The Open Trusted Technology Forum of The Open Group was established over 10 years ago in response to a growing global need: ensuring that the hardware and software products organisations rely on are developed and delivered with integrity, and free from maliciously tainted or counterfeit components. This need has only grown in urgency over the years with the increasing complexity of global supply chains. To address these challenges, the Open Trusted Technology Forum brought together a diverse coalition of industry, government, and academic stakeholders to create a unified approach. Their shared mission has been to provide open, consensus-based standards that support trusted technology development and global procurement.
Milestones That Shaped a Movement
Over the last ten years, the Open Trusted Technology Forum has achieved numerous milestones, including:
- Industry Certification Programme: The Open Trusted Technology Forum launched one of the industry’s first conformance and certification programs to validate adherence to The Open Trusted Technology Provider Standard, O-TTPS™ Standard, giving customers greater confidence in the products and suppliers they choose
- Global Collaboration: The Open Trusted Technology Forum has worked closely with international standards bodies, national governments, and cybersecurity communities, reinforcing a shared vision for secure and trusted technology ecosystems
- Thought Leadership and Education: From white papers and webinars to active participation in global cybersecurity discussions, the Open Trusted Technology Forum has helped shape the way organisations think about risk, assurance, and responsible technology sourcing
- The Open Trusted Technology Provider™ Standard: Recognised internationally as ISO/IEC 20243:2023, this groundbreaking standard provides organisations with rigorous guidelines to ensure the integrity of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) information and communication technology (ICT) products
Looking Ahead
Many products today include information technologies, or are linked with technology systems, and are part of diverse supply chains ranging from white goods for consumers, to B2B solutions for industries and even textiles where products worn every day can be digitally tracked. The advent of the new Digital Products Passport regulations in Europe and initiatives in other regions opens new doors for digitally authenticating and controlling the integrity of products and their components from various suppliers. Further opportunities exist to also ensure the integrity of the product-services that surround products, which with the increased use of artificial intelligence, will transform supply chains with new innovations in product maintenance, user customisations and increased recycling of materials and other green economy objectives.
The PSS-Pass project’s vision of extending the emerging DPP standards with the introduction of the Digital Product Service System Passport (DPSSP) standard to monitor and ensure the integrity of accompanying product-services within supply chains will create opportunities to apply the many years of experience of the Open Trusted Technology Forum members in addressing the challenges of increasingly complex supply chains to provide assurances of the integrity of product-services data and authentication of services that increasingly accompany today’s products.
- Authors: Ash Patel and Scott Hansen, The Open Group