Overview
IDunion is a decentralized identity ecosystem that combines cryptographic identity standards with cooperative, European governance to create an open, trustworthy infrastructure for digital identities. As a Governing Authority operating on a not-for-profit basis, IDunion focuses on enabling secure, privacy-preserving identity interactions by offering public registries, supporting Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs), and enabling issuance and verification of Verifiable Credentials. The platform is positioned for organizations, developers, and individuals who want a robust trust framework for identity use cases across sectors.
Core Capabilities
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Decentralized Trust Registry: IDunion provides a public, tamper-evident registry for DID documents, schemas, and revocation lists that serves as a distributed trust anchor for identity validation across participating organizations.
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Support for Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs): The network fully integrates DIDs and DID Documents, enabling interoperable identifiers that can be resolved and used across wallets, verifiers, and issuers.
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Verifiable Credentials Lifecycle: IDunion supports secure issuance, storage, presentation, and verification of Verifiable Credentials, allowing credentials to be cryptographically signed, trusted, and selectively disclosed.
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Governance-by-Membership: Operated by a European cooperative, the ecosystem prioritizes democratic governance, ensuring that policy decisions, operational rules, and technical roadmaps are driven by members rather than a single vendor.
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Transparent Registries and Revocation: Public registries for schemas and revocation enable transparent metadata management so relying parties can check credential validity and trust metadata in a defensible way.
Governance and Structure
IDunion is structured as a cooperative that functions as a neutral Governing Authority for digital identity ecosystems. This governance model is explicitly designed to be not-for-profit and membership-driven, which helps ensure that the network rules and technical changes reflect the shared interests of participating organizations. Members jointly operate and maintain the underlying trust network, contributing to a resilient and distributed infrastructure rather than relying on a single centralized operator.
The cooperative model supports democratic decision-making, allowing members to vote on policies, add nodes, and participate in consortium governance processes. This model aligns with principles of transparency and accountability, important for public-sector and regulated use cases.
Use Cases and Benefits
IDunion is well-suited for enterprise, government, healthcare, education, and cross-border identity scenarios where interoperable and privacy-preserving identity verification matters. Benefits include stronger user control over personal data through self-sovereign identity mechanisms, reduced friction for credential verification across organizations, and improved auditability via public registries. The network’s support for revocation registers and schema definitions also eases compliance and lifecycle management of issued credentials.
How to Access and Get Involved
Developers and organizations can access IDunion’s testnet to anchor DIDs, experiment with credential issuance and verification, and validate interoperability. The project provides registration links and resources for joining the test network, participating in governance, and integrating with the public registries. This lowers barriers to experimentation while enabling real-world testing before production deployment.
Why Choose IDunion
IDunion emphasizes open standards, member-driven governance, and a resilient, decentralized architecture. For organizations seeking an interoperable European identity network with clear governance, public registries, and robust support for DIDs and Verifiable Credentials, IDunion offers a practical and principled platform to build trusted identity solutions.
