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Upcoming

• Conversation with Kaliya Young "Identity Woman" at Newspeak House 5/17 (with Kaliya Tonight in London!)

• Complex harms reduction through co-design of socio-technical systems in FinTech HXWG 5/18 TOIP

• AGENCY - Complex harms reduction through co-design of socio-technical systems 5/19

• Travel & Hospitality Biometrics Online Summit FindBiometrics 5/28 (register)

• ID4Africa Marrakesh 6/15-16 (Kaliya will be there in advance)

• IAM and SSI: A Combined Approach to Digital Identity 6/15 TOIP

• Kaliya hosting a meetup in the Netherlands on 6/18 (details TBD) reach out if interested

• Identiverse in Denver 6/21-24 (Kaliya is talking there)

• Thoughtful Biometrics Workshop - Mid July virtual

• Decentralized Web Camp 8/24-28 in Northern California (Kaliya’s attending & encouraging SSI folks to participate)

• Internet Identity Workshop #35 11/14-16, Mountain View California

Explainers

Compare and Contrast — Federated Identity vs Self-sovereign Identity Affinidi

What is Self-Sovereign Identity? Tangle Labs

Self-sovereign identity system: Blockchain-based tech for identity verification Economic Times

Relative to the Indian context

Professor Manindra Agrawal, Department of CSE, IIT Kanpur, explains how the self-sovereign identity system can ease issues like certification, verification and eliminate forgery of identity using blockchain technology.

Digital sovereignty: Reclaiming your private data in Web3 Cointelegraph

this is a collaborative effort — one bigger than a single individual or organization — and the whole Web3 space should work together.

SteveWilson Considering SSI critics

I reckon most cases of over-identification stem either from bad habits (e.g. RPs gathering circumstantial AuthN signals) or from Surveillance Capitalism. Either way, better deals for users will come from better design, not by weaponising Digital Identity (SSI, DIDs).

Digital Identity Convenience Christine Martin, Continuum Loop

You will take back control of your identity and hold it. Not Facebook, not Google, and you will decide what credentials to share on a need-to-know basis. We don’t have to be scared of the shift; we have to ensure the architecture is built ethically for all

Policy

Crypto Regulatory Affairs: Governor of California Signs Blockchain Executive Order Elliptic

On May 4th, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into effect a “Blockchain Executive Order”
“[to] assess how to deploy blockchain technology for state and public institutions, and build research and workforce development pathways to prepare Californians for success in this industry”. 

We Applaud the Confirmation of New FTC Commissioner, Alvaro Bedoya Me2Ba

Bedoya’s research has shined a light on digital surveillance and its impact on people of color, immigrants, and the working class. He founded the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law to focus on the importance of consumer privacy rights. 

Response to FinCEN RFI Centre

In this letter, we focus on two questions relevant to identifying Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) regulations and  guidance that may be outdated, redundant, or do not promote a risk-based AML/CFT regulatory regime  for financial institutions. 

Trust in the digital space Lissi ID

Would we rather have a high level of security or self-sovereignty? Unfortunately, the two aspects are at different ends of the spectrum. If we only allow pre-verified and approved parties to retrieve identity data, as currently envisaged by the eIDAS regulation, this severely restricts usage

Standardization

OpenID for Verifiable Credentials OpenID (Whitepaper)

to inform and educate the readers about the work on the OpenID for Verifiable Credentials (OpenID4VC) specifications family. It addresses use-cases referred to as Self-Sovereign Identity, Decentralized Identity, or User-Centric Identity.

Indicio completes Hyperledger Indy DID Method—A Milestone in the Evolution of DID Interop

The Indy DID Method paves the way for Hyperledger Indy credentials to scale globally by allowing Indy networks to seamlessly interoperate and create a “network-of-networks” effect.

Chain Agnostic Standards Alliance

The Chain Agnostic Standards Alliance (CASA) is a collection of working groups dedicated blockchain protocol-agnostic standards. CASA also publishes Chain Agnostic Improvement Proposals which describe standards created by the different working groups.

Company News

Video: #MARK Studio - Create tamper-proof, secure and globally verifiable digital credentials instantly Dhiway Networks 

Web 3 & Identity

Decentralized Society: Finding Web3's Soul

New paper by Glen Wheyl 

Key to this sociality is decomposable property rights and enhanced governance mechanisms—such as quadratic funding discounted by correlation scores—that reward trust and cooperation while protecting networks from capture, extraction, and domination. With such augmented sociality, web3 can eschew today’s hyper-financialization in favor of a more transformative, pluralist future of increasing returns across social distance.

Presentation: Extending Sign-In with Ethereum SpruceID @ CASA Gathering 2022

a number of breakout sessions took place, including a session on how Sign-In with Ethereum, CACAOs, and UCANs interoperate, and even one on a unified standard for wallet authentication (sign in with 'x').  

Cautionary Tales from Cryptoland Molly White, HBR

The ideological argument for Web3 is very compelling, and I personally hold many of the same ideals. I strongly believe in working toward a more equitable and accessible financial system, creating a fairer distribution of wealth in society

WEB2 VS WEB3 Ethereum.org

SSI “Neighbors” 

Soulbound tokens - Otters for DAOs? Otterspace

Our vision is to give DAOs the tools to better represent the varying nature of membership, improve member engagement, coordination and distribution of power and permission. By doing so, we also aim to progressively improve their autonomy and permissionlessness, while surfacing clear paths and incentives for individual members to deepen their participation. 💪

Trust Graph with video Harlan Wood

REPUTATION FOR DECENTRALIZED ECOSYSTEMS

• Trust Graph is an open protocol for sourcing & rendering Trust relationships

• It is a toolkit for building and reading distributed Trust Graphs

• An ambitious plan to create interoperability between existing and future Trust Networks

• Compatible with existing rating schemes (scores, percentages, star ratings, etc)

• Open Source (Apache licensed)

Identity not SSI

Will users and organizations have trust in keys roaming via the cloud?

the FIDO Alliance, a set of open, scalable, and interoperable specifications has been developed to replace passwords as a secure authentication method for online services. The alliance has also worked with companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Apple  to integrate and adopt FIDO standards across their operating systems.

What does it take to develop human-centric solutions for the built environment? MyData (Video)

Building better, more human-centric solutions in smart cities starts by realising that citizens and their digital footprints are not merely aspects to monitor and evaluate. They are active participants in the cities we live and work together and need to be engaged in designing better cities and managing the data about themselves. This is not important only for respecting citizens’ rights, but it is crucial to building sustainable services and humane cities.

Steve asks a very good question

Is there a body of knowledge out there about false intuitions (like ancient Greek intuitive physics) and the way poor metaphors can hold back progress? I'm thinking of how digital identity has been misconceived and badly framed.

Interesting

Visualizing Everyone that has Ever Lived

Max Roser with Our World in Data had the idea to turn us all into grains of sand within an hourglass, and to equate the passing of people to the passing of time. 

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