Identosphere 83 • Bluesky Interop Formats • Lessons from Kenya on IDs for cash AID • Block joins W3C
Upcoming events, company news, organizational updates, developments in standards and specifications, and deep thoughts on everything related to decentralized identity and verifiable credentials
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Upcoming
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
Explainer
Understanding Verifiable Credentials Credivera
The value of verifiable credentials and the critical role they will play to our future digital identities is undeniable. As we enter a new era of online representation, trust in the internet will need to be vigorously robust.
More security does not have to mean less user-friendliness Martin Kuppinger, Tagesspiegel
The passwords that have been declared dead are far from dead. Nevertheless, the way in which users authenticate themselves is changing towards more security and convenience.
Never mind who I am, ask me about my credentials John Phillips
Many (most) identity systems make a fundamental assumption that is built into their very architecture. This assumption creates three significant problems: privacy erosion; toxic data stores; and poor security.
Open Standards
What is Open Recognition, anyway? Going beyond credentialing and the formal/informal divide
Badges as credentials includes approaches that are well understood and largely replace or augment existing certification practices. Badges for recognition, however, include approaches that remain somewhat confusing to many people.
BlueSky
dSocialCommons Hosts Twitter Spaces | Interoperable Formats
Bluesky Community Voices #6: Interoperable Formats https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1vAxRkVrMPzKl Moderator @kimdhamilton Speakers @kevinmarks @mfosterio @JoeAndrieu @harlantwood
Working in Public BlueSky
Today we’re releasing ADX, the “Authenticated Data Experiment”. Our company's name, “bluesky,” describes the open-ended nature of this project, and the freedom we were given to start from first principles. As we get more concrete, we’ll give more specific names to what we’re building, starting with ADX.
Policy
Canada: Enabling Self-Sovereign Identity Tim Bouma
Older article not covered here, yet
The adoption of the self-sovereign identity model within the Canadian public sector is still being realized in 2020. It is too early to tell how it will change the technological infrastructure or the institutional infrastructure of Canadian public services.
Old Policy, New Tech: Reconciling Permissioned Blockchain Systems with Transatlantic Privacy Frameworks By Remy Hellstern and Victoria Lemieux
This paper will explore the global conversation and consensus around data privacy regulation, with specific attention to the European Union and Canada. It will work to understand how blockchain-based firms situate themselves amid this regulation in relation to the storage of personally identifiable information by looking at relevant policy decisions, legal cases, and commentary from regulatory bodies and commissions.
California
Our Input to the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) Pre-Rulemaking Stakeholder Sessions Me2BA
California is a major center of new privacy law and regulation, creating opportunities for internet safety advocates to help design policies that will ripple out well beyond the state’s borders. Their Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), passed by ballot proposition in 2020, created the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA), which seems to be getting closer to initiating its first formal rulemaking process.
Organization
MyData Global adopts an updated logo and visual identity
Aotearoa’s digital identity journey that leaves no-one behind DigitalID NZ
IEUDI, together with DINZ’s Te Kāhui Te Tiriti O DINZ and Digital Identity Services Trust Framework (DISTF) work groups, detail the scope of DINZ’s mahi this year and into 2023 in pursuit of its mission – to create a digital identity ecosystem that enhances privacy, trust and improves access for all people in New Zealand. [...]
The DISTF WG met last week also, to discuss the Select Committee’s report following the submissions, containing its recommended changes to the Bill prior to its Second Reading.
Block Joins W3C @brockm
Today, we became a member of the @W3C, as part of our commitment to building open standards for an open web. We are committed to advancing and adopting decentralized and privacy-preserving standards for self-sovereign digital identity that benefits all. Not centralized platforms.
Humanitarian
Dignified Identities in Cash Assistance: Lessons Learnt from Kenya
Because of “know your customer” (KYC) requirements, the targeted community members who did not have a legally recognized ID could neither own a SIM card nor have an M-Pesa account, so a cash transfer via M-Pesa was not a viable option for this pilot project. Cash distribution was done via Flex, a money distributor contracted by KRCS.
Opportunities for Integrating Functional Digital ID into Humanitarian Action HIP
The Dignified Identities in Cash Assistance (DIGID) project was initiated by a consortium of humanitarian organizations. In 2021, a pilot project was carried out in Kenya implemented by the Kenya Red Cross Society to enable people without any form of ID to receive cash assistance in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic by means of a digital ID.
Over 1 Billion People Worldwide Lack Legal ID Continuum Loop
Inclusion is important in all aspects of life, including digital identity products. By ensuring that everyone is included in the development process, we can create products that meet the needs of everyone [...]
Input from many people from diverse backgrounds is essential to our work on the SSI Harm’s Task Force. I hope you’ll consider joining us – whether you want to contribute or just observe, everyone is welcome!
Fixing Aid | Can blockchain help fix the I.D. problem for a billion people? The New Humanitarian
When forced to flee your home from one moment to the next, grabbing birth certificates, school diplomas, and other papers that prove you are who you say you are might not be the first thing that comes to mind. And without those credentials, everything is more difficult when it comes to starting a new life or picking up the pieces of an old one: applying for asylum, applying for a job, or registering to receive aid and other kinds of support.
Biometrics
ID.me and the future of biometric Zero Trust IDRamp
Although poorly executed and architected, ID.Me and the IRS were on the right path: biometrics is a great way to verify identity and provides a way to deter fraud. But the second part, the part they missed, is that biometrics only fights fraud if it is deployed in a way that preserves user privacy and doesn’t itself become a new data source to steal.
Company Stories
Trust Stamp and IdRamp Team Up for New Identity Platform FindBiometrics
a new multi-factor authentication platform that combines Trust Stamp’s selfie-based Biometric MFA solution with IdRamp’s no-code authentication infrastructure.
The joint offering will make it easier for organizations to provide a more consistent authentication experience across all of their systems.
Vittorio @vibronet Auth0 via Twitter\Threaderapp (18 tweets, worth reading)
Yesterday I celebrated 4 years at @auth0... what an amazing ride!
Working here is an absolute dream, and joining forces with @okta is a force multiplier 💪
Here's a🧵with a compilation of my favorite projects - the ones I can talk about in public anyway 😜
Orchestrate your identity management strategy IDRamp
It’s time to stop buying expensive bridges to Failureland. It’s time to shift our perspective on identity management away from what clearly doesn’t work and won’t work and instead, employ technologies that make the systems we have work better. It is time to focus on the technologies that simplify identity management, can be easily integrated, and provide a path to evolution at a pace and cost that meet business and government needs.
Web3
Web3 Ecosystem (Epic Miro Board)
In Extremely Confusing Twist, Facebook Says It Isn’t Building a Metaverse After All
Infominer says this maybe a response to twitter’s BlueSky - SelfAuthenticating protocol. It may not have occurred to them the possibilities enabled by SSI\VCs until seeing twitters plans (or to begin with the whole thing was just a marketing stunt to pump their bitcoin holdings)
The Web3 Decentralization Debate Is Focused on the Wrong Question Wired
Fixating on the degree—rather than the type—of decentralization is leading us astray
Identity not SSI
Senate Asks FTC to Investigate ID.me for Deceptive Business Practices FindBiometrics
ID.me’s legal woes are continuing to escalate. The company is now staring down the prospect of its second federal investigation in as many months, after the House of Representatives’ Oversight and Reform Committee initiated its review in April.
Online Gambling regulations in the UK IDNow
Since becoming fully regulated following the enactment of the Gambling Act 2005, Online Gambling has steadily grown in the UK, with sports betting, online casinos, and bingo each being widely available. As of 2021, it’s reported that there are over 2,439 gambling operators in the UK market, the vast majority of which offer iGaming services.
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