Wallets and Privacy

I’m on a brief vacation celebrating my 28th anniversary and deep in thought (pic below). What am I thinking of here on the beach? Wallets, Networks, Trust and Privacy.

The Case for Separating Wallets from Identity Providers

As digital identities continue to evolve, one of the most important debates centers around who controls and operates the wallet that holds these identities. Specifically, should wallets be separated from authorities that legally issue “identity”—commonly known as Identity Providers (IdPs)? This issue is particularly relevant in countries like India and Europe, where digital identity initiatives have made significant strides, yet their approaches raise important questions about privacy and control.

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Part 1 – Identity Models, Government and Governance Structures

This is a big topic, and I’ll get a few things wrong. My mechanism for correcting my viewpoint is this blog, where this community gives feedback. It’s the reason I write. I won’t get into the tech weeds in this blog series. When there is a need to drill down on a standard or tech, I’ll provide a link to documents providing an overview. The insight I’m attempting to provide surrounds the evolution, economics and value chain implications of various models. 

Why read this? 

Identity is the key shaping force across many domains (including payments) because: 

  1. ID touches “everything”,  
  2. ID is the “primary key”  in trust, risk, contracts and value exchange 
  3. ID is core to a well-functioning government (voting, taxing, regulating, …etc).

This breadth makes it challenging to sift through ID-related announcements and assess the implications. Thus, I’ve created three identity communities for my taxonomy:

  1. Government – Working to define identity as part of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). DPI has three legs: identity, payments and data exchange.
  2. Commercial – Platforms, Banks, Healthcare 
  3. Web3/Blockchain/Social – Jack Dorsey is the unofficial spokesperson.

These communities find alignment in technology but are working toward different end goals with significant philosophical differences across communities, particularly regarding the role of government and near-term objectives. These differences surround the definition of trust, authority and governance structure, which is the focus of today’s blog.

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