So.. I’m watching this fine video by IBM about its “self-sovereign” identity document solution that magically the drivers licence authority can “erase” with a click of the button from them (yes the could if need to be able to revoke your privilege to drive but its an ID you use for many other things besides that). See that in this video.
The next video just got me hopping – they are calling all the bits of information about you on the drivers licence “traits” rather than the industry norm for those types of things “attributes”. Anyways maybe this is for public consumption. Link to video. And for a bouns…”my traits don’t makeup who I am”. (Oh but the ISO standards they are following often take this perspective).
I think this first video listed may be the first case I have seen of the white-washing of the term self-sovereign Identity.
Perhaps it was and is naive to believe that we will be able to build systems that really empower consumers and take advantage of the things that bits can do that paper documents can’t. The grooves of thinking about how things will need to be are shaped by the people and institutions that have been thinking about this and driving this since the era when they created passports that were a new and novel thing in the 1920s. they are driven by the institutions that seek to control us via our identities.
They don’t have a problem using the term “cryptoblob” – which might be a good term of art.
Dave Barns is working on this a lot and it is very interesting that he and his group have not found IIW yet. It just shows that the landscape is ripe for more connecting. Hopefully they can join us in May or October.