At this year’s Identiverse conference, the OpenID Foundation and SIDI Hub were proud to present: "Building a Digital Commons for Identity.” The session outlined what has been achieved so far by the Sustainable and Interoperable Digital Identity Hub project (SIDI Hub) - a global initiative dedicated to advancing safe, interoperable digital identity systems. 

As co-organizer and co-funder of SIDI Hub, the OpenID Foundation has played a central role in this ambitious effort to deliver cross border interoperability of digital identity in the same seamless way that a phone call, email, or passport is expected to work internationally.

OIDF’s Executive Director, Gail Hodges, took the stage at Identiverse alongside Elizabeth Garber, OIDF’s Strategy & Marketing Director and SIDI Hub’s Programme Lead,  to share the story of how SIDI Hub has grown into a movement spanning over 45 countries and over 25 organizations in just 18 months. 

Digital identity should ‘just work’ globally

As Gail Hodges explained during the session, the core challenge is that over 30 countries have already launched national digital identity systems and, according to the Judge School of Business, another 30 plan to enable one. Yet unlike global communication technologies, such as phone networks, email, or passports, these digital identities are not inherently interoperable.

There is a growing global consensus that interoperability must be treated as a strategic priority. But achieving it requires more than policy alignment. It needs concrete technical and governance deliverables developed through coordinated global action and shared infrastructure. SIDI Hub exists to spur this action.

So far, SIDI Hub has catalysed engagement from public and private sector organizations that include non-profits, academic institutions, international governmental organizations (IGOs), development organizations, governments, and private entities. 

Since 2023, SIDI Hub has hosted six major convenings across four continents, reflecting a truly global effort to build trust and interoperability into the next generation of digital identity systems.

Supporting global policy objectives

The work of the SIDI Hub is built to align with established principles and support a number of global initiatives promoting the need for safe, interoperable digital identity systems. These include the:

• UN Global Digital Compact, which outlines principles for an open, safe, and equitable digital future
• United Nation’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) Safeguards, which aim to ensure that foundational digital systems, including identity, are built responsibly, inclusively, and with the public interest in mind.
• World Bank’s ID4D, which aims to help countries realize the benefits of ID systems in support of Sustainable Development Goals.
• OECD’s Digital Identity Recommendations, which call for cross border alignment and trust
• African Union’s Interoperability Framework, which promotes regional integration and digital cooperation, especially in cross-border trade and travel
• European Union’s Digital Identity Wallet, which the European Commission intends to provide a safe and reliable way for everyone in Europe to identify themselves and maintain control of their data.

This alignment with major global priorities has helped forge a shared sense of urgency.

Deliverables - what the SIDI Hub has achieved

Elizabeth Garber highlighted the significant achievements of the SIDI Hub since its inception. One of the key accomplishments has been the granular mapping of 10 domestic Trust Frameworks, incorporating overlays from various international guidelines and recommendations. These overlays from IGOs include the FATF Digital Identity Guidelines, OECD Digital Identity Recommendations, and the UNDP Framework for Legal Digital ID. This mapping has helped establish a comprehensive understanding of identity systems across different jurisdictions, and insights on how jurisdictions can layer their trust frameworks policy by policy and ensure those policies can be ‘translated’ by implementers within and across jurisdictions. SIDI Hub has already achieved many great insights, such as the ‘5 Things We’re Learning’ below. 

Additionally, the SIDI Hub has conducted an evaluation of over 35 potential cross border use cases, with an emphasis on three critical areas identified as ‘champion’ initiatives. These include:

• refugee identity portability, which aims to ensure individuals maintain access to their identity records across borders 
• opening a bank account internationally, which seeks to streamline financial inclusion efforts
• and cross-border education credentialing, which focuses on enabling individuals to validate their qualifications in different countries.

The SIDI Hub community is in the process of elaborating on three new champion use cases, with the strong support of government representatives and development organizations: 

• Age Assurance and Child Protection online
• Agentic AI & Identity
• Olympics (2028-32) & the African Cup (2027 & 2029)

Furthermore, SIDI Hub is building on the great work of the OpenID Foundation’s GAIN POC Community Group to develop a reference architecture and proof-of-concept scoping to demonstrate how technical systems can align across jurisdictions. 

A global effort fuelled by volunteers

Despite the scale of the initiative, this work has been delivered on a surprisingly small budget. It has been made possible, thanks to the passion and expertise of volunteer contributors, and the support of a coalition of funders and partners, including the OpenID Foundation. Others included:

• EU NGI Sargasso Program
• Secure Identity Alliance & OSIA
• GlobalPlatform
• The Turing Institute
• In kind support from governments and coalitions, including the German Government, Japanese Government, ID4Africa, and the Better Identity Coalition.

Get involved

The momentum behind SIDI Hub is only growing. If you’re a policymaker, technologist, researcher, or advocate working on digital identity, SIDI Hub welcomes your voice.

The full Identiverse presentation can be found here. Or visit the SIDI Hub for more information:

• Champion use case deep dive reports
• Domestic trust framework mappings
• Rapporteur notes from each summit
• 2024 accomplishment highlights
• Sign up for the SIDI Hub newsletter to be alerted to new reports and event
• and more! 

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.