What differentiates a digital identity wallet system from the currently widely deployed federated identity system is users' ability to be able to present attributes about themselves directly to the service provider, instead of being redirected to the Identity Provider who attests attributes about the users on their behalf. Anticipated advantages of digital identity wallets include, businesses can hope to lower their COGS by being able to perform user identification cheaper and faster, and users can hope to have a more seamless digital experience where they can more granularly control their digital personas.
The industry has come a long way understanding what it takes to build scalable and interoperable digital identity wallet systems. However, the work to make these wallets mainstream, where an ordinary user enjoys using the wallet and feels its benefits, remains.
This talk would discuss three key aspects needed to "cross the chasm": 1) build rails that issuers, wallets and verifiers can use to establish trust in each other; 2) agree on the incremental approach, agree on an 'initial' set of interoperable standards and stop pulling in multiple directions; 3) focus on a minimum set of wallet functions that users can easily understand the benefit and usability of.
