Afero will contribute to the new ITU Focus Group on Trust and Identity for Humans and Agentic AI

Afero, the enterprise-grade secure IoT Platform for embedded systems, today announced its participation in the newly launched Focus Group on Trust and Identity for Humans and Agentic AI, an initiative of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations special agency for digital technologies. First announced at the AI for Good Global Summit, the new Focus Group is a global standards initiative to develop frameworks for trusted digital identity and to ensure that the behavior of AI agents remains trustworthy and accountable throughout their lifecycle.

The Focus Group will report to ITU-T Study Group 17, the expert group for security standards, where Afero’s Chief Security Strategist and Head of International Standards, Bret Jordan, serves as Chair of Working Party 2. The Focus Group will develop common terminology, reference architectures for identity and trust, interoperability mechanisms for digital credentials, security criteria and benchmarks for the continuous assessment of AI agents, and a global standardization roadmap.

“Agentic AI is transforming how digital systems make decisions and interact on our behalf,” said Debora Comparin, Co-Chair of the Focus Group and Standardization Expert at Thales Cybersecurity and Digital Identity. “This Focus Group provides a global platform to address the challenges of trust management for humans and AI agents, strengthen confidence in agentic AI systems, and develop common technical foundations for secure, interoperable and accountable interactions.”

“As AI has evolved beyond chatbots and into autonomous agents that act on behalf of people and organizations, the ability to verify an agent’s identity and to trust its behavior has become critical,” said Jordan. “Nowhere are the stakes higher than at the edge, where autonomous AI agents will begin to interact with the physical world through billions of interconnected IoT devices. Ensuring the safety of this future requires global cooperation and alignment that can only be done through international standardization. I am pleased that Afero can help advance this important work by providing a secure, privacy-preserving, and trustworthy foundation for embodied AI.”

The announcement builds on Afero’s track record of security leadership. Afero was the first IoT platform company to sign the CISA Secure by Design pledge. The company maintains an ongoing commitment to delivering enterprise-grade security, privacy, and trustworthiness through the entire supply chain for IoT, edge, and physical AI and embodied AI devices. Afero’s unique technology embeds security into each device that cannot be disabled, delivering a tamper-proof foundation for future AI use cases.

The Focus Group will hold its first meeting in Paris in early December 2026, followed by a second meeting in Geneva in January 2027.

To learn more about the ITU Focus Group on Trust and Identity for Humans and Agentic AI, read the ITU announcement or visit the community page.

About Afero

Afero enables connected devices to be smart and secure. Afero’s IoT Platform as a Service prioritizes security, data privacy, simplicity, and ease of use throughout the end user experience. These key elements are integral to the solution and not bolted on after the fact, enabling manufacturers and brands to secure their supply chain. Afero technology powers millions of devices across 200 product categories from 50+ manufacturers. Afero is a privately held company based in Los Altos, Calif., and backed by distinguished investors such as Crosspoint Capital. For more information, visit https://afero.io/.

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