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

I submitted quite a long comment to an earlier request for comment for rule
making
As part of my work with the Verifiable Credentials Policy Committee of
California.

You can see it here on the government website.

https://downloads.regulations.gov/DHS-2020-0028-0055/attachment_1.pdf



On Thu, Aug 31, 2023 at 8:53 AM Taylor Kendal <taylor@learningeconomy.io>
wrote:

> 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/
>>
>>