This session will share how the concept of a Global Assured Identity Network (GAIN) has evolved since 155 identity experts proposed it in 2021. It summarizes a recent paper by the non-profits that guide the GAIN vision.
GAIN remains a call for collaboration toward globally interoperable identity assurance at-scale - a purpose that underpins the goals of governments, intergovernmental agencies, and private industry. It has inspired multiple working groups and continues to unite six non-profits - even (and especially) as the technical and policy landscape evolves to include emerging standards (e.g. MDLs, DIDs, VCs) and regulation (e.g. eIDAS 2.0).
This talk reflects on GAIN's relevance in today’s landscape and shares progress. It includes a deep dive into the technical community group at the OpenID Foundation, which has built a prototype that demonstrates cross-network trust and high-assurance identity data exchange. It now turns its attention to digital wallets, verifiable credentials, legal entity identifiers, and government-issued IDs.
It also reviews forward-thinking policy work by the Open Identity Exchange, which paves the way for Smart Digital IDs. Their Global Policy Metadata Framework proposes the standard publication of policy characteristics. In this world, policy metadata is shared between each trust framework through trusted wallets.
