Identosphere 138: New WEF Report • MEF video's up • Indonesian Digital ID • Guardianship in SSI
Discover more from Sovereign Identity Updates
Identosphere 138: New WEF Report • MEF video's up • Indonesian Digital ID • Guardianship in SSI
We curate the latest in decentralized identity, with upcoming events, use-cases and developments in open standards and the public sector. Thanks for supporting our efforts by Paypal or Patreon
Identosphere’s Weekly Highlights
We Gather, You Read!
We’ll keep aggregating industry info. Show support by PayPal, or Patreon!
Upcoming
[NYC] Velocity Network Foundation® 2023 General Assembly 6/19-20 ← Kaliya will be attending
[NYC] Future Identity Finance 6/20 ←Lucy will be speaking.
[Amsterdam] The Closing Conference of the Blockchain & Society Policy Research Lab [Call for Papers] 7/3-4
[New Zealand] Digital Trust Hui Taumata: Registrations now open! 8/1
[Hyderabad, India] hack:DiD Developer Workshop 06/17
[Recap\Upcoming] Unveiling hack:DiD — Hackathon for Self-Sovereign Identity Adoption Hyderbad
Hack:DiD is a long-term initiative by Hypersign dedicated to empowering the web3 ecosystem through the education and growth of Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) knowledge. This event will span over two months; starting 10th June, the hackathon itself will be conducted online, but it will be accompanied by IRL developer workshops during these two months in four major cities of India i.e, Bengaluru, Delhi, Chennai, and Mumbai.
Hiring
Policy Partnerships Lead TBD, Ziprecruiter
Staff Front End Engineer, Open Source TBD, Wayup
SSI /Blockchain Developer (relocation to Windhoek, Namibia) Adaire, Join
Report
New WEF Report Reimagining Digital ID 2023-07-07
Doesn’t suck. Features SSI/Decentralized ID prominently.
For centuries, ID, a way for people to prove attributes about themselves, has played a pivotal role in society. Yet today roughly 850 million people still lack legal ID, making it difficult or impossible for them to fully engage with society. Simultaneously, many of those with ID do not have privacy and control over how their data is shared.
On Guardianship in Self-Sovereign Identity 2023-04 Sovrin
This paper, published by the Sovrin Guardianship Working Group, explores the guardianship relationship and how it fits in with the overall SSI “web of trust.” It presents risks, benefits and approaches to implementation of Guardianship for SSI use cases.
Explainer
How reusable digital identity improves people’s lives Onfido
With Onfido’s recent acquisition of Airside, we will soon give you even more control than ever over how your IDs and personal information are used. [...] When operating online, businesses need to be sure who is on the other side of the screen. Until now, a physical identity document, combined with a biometric verification tool like Motion to prove user liveness, has been the best way to verify that you are who you claim to be.
How advances in ID proofing and decentralization are changing the game 2023-06 Biometric Update
As organizations increasingly recognize the importance of ensuring the safety of digital identities, decentralized IDs are emerging as a promising solution.
[Webinar] Verifiable Credentials and Digital Wallets: An Overview 2023-04-25 Eric Scott
The protocols are specifically designed to place the user in the central position of control over information flows. A typical storage mechanism for these credentials is a Digital Wallet, of which Apple Wallet and Android Wallet are examples.
Company Stories
Truvity Leveraging €8m Investment to Launch Its SDK and API to take Self-Sovereign Identity Mainstream Businesswire 2023-06-06
Truvity has emerged as a cutting-edge SSI-focused API platform, which remains unparalleled in today's newly emerging SSI market. Artek's unwavering commitment to Truvity's success is evident, having provided approximately €8m to empower the team, facilitate the launch of operations, and introduce an exceptional product offering." — Denis Nagy, Managing Director of Artek and Truvity’s co-founder.
A $1,200 Baseball Hat? Why Disco's Swag Is 'Prohibitively Expensive' 2023-06-12 Coindesk
But they are motivated by gamification, status and money. Here’s where $1,208 hats and $2,416 T-shirts advertising “Big DID energy” fit in. [...] Disco is making its swag free for users who earn it — and prohibitively expensive for everyone else.
[Video] Holdr+ Demo 2023-07-09 Indicio
See a demonstration of how Indicio's digital wallet can interact in a variety of scenarios, including being issued a credential, verifying a credential, and communicating with other wallets through DIDComm.
Deutsche Telekom Partners with Energy Web to Accelerate the Energy Transition 2023-06-05 Energy Web Zug, Switzerland
Deutsche Telekom continues to expand its portfolio of solutions in the field of Web 3 technology. A subsidiary, Deutsche Telekom MMS, recently joined the Energy Web Foundation’s established ecosystem of energy majors and IT service providers by validating Energy Web’s decentralized operating system and bring new sources of value to Deutsche Telekom customers
Organizational ID
What Personal and Organizational Identity Have In Store for Communication Platform Services 2023-06-06 Identity Praxis, Michael Becker
The decline in digital communications trust is occurring as a result of the connected individual’s exposure—either directly or indirectly—to unwanted or harmful communications, including robocalls, emails, sms messages, phishing and smishing messages, and more, as well as rampant, not recognized or well understood, phygital surveillance.
[MEF] MEF CONNECTS ID & AUTH: The Dawn of Personal and Organizational Identity Hybrid Event Recap 2023-05-08 Michael Becker, Identity Nexus
including the origins, governance models, standardization, and industry and regulation-recognized organizational identifiers, like the global legal entity identifier (register for a discounted LEI here) and verified legal entity identifier (vLEI). In one use case, it was shared that Finland has reduced the cost of its corporate tax filing processes by 99% with organizational identity.
[video] Introducing Entity Identity: the Path to Building Trust and Engagement with KYC 2023-05-30 MEFTVChannel
Rebekah will also share lessons learned from federal and regulatory initiatives to combat fraud in the evolving communications landscape and identify practical steps the industry can take right now to re-build trust and engagement between entity and consumer using KYC
Government
How decentralized identity technology can make access to government services more equitable 2023-06-09 American City and Country
Easier to validate About 29 million adult U.S. citizens (11 percent) lack a valid driver’s license, and 7 million have no current form of government-issued photo ID. For these people, decentralized identity removes a hurdle in proving who they are.
Mobile-enabled At least 85 percent of U.S. adults have a smartphone, including 76 percent of residents making less than $30,000 a year. In fact, 27 percent of people with incomes under $30,000 lack broadband at home and access the internet with their smartphone. For these individuals, a mobile-first experience is essential.
The first resident-controlled decentralized identity platform designed for government. Gcomsoft
Since agencies are no longer storing vast amounts of PII for the residents that they provide services to, there’s little incentive for cyber attackers to hack into an agency’s systems. Thus, DIG can minimize the threat of ransomware payouts and reduce the hundreds of billions of dollars agencies spend on cybersecurity and database management.
Indonesia to Establish A New Decentralized Digital ID Infrastructure AlexaBlockchain
The parties involved firmly believe that the decentralized digital identity infrastructure will become the preferred choice for modern societies, potentially serving as the backbone of the digital economy. This development is expected to accelerate innovation, foster competition, and enhance consumer protection in Indonesia.
Protectoria Venture Signs Agreement to Propose a Decentralised Digital ID to Indonesia 2023-06-07 AFP
We are very ambitious with our intentions to assist in providing the country with a digital infrastructure that can effectively secure transactions, protect privacy and facilitate the digital transformation of Indonesian society
EU
June 6th 1st International Workshop on Trends in Digital Identity (TDI 2023) ST.FBK.EU
New Academic Conference last week
The eIDAS 2.0 proposal and the uncertain future of electronic ledgers as trust services: Is blockchain here to stay? 2023-06-06 Kuleuven Law
The main incentive of the Commission in integrating electronic ledgers into the identity ecosystem can be explained as preventing internal market fragmentation. In addition, more decentralized governance with multi-party cooperation, which combines the time stamping of data, their sequencing, and knowledge of the data originator, is made possible by electronic ledgers
PharmaLedger: A Digital Trust Ecosystem for Healthcare - Daniel Fritz & Marco Cuomo - Webinar 64 SSI Meetup
PharmaLedger was a 29 member, 3-year, €22 million project under the EU and EFPIA Innovative Medicine Initiative pursued DIDs with external partners such as the global standards organization GS1 and the Global Legal Identifier Foundation (GLEIF). The project also resulted in the creation of the PharmaLedger Association in 2022, a non-profit Swiss association
EIC \ Identiverse
[Twitter] People said good things about the design of the deck of my VerifiableCredentials for identity practitioners sessions 2023-06-09 vibronet
so sharing the terminology slide here. We'll likely update the collection with VC concepts - LMK if there are concepts you need a visual for!
Takeaways from the European Identity Conference and Identiverse 2023-06-09 ToIP
EIC: “half the conference was now focused on decentralized identity: digital wallets, credentials, exchange platforms, orchestration engines, and governance solutions. In retrospect this makes sense given the worldwide attention on the European Digital Identity Wallets initiative (EUDIW)”
Identiverse: “it began with Andre coming on stage and sitting down as we listened to his pre-recorded voiceover narrative to a powerful three-minute slideshow about how generative AI was now about to impersonate almost anyone almost anywhere. It ended with this warning:”
Research
Leveraging Blockchain for Zero Knowledge Identify Sharing: A Survey of Advancements, Challenges and Opportunities 2023-06-05 Abebe Diro, Lu Lu Zhou, Akanksha Saini, Shahriar Kaisar, Hiep Pham
the architecture of blockchain, and its advantages for user identity sharing. It also explores privacy challenges related to storing user identities on a blockchain and the ZKP protocols devised to safeguard privacy within the blockchain ecosystem. Moreover, the paper examines how blockchain and ZKP technology are employed to address challenges concerning transaction and user identity privacy
A Blockchain Self-Sovereign Identity for Open Banking Secured by the Customer’s Banking Cards 2023-06 Khaled A. M. Ahmed, Sabry Saraya, John F. Wanis, Amr Ali-Eldin, Mansoura University
The preliminary results show that SSBI provides an effective solution for integrating the customer’s banking cards to secure open banking identity exchange. Furthermore, it allows the integration of several scenarios to support trusted open banking. The Blockchain layer settings need to be scaled and improved before real-world implementation.
Promises and Problems in the Adoption of Self-Sovereign Identity Management from a Consumer Perspective 2023-05-05 Marco Hünseler, Eva Pöll
This paper examines the effects of SSIs on responsible, confident, and vulnerable consumers in order to develop the missing understanding of consumer needs in SSI adoption and define preconditions and necessary considerations for the development of SSI-based platforms and applications.
Decentralized Social
Web5 – Open to Build (Block/TBD) 2023-06-09 SSIMeetup, Daniel Buchner
the web as it was intended to be: a thriving, open ecosystem of apps and protocols which put individuals at the center. To do this, he and the TBD team at Block are building what they call “Web5” which combines decentralized identifiers, verifiable credentials and personal datastores to create a platform for building truly self-sovereign apps on the web.
This is what Instagram’s upcoming Twitter competitor looks like Theverge
The new standalone app will be based on Instagram and integrate with ActivityPub, the decentralized social media protocol. That will theoretically allow users of the new app to take their accounts and followers with them to other apps that support ActivityPub, including Mastodon.
Web 3
SEC vs. Coinbase with Coinbase's Chief Legal Officer, Paul Grewal 2023-06-07 bankless
The SEC is showing all of its cards. Gary Gensler doesn't want the crypto industry to exist at all. After yesterday's Binance suit, the SEC is going after Coinbase too. We brought on Coinbases's Legal Officer, Paul Grewal to hear how Coinbase plans to fight, how you, Bankless listener, can join the fight, and what's next for the crypto industry.
SmartCustody Blockchain Commons Christopher Allen and Shannon Appelcline
SmartCustody is an educational project intended to encourage responsible key management for digital assets. It includes a book focused on risk modeling and digital custody scenarios as well as a number of shorter papers that focus on individual "smart" methodologies for managing digital custody, such as multisigs and sharded shares.
Everyone is talking about Account Abstraction... But I would like to propose that we start thinking about... Key Abstraction! 2023-06-13 Pedro Gomes
Key Abstraction focuses on modularizing the main properties of key management: - Authentication - Signing - Storage MPC/TSS enables Key Abstraction
Interesting
DNA of everything and forever Unlimitrust
What languages dominate the internet? RestOfWorld
Its true about the Internet and TRUE about credentials - we must support multiple languages. JSON-LD is a way to do that more easily.
more than half the sites on the web use English as their primary language. That’s a lot more than one might expect, given that native English speakers only make up just under 5% of the global population. Meanwhile, Chinese and Hindi are the second and third most-spoken languages in the world, but the same scan found they account for just 1.4% and 0.07% of domains, respectively.
AI
It’s infuriatingly hard to understand how closed models train on their input Simon WIllison
ChatGPT Plugins Don't Have PMF Matt Rickard
When deepfakes are everywhere Ben Werdmuller
Understanding GPT tokenizers Simon WIllison
Apple Vision
Stratechery on Apple Vision Stratechery
Leviathan Wakes: the case for Apple's Vision Pro Redeem Tomorrow
First Impressions of Vision Pro and VisionOS Daring Fireball
Identity Not SSI
Thanks for Reading!
Read more \ Subscribe: newsletter.identosphere.net
Support our efforts by Patreon or Paypal
Contact \ Submission: newsletter [at] identosphere [dot] net