Identosphere #30 • Growing Pains • DID for DeFi • NFT & VC • DIF Grants • Implementing Guardianship
Announcements of upcoming plans for Identosphere, Organization News, Standards Work, Upcoming events and the cream of the blogs-crop.
Thanks to our Patrons!!!
We really appreciate those of you who’ve made a commitment to the creation of this publication. Some personal appreciation is forthcoming, for some of our most recent, and most generous, Patrons.
⏲ Up Next • Patrons only!
Coming up this week 🤞 will be our first IIW digest!
Coming up this month 🤞 will be our first Working Groups Monthly Digest (too much to fit in the weekly)
✅ Goals
Between the two of us, it takes at least a complete workday to create this weekly publication. Not to mention months setting up feeds and ironing out those kinks, along the way.
Ultimately, we wish to fund our weekly investment (~$4000/m) through Patreon or other offerings.
📚 Soon
Beyond that, we’d generally like to expand our offerings. However, due to recent congestion in our information supply-chain, we may require a bit of shifting around before settling into a new routine.
Thanks Again
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Coming Up
Redefining the Student Journey and Beyond Through Verifiable Credentials Condatis • May 11
Slides on the European Data Governance Act from a data sovereignty perspective. (Register) May 25 – Data Sovereignty Now, in partnership with its members MyData Global, Meeco, SITRA, International Data Spaces and INNOPAY
Identiverse 2021 • June 21-23 (Denver)
Funding
Introducing DIF Grants Decentralized Identity Foundation
DIF is kicking off a program to administer narrowly-scoped financial support for community initiatives, ranging in format from grants to more competitive implementation bounties, hackathon-style open collaborations, and security reviews.
IIW 32 Highlights
A Deeper Understanding of Implementing Guardianship: Two new Guardianship papers from Sovrin at IIW #32
The first paper is called the Guardianship Credentials Implementation Guidelines and its purpose is to provide readers with the background they need to implement IT systems that support various kinds of guardianship. The second paper is called Guardianship Credentials Technical Requirements which was developed by the technical requirements working group within the SGWG. The purpose of this document is twofold: i) provide principles under which guardianship scenario designs and requirements are considered and defined; and ii) provide technical requirements for SSI solutions that offer the capability of guardianship.
Decentralized ID in DeFi
Decentralized identifiers for DeFi? Definitively. Hackernoon
DIDs from a DeFi user VCs can be placed, anchored, indexed, and associated on the LTO chain. LTO Network solution is GDPR compliant and goes hand in hand with ISO/TC307 - BLOCKCHAIN AND DISTRIBUTED LEDGER TECHNOLOGIES. LTO Network approach uses Chainlink oracles for reaching the cross-chain operability and the Dutch company Sphereon for wallet integration.
NFTs and Verifiable Credentials: What are they, their differences and do they mix? TYKN
Ontology • ApeTV (podcast)
Conversation with Humpty Calderon, Head of Community for Ontology, regarding the movement of self-sovereign ID, what it unlocks, ONT's cross-chain functionality, and how teams & communities can bootstrap a better experience for themselves.
From the Blog-o-sphere
Self-Sovereign ID (SSI), The Unhackable Digital ID: What It Is and How It Works
The Siloed Model – The organization owns the member information, not the member.
The Federated Model – The identity providers (IDP) owns the member data, not the member.
The Best Model: SSI – The members own their own data!
Legitimacy and Decentralized Systems Windley
Why are some decentralized systems accepted and widely used while others wither? Why do some “hard forks” succeed while others fail? It all comes down to legitimacy.
Gravity Glossary
Our Gravity Glossary offers basic definitions to help you untangle the confusing technical jargon behind decentralized identity and blockchain.
Dock To Release Verifiable Credentials API
In Dock’s case, partners are looking to access blockchain solutions for the creation of decentralized identities and the issuance and management of verifiable credentials.
These development teams can of course spend time learning new concepts, but learning curves can be a barrier to adoption whereas fast and less complex integrations are certainly preferred by organizations. For these reasons, Dock is going to be making some of the network’s features available via an API, which is in effect a HTTP wrapper of our SDK.
Rambling – Do I Need a Credential? Continuum Loop
I am a Professional Engineer, which in Canada, is a regulated profession. That means I am formally credentialed. The tech that I am issues comprises of a rubber stamp and an ink pad. Yup – very high tech…
Announcing Tezos Profiles - Own and Control Your Creator Identity Spruce Systems
TZP is a web application that helps users regain control of their digital identity for use across platforms. It allows users to create portable verified profiles by demonstrating control over their public social media and by self-attesting information. These verified profiles are then linked to Tezos account
Can SSI Safeguard your Information from Hackers?
The cryptography used is called the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) that comprises a pair of public and private keys where the holder keeps the private keys, but shares the public keys.
Video
NGI Forward SALON ON DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY IN eID-Solutions2:Self-sovereign, Centralised or Privatised
We are in a very interesting historical moment where forces (and solid arguments) for centralization and forces (and solid arguments) for decentralization seem to hold each other in check. Without a clear vision on identity, society will have no agency since the capability to produce future value (data) is not under regional, nor national, nor international regulated control
Self-Sovereign Identity Mobile Wallet 101: Key Features Northern Block
In this video we showcase the features that a NB Orbit Mobile Wallet user can use:
Form P2P connections through DIDComm
Receive credential proof requests
Manage Verifiable Credentials
Scan QR codes to initiate proof requests
Manage profile
SSI For Healthcare: Lessons from the NHS
Lessons learned from working with self-sovereign identity (SSI) at the NHS, and the needs highlighted when leading the frontline response during COVID-19
What digital health passes mean for the adoption of SSI
Applying the four principles of healthcare ethics to verifiable credential technology
The top use cases for healthcare, including “staff passports” and portable health records
Decentralized identities on Stacks
Join Ryder (Stacks grantee, creating a decentralized hardware wallet) in discussing their protocol, product, and growth and how it innovates Stacks DIDs.
Digital Health Passes
3 key areas of enterprise blockchain adoption in 2021 IBM
Government policies vary on the topic, standards are only just starting to emerge, and citizens and enterprises are rightly focused on preserving privacy and equality with our national and international responses. IBM is supporting countries like Germany as well as the State of New York to issue trusted, privacy-preserving credentials.
It’s also important to note that “health passports” exist on a spectrum of sophistication and in most cases do not yet include tethering to a verifiable personal ID capability
IATA’s digital health wallet paves the way to a new biometric identity for travel
As FTE has previously reported, a number of other solutions have entered the digital health passport space in the past few months from various suppliers, including AOKpass, CommonPass, Daon’s VeriFLY, CLEAR Health Pass and IBM Digital Health Pass, just to name a few. Despite the growing competition, IATA is clear that its aim is not to dominate the market, but to make sure that standards are established to create a secure and interoperable solution.
Literature
Decentralized, Self-Sovereign, Consortium: The Future of Digital Identity in Canada
This article introduces how SecureKey Technologies Inc. (SecureKey) worked with various network participants and innovation partners alongside government, corporate, and consumer-focused collaborators, in a consortium approach to create a mutually beneficial network of self-sovereign identity (SSI) principles with blockchain in Canada.
Organization News
Setting Interoperability Targets DIF
Our short-term roadmaps need testable, provable alignment goals that we can all agree on for our little communities and networks of technological thinking to converge gradually. Simply put, we need a few checkpoints and short-term goals, towards which we can all work together.
The DEI rollback Ben Werdmüller
The solution, for now, is to call it out, and for those of us with privilege to pledge never to work for (or start) an organization with these policies. Diversity and inclusion is more important than ever. And leaders who care about the culture of their companies should once again take note of the Basecamp team: this time as a lesson in what not to do.
Passing the Torch at the OpenID Foundation Mike Jones
Today marks an important milestone in the life of the OpenID Foundation and the worldwide digital identity community. Following Don Thibeau’s decade of exemplary service to the OpenID Foundation as its Executive Director, today wewelcomed Gail Hodges as our new Executive Director.
Welcoming Gail Hodges as Our New Executive Director OpenID Foundation
Those of you who already know Gail know that she’s passionate about enabling digital identity to serve the public good. She has extensive experience both in the digital identity space – for instance, having founded the Future Identity Council, and in the payments space – among other accomplishments, having headed Apple Pay in Latin America and having been the global head of digital payments at HSBC.
The Seven Step Process to Becoming a Validation Agent: a closer look at the trial process with GLEIF’s latest eBook
By becoming Validation Agents financial institutions can also streamline, accelerate and diversify their use of the LEI, and ensure their autonomy as they look to digitize their business processes.
Why Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) for Identity? Hyperledger
To understand why DLT is useful for identity, we need to go back to the basics—paper credentials, how that model has worked for 1000s of years, and how the use of DLTs with verifiable credentials allows us to transition the great parts—security and privacy—of that model to the digital age.
BedRock Consortium has a home page
The Bedrock Consortium is a Linux Foundation project that supports the operation of the Bedrock Business Utility, an independent self-governed and self-sustainable public identity utility.
Reflections in my rear view mirror Dan Gisolfi
as the founder/convener of the Bedrock Project I must now hand over the baton. Bedrock is positioned to be an important public identity utility for the maturation of a digital trust marketplace. I will always be here to help when/where I can. Hint: Maybe my new road ahead will help bring additional members to the table.
Personal Data
If your strategic plan is based on data, have you considered the consequences? MyDigitalFootprint
How do you know your data set has the views of everyone who is critical to your business today and in the future? How do you know the tools you use provide equal weight to everyone to make our business thrive? How do you know if the recommendation was written before the analysis? How do your incentives create a new bias?
We Need Data Unions to Support the Data Economy Pool Foundation via Ocean Protocol
In the twelfth episode of Voices of the Data Economy, we had a conversation with Shiv Malik, CEO at Pool Foundation and former Head of Growth for Streamr where he evangelized about a new decentralized data economy. During this discussion, he tells us how Data Unions work, its real-life use cases, and legislative regulations supporting the Data Union model. Here are edited excerpts from the podcast.
Data for good: powering our way to a better world
We should absolutely all be taking care of the data that belongs to us, our data that we create, that we have a right to be able to control and share exactly as we choose. But we should also bear in mind the power of that data to help each of us, every day, benefit from the good that can come when it is shared and used to create a better world for us all.
Not SSI
How Brick-And-Mortar Approaches Improve Digital Experiences Auth0
A McKinsey survey of 20,000 European consumers in the spring of 2020 found that on average, 70% of consumers across sectors said they intended to continue using digital services after COVID-19 as much as they did during the pandemic. “There’s no going back,” notes McKinsey. “Bold vision and disciplined execution on a set of key imperatives will ultimately differentiate the leaders from the laggards as this crisis abates.”
Traceability for a Sustainable Future PeerLedger
A report from CDP found that “100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions since 1988” and that just “25 corporations and state-owned entities were responsible for more than half of global industrial emissions in that same period.”
Beyond the shouting match: what is a blockchain, really?
I agree that there's something important here, and this definition of "blockchain" maybe does explain why while from a computer science perspective, perhaps signed git trees do resemble blockchains, they don't seem to fit within the realm of what most people are thinking about... while git might be a tool used by several people with aligned incentives, it is not generally itself the layer of incentive-alignment.
Protected: Directory of Products That Assess Identification Documents and Verify Identity Version 2.0 need?
Tweets of the Week
Rabbit Hole Poetics • Apr 26
#UBI "The reliable self-sovereign identity validation process has established the bedrock infrastructure required to make a Universal Basic Income mechanism that can reach everyone on Earth."
Don Tapscott • Apr 27
Here are the core themes in #blockchain that the @blockchainRI is focusing on this year.
