identity wallets.
The Alliance drives a dialogue uniting the industry around how passkeys work and their advantages over passwords, which have become outdated and too easily susceptible to fraud.
Similar to the sea change in embracing the “simplicity and security of passwords”, FIDO are keen to muster a proven, collaborative model to the digital credentials ecosystem, enabling an interoperable identity wallet ecosystem that simplifies all online interactions.
Andrew Shikiar, CEO of FIDO Alliance, said they are “working closely with partners including EMVCo, ISO, OpenID Foundation, and W3C to align a fragmented ecosystem”.
“Together, we aim to deliver trusted, interoperable digital wallets that make everyday interactions simpler, more secure, and privacy-preserving for everyone.”
Adoption is hindered by the lack of alignment in standards and end-to-end certification, which will form focus areas for FIDO leveraging its proven stakeholder relationships with organisations to develop specifications and adoption initiatives.
Issuing digital identity credentials is the priority for most governments globally and across Europe. 27 member states are currently in the development phase of offering their citizens digital identities by the end of 2026, piloting and building wallets under the eIDAS regulation. Moreover, 18 departments of motor vehicles in the United States having deployed standards-based mobile drivers licenses to over 5 million American citizens.
Gail Hodges, Executive Director of the OpenID Foundation said: “Our organisations have a long history of close collaboration on standards that make authentication simpler and more resilient, and we see the same opportunity to align our efforts as the market rapidly moves toward verifiable credentials and identity wallets. We look forward to working with FIDO and the broader community to help ensure that digital credentials are built on open, privacy-preserving standards that scale globally.”
