December 2025
DIF Website | DIF Mailing Lists | Meeting Recording Archive
Table of contents
1. Decentralized Identity Foundation News; 2. Working Group Updates; 3. Special Interest Group Updates; 4. User Group Updates; 5. Announcements; 6. Community Events; 7. Get involved! Join DIF
🏛️ Decentralized Identity Foundation News
From the Executive Director
This is my final DIF newsletter as Executive Director, and I want to take a moment to reflect on what this community accomplished over the course of 2025.
This year marked a shift in how DIF showed up in the digital identity ecosystem. Across multiple working groups, we increasingly focused on clarifying, validating, and applying identity infrastructure in contexts where people, organizations, devices, and -- increasingly -- AI systems intersect. That focus showed up in different ways: requirements for fine-grained, revocable delegation; secure messaging in constrained environments; greater rigor around DID methods and their operational properties; and domain-focused work in content authenticity and travel, where identity systems must operate under demanding constraints.
What mattered most to me was the shared commitment across our groups to deployability without giving up on principles. Privacy, user control, and interoperability stayed central to our technical decisions, even when tradeoffs were involved. That balance is difficult to maintain, and this community approached it thoughtfully and with care.
This year also highlighted the importance of principled technical voices in broader identity discussions. Through efforts such as the No Phone Home campaign, DIF helped surface concrete privacy and architectural concerns in emerging digital identity systems, contributing a technical perspective that aligned with the work of organizations such as the ACLU and EFF. Our role was helping ensure that questions of user control, data minimization, and unintended centralization remain part of the conversation.
I’m deeply grateful to the Steering Committee, Technical Steering Committee, group chairs, spec editors, implementers, and contributors who made this work possible, often quietly and without fanfare. DIF is in a stronger and more focused place than when I started, with a clearer sense of where it can lead and where it can add the most value.
As I pass leadership to Grace, I’m excited for what comes next and grateful for the trust you’ve placed in me over the years. I’ll be cheering DIF on from the sidelines.
Welcoming Grace Rachmany as DIF's New Executive Director
We're thrilled to announce that Grace Rachmany has joined the Decentralized Identity Foundation as our new Executive Director.
Grace brings deep experience in decentralized governance and community building, with a track record of helping technical ecosystems clarify their purpose and make impact. She joins DIF at a moment when governments, enterprises, and identity visionaries are all making different bets on the future of digital identity. Grace’s ability to navigate that complexity, while keeping communities aligned around shared principles, makes her a strong fit for this next chapter.
Please join us in welcoming Grace to the DIF community. You can connect with her on LinkedIn or reach out via the DIF Slack workspace.
🛠️ Working Group Updates
Browse our working groups here.
Below are highlights from November 2025 working group activity.
Trusted AI Agents Working Group
In November, the Trusted AI Agents Working Group continued refining the Agentic Authority Use Cases work item, with discussions centered on how authority, delegation, and accountability can be expressed when agents act on behalf of people or organizations.
Recent conversations focused on concrete scenarios — exploring how agents might authenticate, present credentials, and operate within clearly scoped boundaries. The group also discussed where existing DID and VC building blocks are sufficient, and where new patterns may be needed to support agent-to-agent interactions without eroding human control.
Hospitality & Travel Working Group
November meetings in the Hospitality & Travel WG focused on traveler profile schemas and the operational realities of deploying them across different regions and systems.
The group continued work on structured, consent-driven profiles — covering preferences, accessibility needs, and multilingual considerations — while examining how these profiles can be used by both human-facing systems and AI-assisted services.
Identifiers and Discovery Working Group
In November, the Identifiers and Discovery WG continued advancing the DID Traits work item, focusing on how traits can help implementers and relying parties reason about DID method properties in a consistent way.
DID Methods Working Group
In a recent email, Chair Jonathan Rayback reminded the group of its significant accomplishments this year:
- Drafted a charter for the DID Methods Working Group at W3C
- Defined the DIF Recommended DID Method process
- Formally recommended the first DID method
The formal review period for did:webplus began on 3 December 2025. Community review during the current evaluation period is strongly encouraged.
DIDComm Working Group
November discussions in the DIDComm WG focused on practical deployment considerations, including routing models, mediation, and interoperability challenges observed in real deployments.
Creator Assertions Working Group
In November, the Creator Assertions Working Group continued work on content authenticity and provenance, including how assertions may be consumed by automated systems and agents in the future. The CAWG group reached WG approval status for two of its specs, which are nearing DIF Ratified status.
🌎 Special Interest Group Updates
Browse our special interest groups here.
Hospitality & Travel SIG
In November, the Hospitality & Travel SIG continued to serve as a forum for cross-industry knowledge sharing, reinforcing themes such as multilingual traveler profiles and accessibility considerations.
📖 User Group Updates
DIDComm User Group
In November, the DIDComm User Group continued its focus on practical implementation experience, sharing lessons from deployments and interoperability testing.
📢 Announcements
Year-End Meeting Schedule
Many DIF working groups adjust their schedules in late December and early January. Please check your group’s calendar and mailing list for details.
Call for Participation: Early 2026 Work Items
- Trusted AI Agents WG: additional agent-related use cases
- Claims & Credentials WG: continued community schema work
- Identifiers and Discovery WG: DID Traits implementation and testing
🗓️ Community Events
Internet Identity Workshop IIWXLII #42
📅 April 28–30, 2026
📍 Mountain View, CA
Registration and details
Agentic Internet Workshop #2
📅 May 1, 2026
📍 Mountain View, CA
Learn more
Identiverse 2026
📅 June 15–18, 2026
📍 Las Vegas, NV
Conference details
Identity Week Europe 2026
📅 June 9–10, 2026
📍 Amsterdam
Event information
Authenticate Conference 2026
📅 October 19–21, 2026
📍 Carlsbad, CA
Details coming soon
🚀 Get involved! Join DIF
The Decentralized Identity Foundation is a community-driven organization. Join a working group, contribute to open source, attend events, or become a member to help shape the future of decentralized identity.
Visit identity.foundation/join to learn more.
