Re: Agency First

This reasoning makes sense to me. I have always felt like agents are a
precondition to data management.

I would be supportive of such a dedicated call.

On Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 7:33 PM Adrian Gropper <agropper@healthurl.com>
wrote:

> This is a fork of the Data Hubs / Aries / DIF Thread asking for a
> dedicated call in CCG to discuss whether agent endpoints should be
> specified _before_ data storage endpoints.
>
> Here's the use case and logic:
>
>    - Alice is on the dating scene and wants an anonymous HIV test.
>    - Anonymous HIV tests are good public health and often free from
>    government or non-profits.
>    - Alice has her choice of where to get the HIV test. Since cost is not
>    an issue, she will pick the one that is most private.
>    - Some of the HIV test labs will support Alice's pairwise pseudonymous
>    DID. She picks that one.
>    - Alice can pick the dating service too. Other things being equal, she
>    will pick the one that is most privacy-preserving.
>    - Alice picks a dating service that supports pairwise pseudonymous
>    DIDs.
>    - Alice does not have a personal data store or a credential wallet.
>    - Alice's test result is available directly from the lab that does the
>    test to anyone with a suitable access token. The format of the result is
>    irrelevant as long as the recipient can understand the difference between
>    Positive and Negative and a Date.
>    - Alice operates an agent that decides semi-autonomously whether Bob
>    should see her test result. The agent could be proprietary to the dating
>    service or self-sovereign to Alice. However it's implemented, the agent
>    must issue a token that the lab will accept to Bob
>    - Although Alice has separate DIDs with the lab and the dating
>    service, she could be correlated if the two DIDs point to the same agent.
>    This is a concern that would need to be mitigated for an agent or a h.ub or
>    a personal data store as endpoint in her DIDs.
>    - From Alice’s agent, Bob's client gets a pointer to the lab and the
>    DID that Alice used at the lab.
>    - Bob's client comes to the lab bearing Alice’s DID. The lab points
>    Bob’s client back to Alice’s agent to get an access token.
>    - If Bob is evil and leaks Alice’s lab and lab DID to Carol, then
>    Carol’s client will likely not be able to get an access token from Alice’s
>    agent so Alice’s HIV status will remain confidential.
>    - If Bob is evil and leaks Alice’s HIV status, it will not be direct
>    from the lab and could have been forged by Bob.
>
> This use-case is important because:
>
>    - It gives Alice market power to choose privacy-preserving service
>    providers (lab, dating service). This will drive adoption. Any service
>    provider can decide to accept a DID regardless of any other service
>    provider as long as the DID resolves to Alice's agent.
>    - Alice does not have to trust the dating service or a personal data
>    store intermediary.
>    - Alice may not need a wallet or Holder at all because no VC is issued.
>    - The data model and protocol for presenting the test result is more
>    or less irrelevant. In practice, it is not totally irrelevant because most
>    labs and services are multi-purpose and the access token will have to be
>    scoped and that implies some data model schema shared between the service
>    provider and the agent.
>
> I'm calling this "Agency First" because:
>
>    - If Alice does choose to control a personal data store, then she can
>    choose a personal data store that respects her agent. Again, the market
>    power is in Alice's hands, or
>    - If Alice chooses to control a Holder then she needs to find a lab
>    that's willing to issue a VC and a Verifier that trusts the DID method, VP,
>    etc...
>
> Adrian
>
>