Interoperability is the ability for digital identity technologies or systems to communicate with each other or work together. Many benefits of digital ID, including efficiencies, fraud reduction and ease of use, are made possible when systems are interoperable.

There are many examples of interoperable devices - your smart watch may sync to your phone, and your thermostat can connect to your tablet. For identification to be interoperable, it must be accepted and trusted by different stakeholders. For instance, different financial services providers could come together to streamline ID verification processes, supporting a single, interoperable approach to ID in the financial sector.

On a larger scale, identity can be interoperable across national borders. Different national governments have elected to accept the passport as proof of identity, allowing users to present this document anywhere in the world as verification.

As more identification becomes digitized, interoperability will be important to ensuring that digital IDs are widely usable, and not siloed to a particular industry or region.