[identity-credentials] Clarity of definitions: Credentials, unbound identity, identity hardening, and bound identity

Please comment on the below definitions. I hope this adds clarity to the 
identity process.

Credential: Is a professional or personal qualification, achievement, 
quality, or piece of information (governmental, official, legal or 
industry) about the background of an individual or entity such as a 
name, home address, government ID, professional license or designation, 
or university degree, typically used to indicate suitability. The use of 
credentials to demonstrate capability, membership, status, and minimum 
legal requirements is a practice used in society for ages to inspire 
trust and loyalty towards those accountable to a generally accepted 
responsible authority, institution or company.

Unbound identity: is a tokenized form of credential(s) created for an 
individual(s) which cannot hijacked and/or extracted from the unbound 
identity token by an unauthorized user be it for unintended  or intended 
purposes.

Identity hardening: is the marriage of credentials and technology by way 
of a process where an unbound identity is combined with technologies 
(geolocation, biometrics, multi-sig, hardware devices and hardware 
tokens) to confirm that the unbound identity and the person connected to 
the technologies are one and the same.

Bound identity: is a hardened form of an unbound identity.

NOTE: Identity and Credentials together and combined legal entities and 
individuals, create the lego building blocks that shape the matrix that 
facilitates the efficiency in the automation of KYC/AML whilst reducing 
layers of friction and costs. It is incumbent however upon the the 
financial institution, insurance company or service provider (if they so 
choose) to be ultimately responsible for the final hardened identity and 
its assurances.

Erik Anderson
Bloomberg R&D & W3C Web Payments IG/SG

Received on Tuesday, 26 May 2015 21:23:51 UTC