The Role of ODF in Digital Identity and Authentication
Reliable data flows, verifiable signatures and predictable structures are essential for digital identity systems, which touch every aspect of modern digital life. They authorise transactions, confirm requests and guarantee security policies. In this context, the Open Document Format (ODF) offers a transparent, computer-readable foundation for verifying the authenticity of documents and ensuring their long-term integrity. Each ODF file is a structured ZIP container with a consistent internal layout. It contains a set of XML files that are always located in the same position. These files include meta.xml for metadata, manifest.xml for the list of files and relationships, content.xml for document data and styles.xml for presentation rules. The files are either ODT (text), ODS (spreadsheets), ODP (presentations) or ODG (drawings). Because everything is in XML format and in the same location, identity systems can analyse the content without searching for it as they would with OOXML files, which vary greatly depending on the application used to create them. Identity systems can therefore focus on specific parts of a file rather than scanning raw binary blocks, which are present in OOXML files. This is important for signing, integrity validation, metadata extraction and policy enforcement. When documents move from one identity platform to
