On Tue, Oct 10, 2017, at 03:47 AM, " target="_blank"> wrote:Hi all,Long time lurker here. I've recently come across the ID2020 project beingpromoted in various places (id2020.org). I'm guessing people here areprobablyinvolved or at least are observing it closely from outside.I'm interested in what dangers there might be for refugees who have yetto makeit to some place of relative safety. I can certainly see the value ofself-sovereign identity for refugees *after* they have fled whateverconflictsituation they've come from (starting a bank account, accessing services,etc.), but it seems to me that inauthentic documentation has historicallyplayed a very important role in protecting people. Being able toplausibly denyhaving access to your documentation and being able to present downrightfalsedocuments was essential for many who escaped the holocaust, or theRwandangenocide, to mention just two examples. Is there a danger that projectslikeID2020 remove this by making identity too easy, ubiquitous and secure?Yes, but the risk arises predominantly from thinking (and implementing) identity solely in terms of reducing ambiguity about the physical body. That is, when identity means making sure you are a specific physical person, then all forms of identity risk those who are fleeing persecution of their person.At the recent Rebooting Web of Trust, I led as session where we identified four different mental models used for identity: Security, Liberty, Data, and Complexity. I'll be revisiting this conversation at IIW and will eventually publish one or more papers or articles about it.The short version is that each of these models are completely valid, and depending on your use case, one or more may be more important to you.For example, the Security mental model is fixated on reducing the question of identity to a physical body. The Liberty mental model, in contrast, holds that how we represent our identity is a fundamental freedom and that participation in society rarely needs reduction to the physicality.The roots of self-sovereign identity are in the meeting of the Liberty and Data mental models: let's enable the inevitable data-centric model in disparate technical systems by empowering individuals to control the root identifiers and attributes used when interacting with these systems.To answer your question, there *are* risks from any identity system, but there are also ways to construct identiy independent of physical uniqueness. These alternatives can enable refugees--or any underserved, unbanked, or under-credentialed population--to have access to justice, health care, social services, etc., without unnecessary exposure of their person (as an embodiment in a particular body).-j
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