The Role of Identity in Creating a Better Internet with Kaliya Young
Nov 19, 2021
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In this episode, Kaliya Young discusses the history of online identity, the consolidation of identity into centralized platforms, the need to recover and protect our online identities. They also explore the adoption of decentralized identity and verifiable credentials, the potential of digital wallets and credentials, valuing contributions in online communities, and the guest's current reading list and online presence.
Open standards for digital identity are crucial for ensuring individuals' ownership and control over their digital representations.
Verifiable credentials and decentralized identifiers have the potential to revolutionize digital identity by enhancing privacy, trust, and user control.
Deep dives
Digital Identity and its Importance
Digital identity refers to how we represent ourselves in the online space. It encompasses identifiers and attributes that define who we are in digital platforms. The management and design of digital identities play a crucial role in different systems. Open standards for digital identity have been developed to ensure that individuals have ownership and control over their digital representations. Without these standards, corporations and governments could control people's digital identities, posing risks to civil society and the ability to self-organize and connect with others.
The Evolution of Digital Identity and the Need for Open Standards
The concept of digital identity has evolved over the years. In the early 2000s, a community called PlanetWork identified the need for user-centric digital identity and open standards to counter the potential negatives of proprietary networks like Facebook. They highlighted the importance of civil society and open standards in managing and owning digital identities. Despite their efforts, open standards for digital identity were not widely adopted, leading to the dominance of platforms like Facebook. However, recent advancements in standards like decentralized identifiers and verifiable credentials offer hope for a more secure, user-controlled digital identity ecosystem.
The Potential Impact of Verifiable Credentials and Decentralized Identifiers
Verifiable credentials and decentralized identifiers are two key open standards that can revolutionize digital identity. Verifiable credentials allow individuals to package and digitally sign information about themselves, which can be shared with others. This format, supported by a broad range of applications, enables secure and trustworthy identity verification. On the other hand, decentralized identifiers create resolvable public key infrastructure, facilitating secure communications on the internet. These standards have the potential to enhance privacy, trust, and user control, providing an alternative to centralized platforms like Facebook for digital identity management.
The Promise of Unconferences and Open Space Technology
Unconferences and open space technology offer alternative formats for community-driven discussions and co-creation. These methods provide structured yet participant-driven environments for knowledge sharing and collaboration. Open space technology, in particular, allows participants to determine the agenda and topics of discussion in real-time, fostering rich and meaningful exchanges. These formats have been successfully applied to develop innovative solutions, such as the creation of open standards like OpenID. Unconferences provide opportunities for diverse voices to be heard and meaningful progress to be made in various fields, including digital identity.
Kaliya Young is many things: an advocate for open Internet identity standards, a leader in the identity space - including hosting the Internet Identity Workshop, a published author, and a skilled Open Space facilitator. On this episode of the Cohere podcast, Kaliya joins Bill to discuss the history of online identity, what events led us to the consolidation of identity into a few centralized platforms, and what steps we need to take to recover and protect our online identities.
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