The FIDO Alliance will make working documents for its digital wallet certification program publicly available and has launched an External Advisory Forum for issuers, governments and regulators. The initiatives were unveiled at Authenticate 2026 in Carlsbad, California, with the documents due for release in the coming weeks.
FIDO says it is working toward an ecosystem in which people and their agents access services, online and in person, by relying on verifiable human identity. It describes that identity as a cryptographic root of trust that can close the phishable gaps that remain at account onboarding and recovery.
The Credential Manager Reference Architecture, or CMRA, defines how credential managers, commonly called digital wallets, are expected to implement functional, security and interoperability requirements. It is meant to set a common baseline across national digital ID, payments, workforce credentials and travel credentials, with profiles for particular applications to be built on top. The CMRA forms the foundation of FIDO’s Credential Manager Certification Program.
A separate Verifier ID framework addresses the other side of a credential request. FIDO says credential managers are good at proving who the user is but lack scalable ways to validate the identity of the verifier asking for the data. The framework describes how a wallet receives structured, verified information about the website or service making the request, so it can display accurate details and trust signals and let the user review and approve the sharing through a clear interface.
The alliance describes verifiable human identity as a prerequisite for agentic commerce, so that each transaction is rooted in verified human approval, traceable to the person who granted it and kept within the limits that person set.
The External Advisory Forum is a nonbinding channel through which issuers, government bodies, regulators and industry associations can engage with FIDO’s digital credentials work, including the certification program and other emerging initiatives. Registration is available on the alliance’s website.
“The vast potential of digital credentials will only be realized if people, organizations and governments can trust them wherever they’re used,” said Andrew Shikiar, executive director and CEO of the FIDO Alliance. “That takes open standards, certification the market can rely on, and alignment from every side of the ecosystem.”
Sources: FIDO Alliance
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
