The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) has launched a new CA Stakeholder Group in collaboration with the Certification Authorities (CAs) and Trust Service Providers (TSPs) to drive the use of legal entity identifiers (LEIs) within digital certificates.
The group will facilitate communication between GLEIF, CAs and TSPs from across the world, as they collectively aim to coordinate and encourage a global approach to LEI usage across digital identity products.
Participation has already been confirmed by China Financial Certification Authority (CFCA), DigiCert, InfoCert, Entrust Datacard, ICAI India, and SwissSign.
The collaboration announcement follows news last year that ISO has standardised the process of embedding LEIs in digital certificates.
In accordance with ISO 17442-2, the CA Stakeholder Group will develop and promote best practice guidelines and use cases for LEI integration across the digital identity industry.
GLEIF says this will help members of the group, who are all committed to incorporating the LEI into their digital identity products, to progress their own implementations.
It will also welcome views from participants on current and future LEI services.
According to the foundation, the use of the LEI in digital certificates will deliver significant identity management benefits in a digital environment.
Certificates linked to verified, regularly updated and freely available entity reference data by a unique, universal identifier are easier to manage, aggregate and maintain. GLEIF notes that there will also be greater transparency overall across the digital identity ecosystem.
“This is an important step in promoting the LEI’s capacity to enhance trust and add enormous value across the digital identity management systems which power the private sector,” comments Stephan Wolf, GLEIF CEO.
“A unified and proactive global approach to embedding LEIs in digital certificates will rapidly extend the benefits of LEI adoption beyond regulatory use cases. Our aim is for the LEI to be harnessed as an enabler of advanced transparency in digital transactions and exchanges, and for its positive impact to deliver advantage and opportunity across the economy and society. We look forward to working with our new stakeholder group members and reporting developments in this space very soon,” adds Wolf.
