The Weekend #182—Industry heavyweights on the future of digital identity
From the digital identity roundtable at Georgetown Law
Earlier this month, industry heavyweights from both the private and public sectors descended upon Georgetown Law to discuss the future of digital identity.
That included representatives from the U.S. Treasury, FinCEN, NIST, the EU, and Brazil as well as companies like Mastercard, GlobaliD, McKinsey, Prove, and Omnumi. There was also Bill Foster, one of the few Congressman who really gets the promise of smarter identity frameworks.
It all made for what turned out to be a phenomenal roundtable discussion and workshop, hosted by Digital Self Labs founder and CEO Linda Jeng and sponsored by the Hard Yaka Foundation.
Here’s Linda:
There is surprisingly little academic - especially economic - research on digital identity, so we convened leaders from the public sector, private sector and academia for an in-depth discussion.
Congressman Bill Foster — THE thought leader on digital identity on the Hill — kicked off the day with the keynote speech on the importance of getting digital identity and privacy right for the digital future. We then had public sector session to hear how different countries are approaching digital identity. The EU adopted a wallet/credential approach with its eIDAS legislation. Brazil onboarded 80% of its adult population onto real-time payments PIX. In the US, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, US Treasury has launched its Identity Project, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on its work with state DMVs to issue mobile drivers licenses mDL.
Then we had a private sector session with the Better Identity Coalition, Universal Ledger, etonec GmbH, Prove, GlobaliD, Mastercard and IDEMIA North America. We discussed the different paradigms from federated identity to credential-managed identity and the challenges of building identity ecosystems. Followed by a fascinating discussion about the various technical standards groups from ISO, OpenID, DIF to LEI. For the research session, we heard from researchers at the Bank for International Settlements — BIS, International Monetary Fund, ITAM, Georgia Institute of Technology, American University, The Aspen Institute, FinRegLab and McKinsey Global Institute on key research trends from macro to privacy effects.
Be sure to check out the latest episode of FUTURE PROOF, where GlobaliD co-founder and CEO Mitja Simcic shared his thoughts on the event.
Enjoy the weekend!