Tuesday, June 20, 2023

Both the EU and US Department of Homeland Security are working on decentralized digital identity wallets

Both the EU and US Department of Homeland Security are working on decentralized digital identity wallets
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The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is encouraging development of digital wallets that are privacy-first and interoperable.

They’re specifically interested in technology that meshes with the three-party digital identity model used by the World Wide Web Consortium, and the Verifiable Credential Data Model, both key components of decentralized identity systems.

Basically, they’re looking for digital wallets and mobile verifiers (tools that check the authenticity of identities) that can work in many different situations and protect user privacy. These would need to support a wide range of credentials, including those issued by DHS.

A ‘Digital Wallets Call Industry Day’ event will be held on August 18 to help vendors understand the requirements and how to apply.

The EU is also rolling out a MASSIVE project, that focuses on user-controlled digital identity wallets that are privacy-first, interoperable. They’re working on a system where government IDs (passports, health records, drivers licenses etc) could all be stored in ID wallets.

These could be built on blockchain (but the tech is also possible without blockchain), but essentially what they’re looking at is web3 wallets, connected to government-issued Soulbound tokens, and linked to payment systems (again, could be crypto, but it’s possible to do this without blockchain).

There’s currently a pilot underway with every single EU member country, as well as Iceland and Ukraine to test this out with over 250 private companies and government organisations.

They’re testing out 11 different use cases:

Accessing government services

Opening a bank account

SIM Registration

Mobile Driving License

Signing contracts

Claiming Prescriptions

Travelling

Organisational Digital Identities

Payments

Education certification

Accessing Social Security benefits

If you want to see a list of the companies taking part, they’re:


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