Sezoo

"Virtually every economic transaction has within itself an element of trust." - Kenneth Arrow, 1972, hence (we argue) the need and opportunity for trustworthy digital IDs as a foundation of economic growth. This is the fourth and last part of our series on how trustworthy digital IDs are not only an essential tool in reducing digital harm, they should also be designed and used as an essential ingredient in economic growth. We have argued that too many governments publicly justify investments in digital ID on the basis of harm reduction (deep fakes, scams, data breaches, identity theft etc.). We believe they can and should also design and justify trustworthy digital ID as a catalyst for economic growth. In this final part we explain the principles and the thinking behind the business case and economic arguments that we believe should be used in the assessment of, and investment justification for, trustworthy digital IDs. We also provide a "sanity check" - digital IDs designed or used in the wrong way can accelerate and create harms - all designers, implementers and operators of such systems should recognise these risks and take action (and responsibility) accordingly. The series of posts are: Part 1 introduces the series: https://lnkd.in/gwEsz6Yq Part 2 explores how 6 governments have justified their digital ID investments: https://lnkd.in/gdEtDfgy Part 3: explores what a digital ID is, and what makes one trustworthy (or not): https://lnkd.in/g9xHjG8h We'll be publishing the complete set as a single document in due course. Comments, discussion welcome. #digitaltrust #digitalID #economicgrowth

Today's an exciting day for Sezoo, with the [soft] launch of the Global Acceptance Network website (https://gan.foundation/). Congratulations to all involved, especially Darrell O'Donnell, Drummond Reed, Wendy Seltzer and Marie Wallace! The Global Acceptance Network (GAN) brings together like-minded and cooperative initiatives, organisations and people, all interested in practical implementation and broad adoption of trustworthy data sharing solutions, for the benefit of all. Sezoo is delighted to support and be working with the GAN. Our long and deep experiences within #TOIP points to great times for those involved and great outcomes for everyone! #GlobalAcceptanceNetwork

Just what is a "digital ID", and what might make one trustworthy, or not? That's the challenge we took up in part 3 of our series on why we believe that trustworthy digital IDs should be seen as a catalyst for economic growth and not just one of the protections we might use against digital harms. In part 1 of this series, we put forward the argument that governments should provide and argue for trustworthy digital IDs on the basis of economic growth as well as harm reduction: https://lnkd.in/gt-y7438 In part 2 we looked at how 6 governments have argued for their investment in digital ID: https://lnkd.in/gR6NtDEr In part 3 we've taken on the challenge of defining digital ID, defining what we mean by trust and trustworthiness, and then defining what the qualities of a trustworthy digital ID might be. This was hard to write, as it should be. Even after more than 5 years of thinking about and working on this topic, it took effort to distil our thinking into the attached pages. This is an important topic and we are sure that we could continue to work on and improve the content, but we're keen to get feedback. Part 4 (to be released) will tie it all together and offer ways in which we might quantify the socio-economic benefits of trustworthy digital ID. So what do you think a "digital ID" is, and what might make it trustworthy? As with the whole of these series of articles, we are keen to encourage discussion and welcome contributions that can improve or complete the material we are sharing. #digitaltrust #digitalID #digitalgovernment #digitaleconomy

On 13 August 2024, Bill Shorten, The Australian Government Minister for NDIS and Government Services, announced the "Trusted Exchange" (#TEx) at the National Press Club of Australia. We're excited by TEx and we have questions, so we thought we'd create a Sezoo Explainer. We've created long, medium, and short paths through the attached explainer: - Long, give me the context: start here (slide 4) - Medium, tell me about TEx: start here (slide 25) - Short, cut to the chase: TEx is important because… last three slides, here (slide 32) Our excitement is because #TEx enables government issued verifiable credentials to be used in non-government transactions. There are lots of potential benefits and implications of this initiative. We have been promoting decentralised trust and verifiable credentials since 2017, and we’ve long seen government credentials as foundational to digital trust systems. We believe that government issued verifiable credentials can be used to “radically improve trust in digital interactions for the benefit of all”. In fact, that’s our Sezoo mission statement! Our explainer finishes with 6 example questions that explore technology, governance and commercial details that are essential to the "T" of #TEx being trustworthy and delivering the maximum potential socio-economic benefit. Critically for all Australian organisations, TEx and related initiatives such as Austroads' DDL, Digital ID Bill 2024 (AGDIS) and others will significantly impact digital strategies and organisations overall - not just those in the digital ID sector. If you want to know more, or are interested in how these and other digital trust developments will impact your business and digital strategy, then reach out, working that out with you is our business! #digitaltrust

How do governments justify investment in digital ID? A week ago we posted our introduction to a series of articles arguing that governments should look to digital ID investment as a catalyst for economic growth and not just risk reduction https://lnkd.in/gwEsz6Yq) We’re not alone in this thinking, the OECD - OCDE’s publication “Government at a Glance 2023” section on regulatory impact assessment has this to say: “When regulations are designed well, they can help to boost growth, tackle climate change, and enhance well-being. When not, they can result in unnecessary red tape and reduced trust in government action.” So how have some recent and ongoing government investments in Digital ID been presented? Here we present a snapshot view of 6 example government initiatives and investments: - Australia - The European Union - The United Kingdom - India - Singapore - The Kingdom of Bhutan As with the whole of these series of articles, we are keen to encourage discussion and welcome contributions that can improve or complete the material we are sharing. What do you think? #digitaltrust #digitalID #digitalgovernment #digitaleconomy

Too often, we think that the underlying technologies will make a solution instantly acceptable. The human interaction is assumed to be the easy thing and we should immediately be able to use what's presented. This initiative uses the strengths of the Swinburne Design Factory and looks to develop some guardrails and patterns for the adoption of wallets and the features that they promise. I'm really looking forward to it...

For some time we have felt that digital wallet design faces new challenges and opportunities and that, while wallet technology design is getting attention, the deeper human interaction design challenge is not. That's why we were excited to receive confirmation a few days ago that a seed grant application that we'd helped Swinburne University of Technology create was successful. Swinburne University of Technology is a member of the Design Factory Global Network and we've been pleased to work with their staff and students since 2018, starting with co-investment in early digital wallet research. (h/t to Jeni Paay and Jill Bamforth) The latest seed grant application will not only deliver value in the research that it enables, but it can also provide a path to further research opportunities. We are also pleased to be supporting a group of David Mesa Saldarriaga's innovation students in their capstone project at Swinburne University of Technology. We've worked with David to shape the challenge around digital wallet design. Our experience has been that students bring fresh perspectives, challenges and insights to these projects - we're looking forward to what they come up with! Attached is a deck we produced back in 2023 with some minor updates. Critically, we believe that the gap in UX thinking still exists. We used this deck to circulate and test our thinking with experts from the Design Factory Global Network, Swinburne University of Technology and more widely in the commercial and consulting space. We owe our thanks to many commentators, including: Virpi Roto, Jeni Paay, Jill Bamforth, Kaliya IdentityWoman Young, Lucy Yang, Chris Were, Nick Lothian, Nicky Hickman Sezoo #digitaltrust

Government investments in Digital ID are too often justified narrowly on the basis of risk reduction (scams, fraud, theft etc): they should also be expected to deliver economic growth. All current government (and many corporate) investments have to be argued for against a backdrop of sluggish economies and spending cuts. Many governments are looking to protect their citizens, their economy, and their administration from digital threats such as data breaches, fraud and scams. Reducing the risk of these harms is essential, but Digital ID investments should deliver more than risk reduction. We believe that any investment in Digital ID should not only reduce risk, it should also deliver economic growth. We have all seen frothy expectations from various institutions that claim trillions of dollars of value in digital ID on a global basis. Often derived by a notional percentage increase to a global GDP, they are seldom justified in detail. Governments need to be held to a more practical and testable consideration. So how might a government approach a realistic economic benefit consideration for Digital ID in their jurisdiction? Attached is the introduction for a series of articles on how the business case and economic benefits of Digital ID systems can be considered, and we will look at how these benefits may be impacted (positively or negatively) by choices made in areas such as standards, technology, legislature and governance. We're keen to hear your thoughts. Should we expect digital ID to be a driver for economic growth? What should we include and what should we exclude in our considerations?

Truth and politics are often on difficult terms and deep fakes are making it worse. Can technology dig us out of the problem its got us into? How might policy and education help? In this the biggest ever year for democracy, we take a deep dive into the challenges before us and some of the solutions being proposed. Spoiler alert: truth may or may not out, but we think #provenance has an important role to play. Here's to civil discourse, a truthier and more trustworthy future, and to free and fair elections. #digitaltrust

Two weeks ago, the Australian Federal Budget committed $6.5m to “develop a pilot of age assurance technologies to protect children from harmful online content” [1]. Will it work? This is a hot topic in Australian politics and media. This week alone saw coverage from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) [2], The Guardian [3], the opposition budget response [4], and further government comment [5] (links in comments). Germany, France, Canada, the UK and 11 US states have laws in place or in development, their experiences evidence the technical and privacy challenges of the technology and regulation [6]. The aim is simple: age restricted online content should only be accessible to people who meet the age restriction. Age verification methods vary from self-assertion and inference to estimation and evidence-based proofs. Different implementations offer different degrees of accuracy and different risks to privacy [1]. The eSafety Commissioner roadmap for age verification proposes a “double blind tokenised” approach [7]. Put simply, “double-blinding” implies that the customer needs to get an age proof provider and the site they want to access to communicate with each other, albeit “blinded” from each other. “Tokenised” means that sensitive data is given a non-sensitive data representation. At Sezoo, when proof is required, we prefer verifiable facts to estimation, relevant facts, and only involving those that need to know. “Blinding” is an effort to address privacy risks inherent in some architectures. It can be avoided if people can directly present proofs using issued verifiable credentials. Better technology can offer better security, privacy and system resilience. The technology trials should sort out the better from the bad and the ugly - that is their purpose after all. Choosing the right technology is important, it will define the user experience, capabilities and constraints, but there are other implications to consider: - Liability: the shift from voluntary to regulated approaches will force service providers, relying parties and regulators to address liability - particularly challenging when estimation models are used. - Acceptance: While surveys indicate that most adults support the concept, the “pub test” will come when all adults are faced with it. - Reach: The measures, if successful, will impact product providers who operate legally in Australia. They will do nothing about “the dark underbelly of the internet” [4], for that community has no interest in any law, nor will it impact product providers in other jurisdictions. Protecting the vulnerable is a mark of a civilised society. All the more reason that measures should achieve the outcome that they seek. Stronger legislation, regulation and policing can be poor indicators of a free and civilised society, but then so is exposing the vulnerable to harmful content. Let’s hope the trial and execution help us deliver better outcomes for all of us.