OpenID Connect Identity Protocol Launches With Support From Google, Microsoft & Others

Signing users in to a mobile or web app isn’t necessarily hard, but keeping their credentials safe is something that’s often best left to specialists. The OpenID Foundation today announced the launch of OpenID Connect, the organization’s latest standard for authenticating users and building distributed identity systems. The standard has the backing of Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Deutsche Telekom, TechCrunch parent AOL and numerous other companies and mobile network operators.

With this, developers can create a straightforward sign-in process for their users by outsourcing the actual sign-in and identity verification to companies like Google or Microsoft. Using OpenID, developers don’t have to store and manage passwords on their own servers.

The OpenID Foundation argues that the new protocol will ensure that developers won’t have to worry about keeping their users’ accounts safe. Instead, this data will be managed by “operators who continually invest in sophisticated authentication infrastructure and who have the specialized skills required to securely manage sign-in and detect abuse.”