July 2023
DIF Website | DIF Mailing Lists | Meeting Recording Archive
Table of contents
- Decentralized Identity Foundation News; 2. Working Group Updates; 3. Open Groups; 4. Announcements at DIF; 5. Community Events; 6. DIF Members; 7. Get involved! Join DIF
🚀 Decentralized Identity Foundation News
Steering Committee Elections - call for nominations
The annual election of DIF Steering Committee members is approaching, with the deadline for nominations September 4.
The Steering Committee is an elected group of member representatives who lead DIF, set strategy, assure the quality of ratified work items and respond to the community’s needs. Elections occur each year to ensure a democratic process to lead and administer DIF, and to continually provide a diverse and inclusive mix of commitee members.
If you know someone who would be a good candidate, please submit their name to nominations@identity.foundation by Sept 4. Self-nominations are also fine!
The full election timetable is available on the DIF website .
Korea SIG
The Korea SIG met for the first time on 19th July in the city of Busan, designated a Blockchain Special Zone by the Korean Government.
The Kickoff event was held in conjunction with the Self-Sovereign Identity Technology Project, initiated in the first half of 2023 by the Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology (ICT).
Standardization committee members, professors, and industry officials gathered at the event. DIF was introduced, together with the specifications-compliant stacks being discussed at DIF, and the wider ecosystem DIF operates within.
The topic of a Legal Identity Issuance and Verification Framework for Decentralized Identifiers was introduced in preparation for further discussions at upcoming meetings, with a presentation on the topic from Professor Kim Hyun-il of Kongju University, generating considerable interest and questions.
In Korea, Decentralized Identity demonstration projects are ongoing every year, creating various application cases, but it is true that progress on technology standardization has been slow. Accordingly, DIF Korea SIG agreed to explore and further understand DIF's technology specifications and stacks through periodic meetings, contribute to the standardization of Decentralized Identity technology, and discover exemplary application cases to which DIF specifications will be applied already this year.
The next meeting of the Korea SIG will take place on 14 September at Yongsan Army Hall, hosted by the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology, when DIF will be introduced at the Next Generation Authentication Research Group Workshop 2023
New DIF developer advocates
DIF welcomes Mostafa Nagy and Pratap Mridha as Volunteer Developer Advocates. Mostafa helped to recruit a number of participants for the recent successful did:hack event and both advocates will help recruit participants for a series of upcoming hackathons.
🛠️ Working Group Updates
🔐 Applied Crypto WG
Draft 03 of the BBS specification (presented by DIF Members Tobias Looker and Vasilis Kalos at IETF 116 in Yokohama in March 2023) now integrates the optimizations of Stefano Tessaro and Chenzhi Zhu, reducing the signature and proof size (and proving the security of the scheme).
The DIF Crypto - BBS work item meets weekly at 11am PT/2pm ET /8pm CET Mondays
📦 Secure Data Storage
Decentralized Web Node (DWN) Task Force (Decentralized Web Nodes)
The Decentralized Web Node MVP reference implementation is now operable and located here: https://github.com/TBD54566975/dwn-sdk-js/
The Task Force warmly invites all DIF members to join us every Wednesday bi-weekly at 9AM PST to listen in on the working group's progress. TBD, a division of Block, has also been working on open-source tooling and onboarding to DWNs, in addition to the core sample implementation.
Also a reminder that the DWN companion guide is now available.
DIF/CCG Secure Data Storage WG - DWN Task Force meets bi-weely at 9am PT/12pm ET/6pm CET Wednesdays
💡Identifiers and Discovery Work Group
FIDO has initiated a series of meetings to discuss synergy, following up from a presentation Tim Capalli made at IIW in 2022.
Identifiers and Discovery meets bi-weekly at 11am PT/ 2pmET/ 8pm CET Mondays
Crypto Revocation Work Item bi-weekly
The group is looking for more participation at this time, particularly from potential implementers of low-level libraries for the novel revocation schemes the group has been researching and documenting. If you’re interested in contributing and helping to drive work on this, please reach out to limari@identity.foundation.
The DIF Crypto Revocation work item meets bi-weekly at 11am PT/2pm ET/8pm CET Thursdays
If you are interested in participating in any of the Working Groups highlighted above, or any of DIF's other Working Groups, please click here.
📖 Open Groups at DIF
☂️ DIF Interoperability Group
The DIF Interoperability Open Group is excited to announce that Elena Dumitrascu, Cofounder and CTO of Credivera, has joined Brent Shambaugh and Bonnie Yau as co-chair. Elena brings an unique ability to spot digital identity and credentialing trends across industry boundaries. Previously an executive in software development and sales, her passion is growing the capabilities of the next generation of Canadian innovators. She contributes her research and industry knowledge to leading associations such as the CompTIA Blockchain Council, the Digital Governance Council; as well as entrepreneurial foundations such as the The 51, The Firehood, A100, Platform Calgary, Alberta Innovates and Technovation.
Welcome Elena!
Since kicking off the new presenter's series on User Adoption and Interoperability, the group has seen positive feedback and interest in the stories being shared by problem solvers and technology innovators.
Building on the momentum from a presentation by Dan Giurescu, Founder of Credivera, the group was pleased to have Charles Macpherson, Senior Product Manager from the British Columbia Digital Identity and Trust Program, share his experiences from BC's verifiable credentials pilots.
Meyer Mechanic, Founder of Vaultie, explained how game theory and customer obsession shaped their product.
Joel Thorstensson also hosted an ad hoc session and explored the conclusions from his article Generative DID Maximalism with the group.
If you are interested in speaking in the User Adpotion and Interop series, or simply want to bounce around some interop thoughts and ideas, don't hesitate to reach out to any of the co-chairs or Limari Navarrete at limari@identity.foundation
The DIF Interoperability group meets you bi-weekly at 8am PT/11am ET/5pm CET Wednesdays
[📡 DIDComm User Group] (Open Group)
Nick Reynolds presented a proof-of-concept DIDComm protocol for communicating with AI agents (see his Medium article.
Jesús Diaz (a researcher at IOG) presented some research / formal analysis of DIDComm and offered some possible improvements.
James Ebert presented an Invitation Service that makes improvements to existing OOB protocol (when you scan a QR code on device to begin DIDComm convo)
The DIDComm user group meets weekly at 12pm PT/3pm ET/ 9pm CET Mondays
Hospitality and Travel SIG
The Hospitality & Travel SIG is hard at work on a decentralized traveller profile and schema which we hope will attract broad interest and participation from the Hospitality & Travel community.
Traveller information is today locked into narrow silos controlled by competing interests all of whom claim to own the customer. No effective data sharing arrangements exist between those parties, preventing traveller information from flowing with the traveller in transit.
While much of the interaction between travel and identity communities has to date been denominated by discussions around border crossing, credentials and trust, SSI offers equal opportunity for traveller experience improvement within the airport and downstream into transport, accommodation, and tourism. Collectively, we describe the targeted outcome as a seamless traveller journey.
Central to unlocking this opportunity is adoption of a common traveller profile and preferences.
The H&T SIG is hoping to use the DIF collaborative process to allow the widest participation in the schema definition and creation.
*The Hospitality & Travel SIG meets each Thursday 10 AM Eastern time for 1 hour
📻 IoT SIG
Daniel Fritz, Executive Director of the Pharmaledger Association, shared his insights into how the pharmaceutical industry is collaborating to create a digital trust ecosystem and how this is benefiting members, starting with a shared product enabling members to switch from paper to electronic Product Information leaflets.
Riho Vedler, an EU and UN expert on Logistics and Digital Transformation, also presented to the SIG on the role of decentralized identity in enabling compliance with the upcoming electronic Freight Transport Information (eFTI) regulation in the EU.
The SIG is currently considering potential work items and welcomes input from current partipants and the wider community.
The IoT SIG meets bi-weekly at 10am PT/1pm ET/ 7pm CET Wednesdays
🏦 Banking and Finance SIG
Following a time change for the Banking and Finance SIG Call, the SIG now meets bi-weekly at 2pm PT/ 5pm ET/ 11pm CET Thursdays
🌏 APAC/ASEAN Discussion Group
We invite everyone in the APAC region to join our monthly calls and contribute to the discussion. You will be able to find the minutes of the latest meeting here.
The DIF APAC call takes place Monthly on the 4th Thursday of the month. Please see the DIF calendar for updated timing.
🌍 DIF Africa Discussion Group
We are in need of someone to chair this process. Let us know if you’re interested in building, organizing and hosting monthly meetings.
Occurs on the first Thursday of the month at 9am UTC
📢 Announcements at DIF
mDL Interoperability Event
Spruce ID is hosting an asynchronous mobile driver’s license (mDL) Interoperability Event at the end of August.
Registration Closes on August 7, with testing commencing on August 21 and concluding on September 1.
The Event Results will be published in Mid-September and will include anonymized, aggregate results. These results may be discussed in ISO working group meetings, but only as anonymized results.
Digital Identity unConference (DICE) Europe 2023
DIF members participated in three days of inspiration, collaboration and connection in Zurich last month as the Internet Identity Workshop (IIW) format came to Europe for the first time.
The event brought together innovative startups, large companies, and governments, who are building products and developing services using emerging digital identity technologies.
The pre-unConference day on 7th June featured presentations on both foundational and advanced Decentralized Identity topics. One of the highlights was a panel discussion in which government representatives from the UK, Finland, Bhutan, the USA, Austria and Switzerland compared notes on how each country is approaching the introduction of digital identity services.
Over the next two days of the unConference attendees proposed, discussed and co-created valuable output on a wide range of topics including DNS and Decentralized Systems, Mapping non-technical problems, How to evaluate tech stacks for future ecosystems, Digital Ethics, Interop Profiles and Experiences for OIDC4VC, Verifiable Credentials for Education, Wallet Security, Trust Registries, Connecting SSI with the Supply Chain, Requirements for Organisational Wallets, Revocation Methods and the EIDAS 2.0 EU Digital Identity Wallet Architecture Reference Framework (ARF).
Kaliya Young and Heidi Nobantu Saul, the two facilitators of IIW, collaborated with a local partner, Trust Square, and the Swiss Digital Identity and Data Sovereignty Association (DIDAS) to produce and host the event.
To view the book of proceedings, click here
Identity Week Europe 2023
Several DIF members also participated in Identity Week Europe in Amsterdam last month.
The event was attended by many vendors and customers in fields such as biometrics and travel, counter document fraud, Know Your Customer (KYC) and border management.
DIF's senior director of communications, Damian Glover, participated in a panel discussion on Decentralized Identity with Marnix van den Bent from Rabobank, Raffael Knecht (Swisscom), Pedro Torres (Youverse) and Robert Garskamp (Id Next).
The session was well attended, signalling growing interest in Decentralized Identity within well-established identity-centric industries. The audience posed some interesting and challenging questions at the end of the panel discussion and it was great to engage with the wider identity and business community.
Guest blog
DIF has featured interviews and guest blogs from a range of members and community participants on our website in recent weeks.
Most recently, the team at Spherity talked to us about their their work on Digital Product Passports in the EU, and promoting compliance with new pharmaceutical industry regulations in the US.
Earlier this week, we published a thought piece by Adrian Doerk of Lissi highlighting how DIF members are contributing to the development of a seamless and secure European Digital Identity Wallet
We also shared a thought post from DIF's [Data Agreement task force ] outlining how data agreements have the potential to revolutionize supply chain management
(https://blog.identity.foundation/data-agreements/)
Finally, at the beginning of the month we featured an in-depth interview with Karyl Fowler, CEO of Transmute
Member spotlight - Otto Mora of Polygon ID
In our latest DIF Member Spotlight we sat down with Otto Mora, Business Development Lead for the Americas at Polygon Labs. Otto shared an overview of his company's journey and their ecosystem.
PolygonID is an identity platform powered by zero-knowledge cryptography and includes scalable and private on-chain verification to boost decentralized apps and decentralized finance.
You can learn more here.
We hope you enjoy watching!
Member spotlight - Dan Giurescu Founder of Credivera
Dan Giurescu, founder of Credivera recently gave this presentation to the DIF Interoperability Working group on Credivera's user adoption journey. Credivera is a technology platform that provides proof of certifications and work experience. The cloud technology collects and verifies digital credentials while using blockchain to maintain a real-time, auditable record. Credivera’s solutions use globally accepted standards to help business leaders in over 30 countries achieve their goals associated with the verification of credentials and compliance.
🗓️ ️Community Events
did:hack
DIF Members came together June 5-8 for a decentralized identity hackathon titled did:hack. The hackathon was designed for beginners through advanced levels and brought in 50 attendees/participants globally. The event was sponsored by Dock, Aviary Tech, Spruce ID with partners DIF and Women who Code Boulder/Denver. During the week participants enjoyed engaging educational sessions from Trinsic, TBD, Markus Sabadello, Aviary Tech and Dock. Participants innovated decentralized identity apps for finance, housing, voting among others. If you missed the event and would like to check out some of the recorded sessions they can be found here. Also follow did:hack on twitter to be on top of future events.
Dweb Camp
Dweb camp took place June 21st - 25th in the Mendocino Forest north of San Francisco. The event is held in the summer every year and is designed to create a space for individuals to collaborate and work towards building a better decentralized web. Our Sr. Director of Community Engagement Limari Navarrete presented an overview of the DIF and engaged with participants who were enthusiastic about open standards and discussions on interoperability. https://dwebcamp.org/
🗣️ DIF Member Announcements
New Member Orientations
If you are new to DIF join us for our upcoming new member orientations. Please subscribe to DIF’s eventbrite for upcoming notifications on orientations and events which can be found here.
🆔 Join DIF!
If you would like to get in touch with us or become a member of the DIF community, please visit our website.
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