Some years pass quietly. For the OpenID Foundation, 2025 was not one of them.

The pace and scale of progress across the OpenID Foundation community this year was remarkable, so remarkable in fact that we felt compelled to bring the 2025 story together in this “Year in Review” report. The story it tells is one we are genuinely proud of.

2025 was the year that international recognition reached a new level with the ITU formally adopting an OpenID Foundation specification as an international standard for the first time, and three further specification families passing the ISO ballot for recognition as ISO/IEC Publicly Available Specifications. It was the year that interoperability moved from aspiration to repeatable, evidence based reality. And it was the year that OpenID Foundation standards moved decisively from pilots into national infrastructure, protecting healthcare systems, enabling digital wallets, and securing financial data for millions of people worldwide.

Beyond the technical achievements, 2025 saw the Foundation step up as a thought leader on some of the most pressing challenges in digital identity today, from how societies manage digital estates after death, to how autonomous AI agents can be securely authenticated and governed. These are challenges that governments, businesses, and citizens will need to confront in the years ahead, and we are proud to be helping shape the conversation.

Looking ahead, the momentum is already building. Dozens of governments and ecosystem operators have selected OpenID Foundation standards to power their digital wallet and verifiable credential programs. This has set the stage for tens of millions of people to use these specifications for everyday services in 2026 and beyond. Our community of members, contributors, and partners has never been stronger or more engaged. If 2025 is anything to go by, 2026 will be a year worth recording too.

We invite you to read the full report here: OIDF_2025_Year_in_Review

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, OAuth2 - the FAPI standard for interoperable, high security - 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 that 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.

To learn more about conformance testing and self-certification, please visit the OpenID Foundation’s FAQ section.