Re: Utah State-Endorsed Digital Identity (SEDI) legislation

The message ended up as invisible in my UI so here is the message I was
talking about😅:

> Could this legislation bring us closer to global trust and
interoperability?

I think the bill delivers well on some SSI principles, as mentioned by
Christopher himself.


As someone from Europe, it is great to hear that eIDAS/EUDI Wallet is
moving in a very similar direction.


If both frameworks keep the idea of “choose the wallet you want” and
portability across wallets, that’s a strong base.


And if convergence happens not just on the same legislative principles, but
also on the same building blocks, DIDs + VCs, shared crypto algorithms, and
compatible presentation/verification protocols, global interoperability
becomes easier and pretty much natural.


I would also like to mention that for any digital-sovereignty-enabling
endeavor, wide adoption comes from winning the hearts of developers:
simple, well documented APIs with semantic touch points to technologies
used daily in development.


Regards,

Jori
,,,,,,,,

Also I do not think OS level APIs are bad, but they should not be
mandatory.

to 12.2.2026 klo 8.58 ap. Jori Lehtinen <lehtinenjori03@gmail.com>
kirjoitti:

> I was about to send the message below before Christopher’s clarification.
> Given the distinctions raised, I think my framing was too optimistic, so
> I’m sharing it here for context.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> > Could this legislation bring us closer to global trust and
> interoperability?
>
>
> I think the bill delivers well on some SSI principles, as mentioned by
> Christopher himself.
>
>
> As someone from Europe, it is great to hear that eIDAS/EUDI Wallet is
> moving in a very similar direction.
>
>
> If both frameworks keep the idea of “choose the wallet you want” and
> portability across wallets, that’s a strong base.
>
>
> And if convergence happens not just on the same legislative principles,
> but also on the same building blocks, DIDs + VCs, shared crypto algorithms,
> and compatible presentation/verification protocols,  global
> interoperability becomes easier and pretty much natural.
>
>
> I would also like to mention that for any digital-sovereignty-enabling
> endeavor, wide adoption comes from winning the hearts of developers:
> simple, well documented APIs with semantic touch points to technologies
> used daily in development.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Jori
>
>
> After reading the pushback, I agree a more realistic framing is that
> legislative alignment would need to happen first, reaching SEDI’s level of
> individual protections, before meaningful architectural convergence is even
> a question.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jori
>
> to 12.2.2026 klo 8.46 ap. Christopher Allen <
> ChristopherA@lifewithalacrity.com> kirjoitti:
>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 11, 2026 at 9:59 PM Detlef Hühnlein (ecsec GmbH) <
>> detlef.huehnlein@ecsec.de> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Jori, Anders, Brent, Drummond, Venu, Manu, all,
>>> the summary below could also serve as very high level summary of the
>>> eIDAS-Regulation
>>> including its extension related to the EUDI-Wallet and the envisioned
>>> European Business Wallet.
>>>
>>> Could this legislation bring us closer to global trust and
>>> interoperability?
>>>
>> I need to push back on this comparison of SEDI as being anything like the
>> EU's eIDAS and EUDI initiatives.
>>
>> While they may share some surface features (wallet-based, selective
>> disclosure support), their underlying philosophies are quite different — in
>> some cases opposite.
>>
>> The most fundamental difference: SEDI's digital bill of rights declares
>> that identity is "innate to the individual's existence and independent of
>> the state." The state endorses, it doesn't confer. As Drummond noted, this
>> is a watershed. EUDI depends heavily on a government-issued anchor
>> credential — the state remains the source of identity, not just its
>> endorser.
>>
>> Some other key contrasts:
>>
>> * SEDI explicitly prohibits the state from monitoring, surveilling, or
>> tracking presentations. EUDI has struggled with "phone home" problems —
>> credentials calling back to issuers on use. (Blockchain Commons joined the
>> No Phone Home initiative on exactly this issue.)
>>
>> * SEDI defines a "personal digital identifier" that is created by the
>> individual, mathematically provable, and transportable to infrastructure of
>> the holder's choosing. EUDI has been slow to warm to DIDs at all.
>>
>> * SEDI requires open standards free from licensing fees and patent
>> restrictions. eIDAS mandates integration at the OS level, creating exactly
>> the platform capture risk I wrote about after GDC25 — where Google and
>> Apple become the real gatekeepers of identity.
>>
>> * And SEDI's Duty of Loyalty — requiring wallet providers, verifiers, and
>> relying parties to act in the individual's best interests — has no
>> equivalent in eIDAS.
>>
>> * Swiss e-ID sits somewhere between these approaches. Switzerland has the
>> democratic culture and institutional safeguards to potentially get this
>> right, but its architecture doesn't go as far as SEDI in protecting the
>> individual by design. I wrote about what Switzerland would need in my "Five
>> Anchors" article:
>>
>>      https://www.lifewithalacrity.com/article/musings-swiss-eid/
>>
>> On EUDI and the broader problems of platform capture in identity
>> standards:
>>
>>     https://www.lifewithalacrity.com/article/musings-gdc25/
>>
>> And on SEDI specifically:
>>
>>    https://www.lifewithalacrity.com/article/Musings-SEDI/
>>
>> Global interoperability is a worthy goal, but not if it means flattening
>> SEDI's protections down to EUDI's weaker model. The question really should
>> be: can EUDI be brought up to SEDI's standard?
>>
>> — Christopher Allen
>>
>