700’000 reasons to celebrate

Just in time for the yearly Trust and Identity Workgroup meeting the barrier was broken mid May. To celebrate the 700’000th edu-ID user account the trust and identity team had, however, to wait a few more weeks, because several team members were on vacation at that time. But it’s never too late for cake 😀

We hope to soon celebrate the cake for 800’000 accounts when University of Zurich, ETHZ, EPFL and other universities adopt edu-ID in the coming months.

Trust & Identity Meeting 2022

SWITCH invites you on Wednesday 18. May 2022 to the Trust & Identity Meeting 2022, held as a hybrid meeting, on premise in Zurich as well as online.

Registration is open until Monday, 16. May 2022.
There you will find as well the draft agenda and meeting topics.

Details (links etc.) will be provided 48 hours in advance to registered participants.

The event is aimed at the following target groups:

  • IdP, SP and RP Administrators
  • Home Org Administrators
  • RRA & Attribute Policy Administrators
  • IdP hosting customers and
  • IT staff with interest in PKI, eduroam, authentication and authorization

for both – Swiss universities that already adopted SWITCH edu-ID and the ones that haven’t yet.

Which e-ID does Switzerland need?

On 7 March, Switzerland rejected proposed legislation to establish an e-ID.
As a neutral and independent foundation for Swiss universities, SWITCH has over 20 years’ experience in the field of electronic identities and participated in the process of designing the e-ID. We interviewed Christoph Graf, Programme Manager of SWITCH edu-ID, about the next steps in introducing an e-ID in Switzerland and the role SWITCH can play in this process.
Read more.

Trust & Identity WG Meeting / SWITCH edu-ID Update Event 2021

SWITCH invites you on Wed, 26 May 2021
to the 4th Trust & Identity WG Meeting combined with the SWITCH edu-ID Update Event (online).

Registration is open until Friday, 21 May 2020.
There you will find as well the preliminary agenda and meeting topics.
We are looking forward to the contributions of our colleagues from Geneva and Finland.

Details (links etc.) will be provided three days in advance to registered participants.

The event is aimed at the following target groups:

  • IdP and SP Administrators
  • Home Org Administrators
  • RRA & Attribute Policy Administrators
  • IdP hosting customers and
  • IT staff with interest in authentication and authorization

for both – Swiss universities that still use SWITCHaai and those that have already switched over to SWITCH edu-ID.


What’s the SWITCH Trust & Identity WG?
The SWITCH Trust & Identity WG comprises representatives of all

in the Education, Research & Innovation (ERI) Community.

This group is informally involved with the further development of SWITCHaai/edu-ID and SWITCHpki and has the opportunity to provide feedback if there are questions or changes upcoming.

PHBern now also on the road with edu-ID

On August 19, 2020, the Berne University of Teacher Education (PHBern) switched over to SWITCH edu-ID, thus filling the dozen:


More than 8000 students and employees of the PHBern now have an edu-ID account and can use it to access services of their own PH as well as those of other Swiss universities which are open to members of PHBern.

Ulrich Weisenseel, head Services Informatik PHBern, about the planning and adoption:

“When the first planning steps were taken in 2018, the analyses showed that PHBern users accessed more than 100 services via AAI accounts. A picture that looks similar at many universities. University members usually access 10 to 20 times more external than internal services, with the number of logins naturally being highest for the most prominent services such as a university’s own Learning Management System. At PHBern, ILIAS and the intranet “My PHBern” swing out at the top in terms of access numbers.

Continue reading “PHBern now also on the road with edu-ID”

Update to the TRID WG Meeting / SWITCH edu-ID Update Event 2020

The Trust & Identity WG Meeting combined with the SWITCH edu-ID Update Event on Wed 20 May 2020

Registration is open until Friday, 8 May 2020 and mandatory (only registered users and accepted guests may enter the meeting room).

The event is aimed at the following target groups: IdP and SP Administrators, Home Org Administrators, RRA & Attribute Policy Administrators, IdP hosting customers and IT staff with interest in Microsoft / Office 365  for both – Swiss universities that still use SWITCHaai and those that have already switched over to SWITCH edu-ID.


What’s the SWITCH Trust & Identity WG?
The SWITCH Trust & Identity WG comprises representatives of all SWITCHaai Participants and SWITCHpki Participants in the SWITCH Community and the Extended SWITCH Community.
This group is informally involved with the further development of SWITCHaai/edu-ID and SWITCHpki and has the opportunity to provide feedback if there are questions or changes upcoming.

Trust & Identity WG Meeting / SWITCH edu-ID Update Event 2020

SWITCH invites you on Wed, 20 May 2020 to the 3rd Trust & Identity WG Meeting combined with the SWITCH edu-ID Update Event in Berne – or if the specific situation persists online instead.

Registration is open until Friday, 8 May 2020 and required for logistical reasons.
Refer to the registration page for the preliminary schedule and meeting topics.

In case of presence we have foreseen to hold the program between 10:15 and 15:40.
If the event must take place online, we will shorten the program and run from 9-12, including a break.

The event is aimed at the following target groups: IdP and SP Administrators, Home Org Administrators, RRA & Attribute Policy Administrators, IdP hosting customers and IT staff with interest in Microsoft / Office 365  for both – Swiss universities that still use SWITCHaai and those that have already switched over to SWITCH edu-ID.


What’s the SWITCH Trust & Identity WG?
The SWITCH Trust & Identity WG comprises representatives of all SWITCHaai Participants and SWITCHpki Participants in the SWITCH Community and the Extended SWITCH Community.
This group is informally involved with the further development of SWITCHaai/edu-ID and SWITCHpki and has the opportunity to provide feedback if there are questions or changes upcoming.

Multi-Factor Authentication Reinforced

Since December 2018 the edu-ID login has supported multi-factor authentication in form of a two-step login that relies on SMS codes. However, receiving one-time SMS codes requires a mobile phone. Not all users want to add a mobile phone number to their edu-ID account. Furthermore, SMS messages generally cannot be securely sent. There is always the risk that somebody else intercepts SMS messages. Some edu-ID users also want to use multi-factor authentication for all their edu-ID logins but without entering a one-time code several times per day.
To address the above issues reported by the community, we extended the edu-ID two-step login in the following three areas…

Continue reading “Multi-Factor Authentication Reinforced”

Trust & Identity WG Meeting / SWITCH edu-ID Update Event 2019

SWITCH invites you on Wed, 15 May 2019 to the 2nd Trust & Identity WG Meeting combined with the SWITCH edu-ID Update Event in Berne.

Registration is open until Tue, 7. May 2019 and required for logistical reasons.
Refer to the registration page for the draft agenda and schedule.

A longer section of the event is dedicated to SWITCH edu-ID. The heads of IT of University of Lucerne and Distance University will talk about their adoption experience.

Administrators of either an Identity Provider or Service Provider registered in SWITCHaai as well as the SWITCHpki registration authority operators and all persons involved in (future) planning and adoption of SWITCH edu-ID are invited to participate.


What’s the SWITCH Trust & Identity WG?
The SWITCH Trust & Identity WG comprises representatives of all SWITCHaai Participants and SWITCHpki Participants in the SWITCH Community and the Extended SWITCH Community.
This group is informally involved with the further development of SWITCHaai/edu-ID and SWITCHpki and has the opportunity to provide feedback if there are questions or changes upcoming.

Break and Enter

Have you ever invited professional burglars to break into your home to steal your valuables? For the edu-ID service we have done exactly that, and we even paid for it. The valuables in our case is identity data from all edu-ID users. However, the “professional burglars” were actually very kind, professional and skilled security experts from Compass Security.

Continue reading “Break and Enter”

The SWITCH identity federation – a look beyond its borders

The SWITCH identity federation was conceived almost two decades ago. The SWITCHaai service, implementing its concepts, has been in operation for over a decade. Today, the SWITCH edu-ID service is in its initial stages to become its successor, and it is still following the same model: to stay the identity federation of the Swiss academic community. That is reason enough to address those two rather fundamental questions:

  1. Are national identity federations still the right approach to satisfy the needs of the academic community – a community with increasing international collaboration?
  2. Will emerging e-ID services, or services like SwissID, eventually replace the SWITCH identity federation?

Both question the remits of the current solution: national and academic. But they differ in perspective: while the first is questioning the national remit, the second is questioning the academic-only context. Continue reading “The SWITCH identity federation – a look beyond its borders”