Identosphere 255 Nov 17-24: EUDI LSP report out • EUBW Draft • ENS looses in court • INATBA AI Report • ATIS Telecom Org ID

This is the weekly Identosphere Newsletter sharing highlights from around the web covering Decentralized and Self-Sovereign Identity curated by Kaliya Young, Identity Woman.

• Call for Papers Open Now Open Identity Summit Deadline: January 31st, 2026

The summit takes place May 21–22, 2026 at University of Applied Sciences Dresden (HTW Dresden) in Dresden, Germany

• SIDI Hub Pre-Conference Workshop @ TRUSTECH 2025 - Paris, France | Tuesday, 2 December 2025 | 14:00 – 18:00 CET

• NCCoE Mobile Driver’s License Project Update Webinar December 16, 2025.

The NIST National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) is making progress in accelerating the secure adoption of mobile driver’s license (mDL) standards and best practices. Join us for a webinar where we’ll be sharing newly available project resources and announcing our second project use case.

• Join us at the 1EdTech Digital Credentials Summit in Philadelphia, February 18-20, 2026.

• DIF Unconference Africa (an IIW Regional Event) Feb 24-26, 2026 Cape Town

(SprucID) Interoperability Is a Policy Decision, Not Just a Technical One

States should prefer that the technical standards used in a state digital identity program be open, freely available, and implementable by the public and private sector without proprietary licensing restrictions. Open standards are critical to ensuring transparency, interoperability, and long-term sustainability.

(MATTR) Rethinking “coverage” in digital credential verification

The real opportunity lies in asking the next layer of questions: How do we make sure verification remains future-ready? How do we design for interoperability from day one? That’s where digital trust moves from being a checkbox to a true enabler of transformation

[Video] EUDI: Key Takeaways From Europe’s Largest Digital ID Pilot

The European Digital Identity Wallet is entering one of the most consequential phases of its rollout, and few people are closer to the work than Esther Makaay, VP of Digital Identity at Signicat. After spending the last three years at the center of the European Identity Wallet Consortium (EWC), Esther joined us for a deep-dive presentation on what the Large-Scale Pilots have actually delivered, and how ready Europe truly is for the 2026 deadline.

EUBW Draft, Nov 19 2025: What to Expect and Why This is Important

The EUBW will sit at the centre of almost all major EU digital and industrial initiatives: DPPs, Industry 4.0, data spaces, NIS2, the Cyber Resilience Act, reporting obligations, Trusted AI, VAT in the Digital Age, customs modernization, and Europe’s digital sovereignty agenda. If the EUBW is fragmented or built on the wrong foundations, all these initiatives will inherit the same fragmentation and complexity.

🍏 Apple just turned identity into a product category.

🇪🇺 Businesses are getting their own digital wallet, and this will reshape how companies operate across borders.

Rethinking the “Wallet”: Why Words Shape Digital Identity Architecture

New Zealand Government: Dept of Internal Affairs: Trust Framework Forms and Guidance Updated Nov 2025

China’s internet ID push signals a new era of digital control

The digital ID system also complements other previously designed surveillance systems, such as Sharp Eyes, police cloud systems, facial recognition closed-circuit television systems and grid-style social management, allowing the Chinese Ministry of State Security to link online activities directly into national monitoring systems.

The digital ID system also complements broader data-localization and true-name tracking policies first enacted in 2017 under the Cybersecurity Law and fortified under the Personal Information Protection Law of 2021.

Elements of a Community-Governed Trust Framework (and how Velocity Network delivers them all TODAY)

In an article published in November 2025 titled “Credentials not anchored in law – versus anchored”, Bo Harald, a thought leader in verifiable credentials and Trust Infrastructure, explains the critical roles of a trust layer. In this article, he explores the difference between credentials anchored in law and those not anchored in law.

Identity and AI

[Report] (INATBA) Building Trust: Integrating AI, Blockchain, and Digital Identity

The convergence of Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) represents a significant step toward establishing a global benchmark for digital trust, rights-based governance, and competitiveness.

Auth0 for AI Agents is Now Generally Available (GA)

Secure Your AI Agents: The Power is Already in Your Auth0 Plan

(Indicio) Win Web3 with Verifiable Credentials from Indicio

Exclusive: Bitfury, known for its Bitcoin mining, launches $1 billion initiative to invest in ethical tech and AI

“We’re big fans of [the American architect] Buckminster Fuller, who said, ‘You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model completely obsolete,’” Kikvadze said.

Telecoms

ATIS Releases New Framework for Telecom Organizational Digital Identity Governance

The paper outlines how verifiable credentials can integrate with existing STIR/SHAKEN and Rich Call Data (RCD) frameworks to enable end-to-end verification of organizational identity for calling and messaging. It further highlights how integrating existing trusted organizational digital identity into telecom infrastructure, the industry can significantly elevate the integrity of communications.

Labor Market Needs VCS to counter AI

The New Hiring Crisis: AI Fakes and the Need for Verifiable Credentials

Right now, candidates with real credentials spend weeks in background check limbo while fraudulent candidates breeze through with convincing stories and AI-generated answers. Verifiable credentials flip that equation. The honest candidates move faster. The fraudulent ones get filtered out before they waste anyone’s time.

Labour market institutions for the AI era: The need for verified employment records

The rise of AI fundamentally alters the balance between formal credentials and verified experience in labour markets, but without verified employment records, experience remains invisible. This column reviews employment record systems across eight advanced and emerging economies, as well as EU-level initiatives, to establish design principles and draw lessons from implementation failures. The analysis reveals that technical infrastructure alone does not guarantee success. Effective systems require aligned incentives, continuous stakeholder engagement, and careful sequencing.

Money and Identity

[Slide Deck] (Hart Montgomery) Practical Privacy for DEFI with an Open Source Software Perspective

Shaping the future of finance: key insights from M2020 USA.

- The era of agentic AI.

- Stablecoins and the future of money.

Company News

(IBM) Combat Identity Fraud with IBM Verify Digital Credentials: Secure, Interoperable, Future-Ready

Microsoft Entra Verified ID Identity Verification partners

Our Identity Verification (IDV) partner network extends Microsoft Entra Verified ID capabilities to help you build seamless end-user experiences. With Verified ID, you can integrate with IDV partners to enable scenarios like remote onboarding, secure access to resources and Account recovery with Government ID checks using identity verification and proofing services.

(Walt.ID) The SSI Kit: Discontinuation Notice!

Web3 Keeps trying to solve Proof of Personhood

Proof of Personhood: How Polkadot proves you’re real without KYC

Why cheqd is Changing from Trust Registry to Trust Graph

Instead of a simple list, a Trust Graph maps the rich, living connections between people, organisations, and AI agents, showing not just who is trusted, but how, why, and to what degree. It’s a more dynamic and connected way to represent trust in the digital age.

A Trust Graph is a living, interconnected network that shows how trust flows between people, organisations, and AI agents. It maps the relationships, hierarchies, permissions, and reputation signals between them. Think of it as a constantly evolving web of trust rather than a static spreadsheet.

Web 3

ENS looses patent fight with Unstoppable Domains

The UK is bringing in digital IDs. Here’s how to stop them becoming surveillance tools

For governments, SSI could underpin a digital ID framework that strengthens trust and efficiency without enabling mass surveillance, just like Switzerland.

[short video] (NEC) Face Recognition and Self-Sovereign Identity Reinvents Customer Experience [1:30]

Thoughtful

The Alternatives to Sorting Out Trust All Suck

Trust is so central to humanity that I’m surprised it doesn’t figure more prominently in recent visions of where we’re headed. I haven’t found a rigorous, exhaustive (MECE) framework that encompasses all the futures we might face, but the futures on offer today do seem bleak.

(Heather Flanagan) The Regulator’s Dilemma