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Munich, May 17 — The OpenID Certification Program, a tool for verifying whether implementations of OpenID Connect conform to the specification, has received the “Best Innovation Award” at the “2018 European Identity and Cloud Awards (EIC Awards),” the most prestigious awards in the identity field. (Details here)

Co-chairs of the AB/Connect WG, to which the OpenID Certification Program belongs
(Left) Mr. Bradley (Co-chair) (Center) Dr. Jones, the program lead (Co-chair) (Right) The author (Chair)
(Top) Umeå University (Bottom right) Researcher Hedberg’s laboratory (Bottom left) Part of the whiteboard at the time

The OpenID Certification Program originated in the “Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications Strategic International Collaborative R&D Promotion Program for Fiscal Year Heisei 24” (2012), under which the “Research and Development of Advanced Privacy Protection Functions for an Open Identity Federation Platform for Information Distribution and Collaboration” (PEOFIAMP: Privacy Enhancement for Open Federated Identity/Access Management Platforms) was commissioned. This program commissioned R&D proposals to be carried out jointly by Japanese and foreign research institutions. For the OpenID-related portion of PEOFIAMP, Nomura Research Institute collaborated with Roland Hedberg, then a researcher at Sweden’s Umeå University. One of the outcomes of this research was the creation of a reference test suite for testing OpenID Connect implementations. Mr. Hedberg primarily developed the first version using funding from GÉANT, while Nomura Research Institute developed a reference implementation for testing it1. After the legal details were worked out, the “OpenID Certification Program” was launched in April 2015 as a “self-certification” program2. It has since expanded steadily, and today 82 implementations have self-certified.

This award recognizes these sustained efforts.

The EIC Awards previously received by the author and his colleagues are listed below. This is their 4th award, and their first in 4 years.

  • 2014　“JWT and JOSE”
    Special European Identity Award for Best Innovation for Security in the API Economy
  • 2013　“OAuth 2.0”
    Best Innovation/New Standard
  • 2012　 “OpenID Connect”
    Best Innovation/New Standard

 

 

 

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Footnotes

  1. “phpOIDC.” This became the only implementation to receive full certification when the certification program was launched
  2. OpenID Foundation: The OpenID Foundation Launches OpenID Connect Certification Program (2015-04-17)