SSI in Europe – Getting To a SSI Agenda With Politiacal Backing

From IIW

SSI in Europe: Getting to an SSI Agenda with Political Backing #SSIpaper


Day/Session:Wednesday 1G

Convener:Kai Wagner

Notes-taker(s): Heather Vescent


Discussion notes, key understandings, outstanding questions, observations, and, if appropriate to this discussion: action items, next steps:


Link to my google docs: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10FDsXGI6wEx00F7X520LY4qw3vhfRm_j2ox5Z-AoSKg/edit?usp=sharing


Attendees:

Kai Wagner - Jolocom

Martin - Civic

Heather - SSI Report

Adam - ID2020

Sebastian - Co-IT

Gert - Alexandra Institute

Dominik - Danube Tech

Bryan - Caribou

Kaliya - Identity Woman (pop in)

Alice - uPort

Estee - Gray


Introduction Round

  • Heather: Report “Comprehensive guide to SSI”, SSI needs to be successfully globally. Get informed about different European perspective. Gain comprehensive understanding about SSI throughout the World.
  • Martin - Civic, have a SSI product, was closed source and now an open source part called Identity.com (targeted to the US KYC market), want to understand the European perspective, Europe has a top down approach and what role Civic can play in the european market
  • Adam Cooper, ID2020, lots of background from government.
  • Sebastian Miller, interested in SSI for using it in future for our own identity product. How does this be used in the future. Product/Company - Co-IT, IDconcepts.
  • Kai Wagner, Jolocom, building an infrastructure technology, token & blockchain agnostic, identity wallet for end user and support IOT identity, Co-founds of the German Blockchain association. Political board based on parties from the German parliament. Gives a state channel with politics. Just published a position paper.
  • Position Paper on SSI, published October, 23 2018: https://www.bundesblock.de/2018/10/23/position-paper-self-sovereign-identity/
  • Gert, Alexander Institute, background in cryptography, working with SSI before that was the name,
  • Dominic, DanubeTech, similar stuff as Jolocom. Interested to push this idea in Europe because it is important and need to work together to push it.
  • Bryan, Caribou Digital, more to learn about the EU model. Also do things with Sovrin Foundation.
  • Motivation: No unbiased documentation around SSI with concern around out of the Box interoperability.
    • Paper contains Glossary that introduces single Terminology.
    • Regulation Chapter around EIDAS and GDPR. How to make EIDAS work with SSI / DIDs.
    • List of interesting use cases, e.g. City of Antwerp, BC Gov


We all know this is a business field and we want to make this a business, but there is an area of cooperation and an area for competition. Which levels/layers do we work together and where do we compete. There is no reason to compete on the lower levels of the stack.


Funded by people who want to do this - it’s all voluntary from the people by they are paid by their organizations for partial participation.


Goal for the report: to stand out there for 1 year as a source of proper basic information.


We want to have this concept of SSI put into the EU - European Commission, EU Parliament. But also the Dutch Blockchain coalition, and other actors interested in pushing for this. Pushing for this on an EU perspective, scoping one vision of what we want to accomplish with SSI in Europe. Consensus on the regulations and what we want to achieve. Vs the technology goals.


What are the specific regulatory goals we want to achieve? (more SSI funding to roll it out?)

What are the specific European goals with SSI?


Impose standards and Levels of Assurance for member states. This is what we understand and trust about this.


Two levels of regulation

  1. electronic identity
  2. trust services


Does there need to be a SSI regulation?


Leverage the trust we have in national identity schemes. The real usage is in private sector services, not public sector services.


Competition -


Can there be two approaches? Private sector and public sector adoption?


To get accepted on a smaller level - there are tiny pilots. There is no good place to go to find out where are the pilots and how they are going? There is one common understanding of SSI in europe.


W3C should play a role, but one of many… Same with DIF.


There needs to be a thing to tell the concept, telling the layers, what standards.

A European SSI perspective. We are informed by W3C and DIF… but it’s a good place and resource for european politicians to check in with SSI and to be updated. To position SSI in Europe. Providing an actor/entity that people can discuss blockchain and public sector.


Examples of this type of thing?

  • Horizon projects, eg Horizon2020
  • Decode Product (Barcelona & Amsterdam)
  • MyData


These are limited time projects. And maybe a research project with a time horizon, might be able to address these concerns.


There is a research consortium forming in Austria - maybe we can bring them together? Why not try a horizon application and build a EU coalition ourselves?


Funding gives you commitment, funding to an initiative, it says you’ve made up your mind. Not a lot of money channeled, but there is a lot of talk…

Unfortunate because there is a discussion.


How can we get a few actors to commit to this idea?


Idea: Might be helpful to pitch it into a policy objective.

Banking authority around KYC - the banks are interested in doing identity because of that.

Banks are interested in cross-border, because they are linked.


Final thoughts

  • Dominic: I like the horizon project
  • Gert: Doing an application is a start
  • Sebastian: interested in how I can use SSI (use cases)
  • Adam: Funding point, SETH?
Retrieved from "https://iiw.idcommons.net/index.php?title=SSI_in_Europe_–_Getting_To_a_SSI_Agenda_With_Politiacal_Backing&oldid=21806"