You know the feeling. You’re in a product meeting, skimming GitHub issues, or catching up on another EU regulatory proposal, and you realize there’s something missing in how we’re building for the web. Maybe it’s a technical shortfall, maybe it’s a user experience no one’s nailed yet, or maybe it’s a whole category of use case the current standards aren’t touching with a ten-foot pole.
That’s where the W3C Exploration Interest Group (IG) comes in.
We’re not a working group. We’re not here to define normative specs. We’re here to connect the dots between the real world and the standards world and to ask better questions before jumping to answers. Think of us as the early R&D lab for identity, authentication, and trust on the web.
Why this group, and why now?
If you’re building for the web, navigating its policy landscape, or just trying to make something interoperable, this group’s for you. Why? Because web identity is in flux. Cookies are on the way out. Federated login flows are being rebuilt. Browsers are experimenting with new APIs. And regulators? They're not exactly standing still either.
If we want a web that works for real users, across real use cases, we need more people at the table who can say:
“Here’s what’s happening in production, and here’s what we still don’t understand.”
That’s what the Exploration IG is here for: to find the gaps, to make space for disagreement, to spotlight use cases that standards groups haven’t prioritized yet, and to build the bridges that might become working group charters down the line.
What we’re exploring?
We don’t have a single-track agenda—but here’s the kind of stuff that gets us talking:
- Technical gaps between browser implementations and web specs
- Emerging wallet models, identity credentials, and federation flows
- Use cases that span trust frameworks, sectors, or jurisdictions
- Fragmentation risks when multiple standards solve the same problem differently
- Regulatory signals that need a better technical response
Contribute your ideas!
Our GitHub repo is public, and we actively welcome ideas and discussion there; this is an open forum, and everyone is welcome to contribute their ideas. If you see something in the wild that standards groups should be thinking about, bring it to us. Whether you’re an implementer, a researcher, a policymaker, or someone with a stubborn browser bug and a vision, open an issue. We want to hear from you. And if it turns into a recurring collaboration, we’d be delighted to have you join the group.
Some of the best conversations start with “I’m not sure this fits anywhere else."
And that’s exactly the kind of conversation we want to have. So if you’ve ever felt like there’s something important that doesn’t quite have a home in the standards process yet, maybe it belongs with us.
We meet every other week and organize sessions around topics raised by the community. Join us. Listen in. Bring your questions. Or just open an issue and see what happens.