Defining and building the ID ecosystems of the future. January 2022 Newsletter
We wish you a happy and healthy new year!
In 2021, the Secure Identity Alliance (SIA) and its Members and Observers once again played a key role in shaping the future of identity. It was a year characterised by relentless and rapid change. Output across all our working group programmes hit new heights as disruptive technologies and policy decisions in Europe and other regions fuelled the need for secure and seamless ID solutions able to bridge the physical and virtual worlds.
Interconnected and increasingly digital – the need for secure digital ID
Moving into 2022, it’s clear we stand on the brink of the metaverse era. This is set to further transform how we live, work, play and transact. However, one thing will not change: the need for truly inclusive, protective, and secure ID frameworks!
As ever, SIA will continue helping private and public sector organisations exchange knowledge, define guiding principles and collaborate to solve real-life problems. Ensuring that issues like privacy by design, trust, governance, interoperability, and robust ID authentication are never overlooked.
SIA and its Members will continue facilitating the innovation, standards and technical frameworks needed to underpin secure ID today, and we stand ready to support the new realities of this fast-emerging new virtual world tomorrow.
To help the SIA in this endeavour, we’re delighted to announce that Matthew Cole will be taking the helm as IDEMIA continues to chair the Alliance in 2022. As CEO/Group Executive Vice President, Public Security and Identity at IDEMIA, Matthew has deep expertise in physical and digital ID, payment and information security; Didier Trutt, Chairman & CEO of INGroupe, remaining Vice-Chairman of the Board.
Determined to build on the momentum created during 2021, Matthew brings a fresh perspective to the opportunities created by accelerating change and the importance of connecting with people to make positive change happen.
New Year – New Ambitions
The rapid pace of digital change is driving the need for new approaches and greater collaboration across the industry, together with deeper relationships that will help educate and inform government decision-makers and bodies tasked with formulating the policies and rules that will be essential for preserving privacy, trust and security.
Which is why in 2022, you can expect SIA to evolve and grow its spheres of influence, reach out to new audiences and engage in a wider range of global discussions and collaborations that will enable us to ride the ID wave.
A taste of things to come….
In 2022, the SIA has big plans to become more international, more open and more determined to build further on its collaboration DNA.
The OSIA Initiative has demonstrated the powerful benefits of working in new and differentiated ways. We plan to extend this approach by making it easier for all participants in the ID community to share, engage and gain visibility and understanding of best-practice approaches, standards and technologies.
Which means we’ll be exploring new outreach channels that will make it easy for members, partners and the general public to engage and participate. We’ll be kicking off new education and knowledge streams. And more.
Truly, there has never been a more exciting time to get involved in helping to define and build the ID ecosystems of the future. We look forward to working with you all on this exiting journey!
The SIA Team
Want to get involved?
The collaborative work that our Members, Observers and Partners are doing has a profound impact on the public and private identity actors, the marketplace, and society as a whole.
If you’d like to join the conversation, membership of the SIA delivers numerous opportunities. As well as benefiting from industry-wide advocacy, you’ll be able to influence industry standards and developments, network with likeminded professionals, stay on top of market trends and identify new commercial opportunities.
We hope you’ll join us on this amazing digital journey!
2021 – a year of rich outcomes!
In 2021, our webinars brought together more than 1300 live attendees and 2500 attendees in total from 150 countries to listen to debates and presentations from experts around the world. You can still watch our webinars here:
- Giving Voice to Digital Identites Worldwide
- Passport Fraud Trends and Ways to Combat them
- Taking Stock of Identity at the Border
- OSIA gets real: It’s time to unlock the ID Ecosystem
We published four landmark reports which together cumulated more than 17 000 downloads at date. You can read and download them here:
- Giving Voice to Digital Identities Worldwide
- Passport Fraud Trends and Ways to Combat them
- Strong ID – Strong Borders
- Authentication: Are You Who You Claim to Be?
New language versions are planned for 2022
A growing global community
Membership of the SIA continued to grow at a pace. We now boast 25 private and public members that includes today’s leading providers of secure ID solutions. In addition to which, we now have 25 government, IGO, NGO and University Observers that actively take part in the work of the Alliance.
Alongside welcoming five new participants to our OSIA initiative initiative last year – Aoya, Atos, Innovatrics, Mantratech and Mobile Technologies. Archipels became an Associate Member while Landmark Identity joined as an Advisory Observer of the SIA.
International Collaboration
World Bank ID4D Partnership Platform
SIA has contributed to regular consultations by the ID4D partnership platform initiative team; supporting on a range of topics where SIA can bring real technical expertise and global implementation experience.
The ID4D partnership platform and Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) was launched in 2016 to shape ID4D’s work and the broader digital ID agenda. Over the past five years, ID4D has capitalized on the intellectual partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the UK government, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, the French government, the Omidyar Network, and the Australian government, with each bringing their own unique perspectives. When G2Px was launched in 2020, the partnership platform and MDTF were expanded to support both ID4D and G2Px activities. ID4D and G2Px work closely with a range of partners, such as bilateral development and UN agencies, regional organizations, the private sector, civil society, and the academic and research communities.
Principles for Good Identification
SIA is proud to have once again contributed to this important body of work to ensure that these updated Principles reflect today’s changing world and its own vision of supporting the provision of legal, trusted identity for all.
Five years ago the Secure Identity Alliance, along with other organisations committed to the development of ID systems that are inclusive, trusted, and accountable and supported the development of a set of shared ‘Principles for Good Identification’.
Future of Technology and Institutional Governance in Identity Management
SIA has also chaired one session of the UNDP’s Private Sector Engagement Roundtable on 18-19 May 2021 on the Future of Technology and Institutional Governance in Identity Management.
UNDP is co-chair, along with UNICEF and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), of the UN Legal Identity Agenda Task Force, established in 2018 by the UN Deputy-Secretary-General to allow the UN system to assist Member States in achieving universal legal identity for all, including birth registration, by 2030. With increasing demands from Member States to provide support for digital legal identity, this policy dialogue is required to inform the developments in the private technology sector identity space that will affect public management of identity in years to come.
OSIA Initiative
A busy year saw the OSIA team participating in the Govstack Initiative, alongside releasing OSIA v6.0 specifications at the close of 2021, the team created demos demonstrating vendor interoperability for two use cases: ID card issuance and biometric mass enrolment.
During the year, the development of a test plan and the selection of a certifying authority represented key steps forward for the OSIA certification programme, which will be announced mid-2022.
A partnership with the NTNU University was also engaged to undertake an external assessment of OSIA and advise on proper implementation of the APIs to ensure privacy by design.
OSIA has now been implemented in seven countries, has been retained as the Open Standard for the Govstack ID Building Block, and is being promoted by SmartAfrica in its blueprint for Digital ID. All of which illustrates the significant real-world impact OSIA has achieved in the past year.
OSIA (Open Standards Identity APIs) is a non-profit initiative launched by the Identity Industry with the support of a Governmental Advisory Committee which has developed an open standards framework as a Digital Public Good for the interoperability of identity systems. OSIA’s aim is to promote innovation, guarantee a level playing field for all market players (owner, open source, large companies, SMEs, start-ups, local and international etc.) and allow States to preserve their digital sovereignty and their freedom of technological choice while lowering the costs of integration.
Communicating on the world stage
Through our publications and our attendance at key events in the ID calendar, SIA continued to build on its reputation as the reference organisation for secure ID. In addition to promoting the importance of secure physical and digital ID, support post-covid border market for safe, seamless, trusted and convenient passenger journey experience, we continued to advocate the importance of ID market interoperability, and open standards.
Last year we attended, presented, and co-hosted a number of global forums, conferences and online events including:
- ITU Symposium on Financial Inclusion
- BID “Opportunities and Challenges in Integrated Border Management Strategies in Latin America and the Caribbean”
- WB “Enabling environment for Broadband access for all in Africa”
- Identity Week (London, Washington and Singapore)
- ID4Africa
- ID Forum @ FIC (Lille, France)
- Reconnaissance Optical and Digital Document Security (Vienna)
- Reconnaissance HSP (Mexico, Tallinn and Colombo - Sri Lanka)
- Seamless (Dubai)
- Trustech (Paris)
We’ll be happy to continue supporting and participating in these key events in the ID calendar in 2022.
