US DHS / TSA: W3C Verifiable Credentials and US digital identity documents

Hey CCG'ers (BCC: VCWG),

TSA published an interesting notice in the US Federal Register
concerning digital identity document acceptance for travel, and it
mentions W3C VCs and DIDs directly.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/08/30/2023-18582/minimum-standards-for-drivers-licenses-and-identification-cards-acceptable-by-federal-agencies-for

Some excerpts of note:

"""
While TSA is not proposing to IBR these W3C standards in this NPRM,
TSA understands that W3C is developing two standards concerning
digital identification that, like the ISO/IEC Series of standards
discussed above, may be relevant to the Phase 2 rulemaking. The W3C
standards are “Verifiable Credentials Data Model v1.1” (VCDM v1.1) and
“Decentralized Identifiers v1.0” (DID v1.0). Verifiable Credentials
Data Model v1.1 (March 3, 2022), available at
www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/; Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) v1.0
(July 19, 2022), available at www.w3.org/TR/did-core/.
"""

... and more further on...

"""
In addition, given the breadth of the VCDM and DID, it may be possible
in the future to develop a VCDM-based mDL that conforms to both W3C
recommendations and the ISO/IEC standards simultaneously, providing
full ecosystem interoperability.
"""

Many of the concerns raised are things we're actively working on in
the VCWG today. It's good that this came out now, as it allows the
VCWG to react to some of the commentary.

The acknowledgement of our work here by an organization that has been
solely focused on ISO mDL, and is now outlining how W3C VCs and DIDs
could play a part in federal rulemaking, is a significant change;
careful not to read too much into it -- but at the same time, it's
difficult to not read a lot into it... :)

-- manu

-- 
Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/
Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
https://www.digitalbazaar.com/

Received on Thursday, 31 August 2023 13:58:11 UTC