Linux Foundation Convenes ToIP Foundation to Improve Online Trust

The Linux Foundation is forming a coalition to increase people’s trust in digital interactions. The initiative has been dubbed the Trust over IP (ToIP) Foundation, and its members will strive to develop an open source standard that will let two parties know that their connection is secure and that they can trust the person on the other end of the line.

The ToIP Foundation is hoping that the new standard will facilitate the exchange of information and allow organizations to innovate and scale more quickly. As it stands, data breaches and other security concerns are making people more reticent to share and making it more difficult to deliver better digital identity products and services.  

To fix that problem, the Foundation will work with W3C’s Verifiable Credential standard and utilize interoperable digital wallet and credentialing technology. The Foundation itself boasts an open governance model to encourage collaboration between its members.

“The ToIP Foundation has the promise to provide the digital trust layer that was missing in the original design of the Internet,” said Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin. “The combination of open standards and protocols, pan-industry collaboration and our neutral governance structure will support digital identity and verifiable data exchange.”

The ToIP Foundation will host a digital launch event at 9AM PDT on May 7, where viewers will be treated to a panel discussion and a technology demonstration. After that, the Foundation will convene four working groups to advance its goals moving forward. Together, the Technical Stack, Governance Stack, Utility Foundry, and Ecosystem Foundry Working Groups will work to build the technology and create an environment to explore its practical applications.

More than two dozen organizations have already joined the ToIP as founding members. Steering members include Accenture, BrightHive, Cloudocracy, Continuum Loop, CULedger, Dhiway, esatus, Evernym, Finicity, Futurewei Technologies, IBM Security, IdRamp, Lumedic, Mastercard, MITRE, the Province of British Columbia and SICPA. The Contributing members are DIDx, GLEIF, The Human Colossus Foundation, iRespond, kiva.org, Marist College, Northern Block, R3, Secours.io, TNO and University of Arkansas.

Of course, the ToIP Foundation is not the only group looking to create open source identity solutions. Microsoft previewed a blockchain-based decentralized identity platform last May, while MOSIP allows other organizations to create secure digital IDs.

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May 5, 2020 – by Eric Weiss