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

Encouraging signal... thanks, Manu.
I can appreciate the sentiment: *don't read into it but good luck
not reading into it *:)

For those feeling democratically compelled, I recommend submitting a public
comment before Oct 16 (mine was just the 7th).

On Thu, Aug 31, 2023 at 8:00 AM Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>
wrote:

> 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/
>
>