Italy has two National Digital Identity schemes, namely: SPID and CieID (leveraging the national ID card). Both of them are based on SAML2 and are on their way to supporting OpenID Connect. The reasons for this decision are numerous, and they are primarily related to OpenID Connect Core features such as flexibility, ease of implementation, better support for mobile applications, and widespread adoption, particularly in the private sector. To manage this transition, we considered several documents by the OAuth working group describing security best Current Practices and the OpenID Foundation specifying a profile for iGov and a framework for federation. In particular, the latter defines a hierarchical federation model with high security, interoperability, scalability, and transparency based on dynamic delegation mechanisms; Italy is an enthusiastic early adopter.
In this talk, we introduce the Italian OpenID Connect profile based on the iGov and federation profiles and explain the main security measures that we considered within our design from the aforementioned standards and available best current practices. We also discuss how the Italian OpenID Connect profile contributes to the iGov and OpenID Connect Federation documents. We conclude the presentation with a brief discussion of eIDAS 2.0 and some of the ongoing preliminary works in the context of the Italian digital identity ecosystem to move toward an SSI-based solution using the Italian OpenID Connect profile as a starting point.
