Fwd: New member - and (hopefully) an interesting use case - and a question

Hi W3C Verifiable Credentials & Distributed Identifiers teams..

I have just signed up to the W3C credentials group.  I've been looking at
the DID and VC documents because they seem very well aligned with some
current initiatives that I am working on with AU government and with
UN/CEFACT.

For UN/CEFACT, I am leading three projects:

   1. https://uncefact.unece.org/display/uncefactpublic/RDM2API - is
   about taking the core UN international supply chain semantic models and
   publishing them as JSON-LD contexts and OpenAPI specifications.  Most of
   the objects in the have an "iD" property which, in the legacy EDI world is
   represented as a collection of attributes like issuer name, schema name,
   identifier key, etc.  But in the modern JSON-LD world, these IDs are
   perfect candidates to become W3C DIDs.  the Ids identify things like
   parties (consiognee/ consignor), consignments (eg way bill numbers), sea
   containers, and so on.
   2. https://uncefact.unece.org/display/uncefactpublic/API+Town+Plan - is
   a project to create a relatively well organised framework for the ongoing
   delivery of semantics - basically a business domain & resource model for
   the semantic concepts in international trade.  Less direct impact with this
   W3C group except maybe this could define one or more standard DiD methods.
   3.
   https://uncefact.unece.org/display/uncefactpublic/Cross+border+Inter-ledger+exchange+for+Preferential+CoO+using+Blockchain
-
   is a multi-channel (ie multi-DLT technology) protocol for government to
   government exchange of cross-border documents.  The documents are mostly
   "claims" created by an authorised issuer in the exporting country but need
   to be trusted by the importing country regulator. A typical example is a
   "preferential certificate of origin" which is a document issued by a
   chamber of commerce to certify that the goods in a specific consignment do
   comply with the terms of a specific free trade agreement - so that
   preferential duty rates can be applied.  It's one of my types of
   "certificate" that corss borders today and are almost always paper based
   (due to the lack of a cross border trust framework). It goes without sating
   that these documents could be the "subject" of a W3C DID and could contain
   claims as W3C verifiable credentials.  More info on this project at
   https://edi3.org/icl/

Current projects

   1. There is a project to implement a live beta Inter-Government Ledger
   between Australia and some other countries. The implementation will be open
   source and is currently building at and https://trustbridge.github.io/
   2. We imagine the IGL as a kind of channel to exchange linked data
   graphs as little snippets of the graph presented at different times by
   different parties as the information becomes available.  for example a
   certificate of origin is typically issued before the transport is booked -
   so it can be hard to be sure that the certificate you have in your had is
   the right one for the parcel you have in your warehouse...  If the chamber
   submits the CoO and sometime later the exporter of freight forwarder
   submits the linked consignment data then the system starts to get quite
   powerful.

My Questions

I'm keen to understand in detail the potential use of the work from this
W3C community within these projects.  Superficially they seem like a great
fit.  But, as usual, questions surface when digging a bit deeper.  I'll
start with just one question.

   1. the method part of the DID is important for interoperability and,
   although I can see the value in letting anyone setup a new method, there is
   a risk of explosion - as
https://w3c-ccg.github.io/did-method-registry/ seems
   to already show.  Looking at this list of methods, I really have no idea
   what problem each is solving, why there are so many, and whether I should
   re-use one or create another.  I'd be keen to discuss that problem with
   someone!

lots more questions but probably best to keep each to separate threads.

I look forward to joining one of your calls shortly.

-- 
Steve Capell
+61 410 437854



-- 
Steve Capell