The Linux Foundation hosts the ToIP Foundation to enhance universal security and privacy protocols
The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, announced it will host the Trust over IP (ToIP) Foundation, an independent project to enable trustworthy exchange and verification of data between any two parties on the Internet.
The ToIP Foundation will provide a robust, common standard that gives people and businesses the confidence that data is coming from a trusted source, allowing them to connect, interact and innovate at a speed and scale not possible today.
The ToIP Foundation is being developed with global, pan-industry support from leading organizations with sector-specific expertise. Founding 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.
Contributing members include DIDx, GLEIF, The Human Colossus Foundation, iRespond, kiva.org, Marist College, Northern Block, R3, Secours.io, TNO and University of Arkansas.
Businesses today are struggling to protect and manage digital assets and data, especially in an increasingly complex enterprise environment that includes the Internet of Things (IoT), Edge Computing, Artificial Intelligence and much more.
This is compounding the already low consumer confidence in the use of personal data and is slowing innovation on opportunities like digital identity and the adoption of new services that can support humanity.
Without a global standard for how to ensure digital trust, these trends are bound to continue. The ToIP Foundation will use digital identity models that leverage interoperable digital wallets and credentials and the new W3C Verifiable Credentials standard to address these challenges and enable consumers, businesses and governments to better manage risk, improve digital trust and protect all forms of identity online.
“The ToIP Foundation has the promise to provide the digital trust layer that was missing in the original design of the Internet and to trigger a new era of human possibility,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at the Linux Foundation.
“The combination of open standards and protocols, pan-industry collaboration and our neutral governance structure will support this new category of digital identity and verifiable data exchange.”
The Linux Foundation’s open governance model enables the ToIP Foundation to advance a combination of technology and governance standards for digital trust in a neutral forum that supports pan-industry collaboration.
An open governance model that can be integrated into the development of the standards for digital trust is essential where the business, legal and social guidelines for technology adoption impacts human trust and behavior.
The ToIP Foundation will initially host four Working Groups. The Technical Stack Working Group and the Governance Stack Working Group will focus on building out and hardening the Technical and Governance halves of the ToIP stack, respectively.
The Utility Foundry Working Group and the Ecosystem Foundry Working Group will serve as communities of practice for projects that wish to collaborate on the development of ToIP utility networks or entire ToIP digital trust ecosystems.
The ToIP Foundation will host an all-digital launch event on May 7, 2020 at 9AM PDT that will feature a panel discussion, interoperability demonstration and live Q&A.
“The internet and digital technologies are a critical part of the way we engage with each other and with organizations. Accenture has a deep commitment to developing solutions to build trust, protect privacy and put control of an individual’s data squarely in their hands.
“The Trust over IP (ToIP) Foundation is bringing together a powerful mix of experts and doing it at the exact right time given the urgent need to encourage greater adoption and increase trust in data privacy and ownership,” said Christine Leong, managing director, global lead for Decentralized Identity & Biometrics at Accenture.
“The Internet lacks a digital trust layer that is not centrally controlled and managed. It is more important than ever to take control of our digital identities and data. The ToIP stack provides full control of digital identities and enables secure, privacy-preserving trust channels with verifiable data exchange. The digital trust layer of the internet.
“DIDx (a South African based startup) is excited to contribute and build interoperable trust ecosystems across Africa using the ToIP stack and are pleased to join the establishment of the ToIP Foundation together with the Linux Foundation,” said Lohan Spies, CEO DIDx.