What is eduID?
eduID is a federated identity - a user identity that can be used in several different organisations that have agreed on how identities will be managed. The basic idea is that a given user, who is authenticated with an organisation, is automatically authenticated with other organisations in the federation.
Federated identities are one of the cornerstones of trust between organisations. Trust is based on all the organisations relying on all the others to carry out their authentication - identification and verification - properly and in a controlled and reliable IT environment.
Why have eduID?
From the user's perspective, in the long-term eduID means fewer accounts to keep track of. For many organisations, identity management is a complex issue and it is necessary to work with confirmed users.
There are many services that require identification of users. This is often done by the user entering an email address to which the service provider sends a password. Such a user is normally called unconfirmed, because the service provider does not really know who the user with that email address is - and for many services this is at a sufficient level. Through the use of eduID, identification of users is elevated to that of confirmed users.
When will I use eduID?
Depending on where you work or study you might only use your eduID account a few times, or you might use it every day. Some schools, institutions and services use eduID as their identity provider, this means you will use your eduID to gain access to their IT-systems. Or you may mainly use your eduID account to create and access other accounts, such as universityadmissions.se or your student account.
Log in at eduid.se when you:
- apply to and accept your place at a university,
- organise your student account for email and intranet,
- change university,
- lose a student account password and need to regain access.