Digital Identity for Nations: Unlinkability, Subsidiarity and Interop

Transcript

Hello everybody. I'm Aleandro and today we're going to go through this fantastic journey of digital identity across nations and see how we can spread Ethereum values and tech uh across these systems. So let's set the scene. Well, I will be thank you already for the introduction. So I'll be very brief here. Just a disclaimer. I'm not a technical guy. I have a background in political science and international relations. And actually lastly, I well I love to travel. I coated this policy brief and I lead a research on digital identity for the European Decentralization Institute.

And I'm now coordinating an initiative which is called Pan European Trust Framework. We're going to go on that after. So let's um understand a little bit what is the European decentralization institute is a think tank so it's a policy think tank we are also supported by Ethereum foundation among other bakers and uh in the last year we have done uh first of all research also supported by a grant from ENS DAO um we draft a briefing we convened in Zurich in April of this year several stakeholders which are architects of uh different digital identity national digital identity systems most of them not not decentralized at all nothing not

touching blockchain at all but it's good to understand and discuss with them what are their needs what are the conc concerns what are their I mean uh ideas for the future we consolidated all these um feedbacks into a final policy brief which is public you can get on the website and read where which is uh been published in May this year where there were sever several recommendations directed to institutions. One of those recommendation it was the setup of this trust framework as we our main year of um coverage is Europe the continent we um set it up as a panuropean trust framework. This initiative and this recommendation was taken up by several

um international organizations, standard setting bodies and other institutions and we actually went on st on the main stage uh at the global digital collaboration conference which is probably one of the biggest if not the biggest event of the year on digital identity happening in Geneva. This year was just the second edition. Just understand this is still especially when you discuss about crossborder digital identity is still pretty new um space and yeah we we basically launched this initiative there also with by the way representation from a foundation so uh but let's step back a little bit just to understand what we mean by digital

identity when we discuss and when we are uh facing institutions nations governments and international organizations. So here are two uh definitions according to OECD and UCL. Uh but just to bear in mind is that when we are discussing about digital identity system, we may know that there are three main players that may be somehow interchanging of positions and overlapping sometimes but there are issuers holders usually us when we discuss as uh uh individual digital identity and rely parties which are like uh verifying, authenticating, providing services and so on so forth. There are players, many players in this space. Uh,

of course from big tech to governments in standard senting body bodies, international organizations and I mean this terminology is quite long so I'll go uh on on this and I just want to explain that we are actually witnessing right now a sort of Cambrian explosion because digital identity systems in the world are a lot. I mean according to UICL there are more than 200 digital identity system being deployed tested and developed across the world in Europe because of the Eidas regulation and the mandate to let's say make European

digital identity wallet at scale on all nations. There are more than 200 uh systems more of them I mean some of them they are proper full system others they are just test and pilots and in the policy brief we I was mentioning before we have done with the with the European decentralization we analyze actually in the research we did a global comparative global comparative analysis we analyzed 19 different systems and we did also direct interview to some interesting cases one of them by the way Bhutan with the Budan NDI team, great guys and also with the Switzerland system and the Canadian one which is very interesting federated system.

Let's also understand digital identity in the broader framework of DBI because here again we are in the political sphere more mo mostly and actually DBI or digital public infrastructure is an an initiative that we can say mostly political that kind of started here in India at the G20 of New Delhi in 2023 and uh here there are two definitions what we mean with DPI with digital public infrastructure and we Just take let's take in mind that must be a foundational system and must be public service uh and public interest. This is very important. Also another thing to bear in

mind is that the three pillars of dig DPI are digital identity, digital payments and other exchange systems. As you can see from this graph, the digital identity even though it's let's say is an an explosion moment is still let's say the less developed less mature um pillar of the DPI. So here we have an opportunity for two for a few reasons for Ethereum I will say and blockchain general uh I was saying that is a very political initiative this DPI right where digital identity is one of the three pillar here you can read some principles like transparency interoperability accountability privacy safety inclusion all great things right that must be there for a system that

must serve us the people the citizens the public interest. So the what we are trying to do with the institute is first of all speaking the language of policy makers second lead with the value and only after maybe discuss about the technology behind that Ethereum we're going to go now to see and the blockchain is serving I mean it's the perfect technology in our opinion to cover this kind of needs verifiability security resilience others that we're going to see in the next part of this presentation. So where is the value again of Ethereum public blockchains?

Well, first of all here in the uh there are many people of course active in this space. Privacy and and linkability in particular is an essential value. uh the Ethereum Foundation is leading this effort with this open AC uh initiative and uh it's important to understand that a linkability is a very key part of uh privacy in digital identity systems because selective disclosure is great but it's not enough. We cannot make uh we we we cannot make happen that two different verification can be correlated to the same person because this can lead to surveillance dystopia and very bad uh profiling uh of uh behavior of

profiling. Uh there are many other cases of privacy and and link uh of privacy primitives led by the blockchain world not only Ethereum like his partisia, Aztec and if you go on the web three privacy now repo you can you can find 50 plus projects on identity and KYC. So the perfect fit uh as you may already heard from the Buddhan NDI cases and and other ones is the verification. So, Ethereum must be the ver can became really the verification layer of digital identity systems. When we this is very important to understand that not everything should go on the blockchain.

For example, PI and personal data and other kind of sensitive credentials should always stay off chain in in the wallet of the person uh ideally. And so Ethereum here will serve as a sort of a registry of public records and temper evident audit trails where you put some records like the ids trusted issues le revocation registries and so on so forth. This is the actually the approach that already governments are taking like Budhan, Taiwan also uh municipalities like Buenosares even other blockchain are let's say positioning themsel themselves in this in this sense what is even more interesting in our opinion and this is going to be uh explained also

after is trust at scale there is where the that can I mean can be really gamechanging the situation because uh when there are different parties, let's say different governments in the uh international systems or a federated model with different parties interacting each other. How you make sure that they can trust immediately without any any issues and Ethereum here can perfectly serve this need. Uh blockchain in general in particular I will say becoming a sort of naturally credible coordination layer enabling from one side subsidi digital subsidiary systems.

So we always say for example in Europe that data must be on your on your credentials must be on your wallet. So digital subsidiary means that each function that can be delivered by the lower uh competent level should be should stay there. So local governments and so on so forth but also could serve federated systems like in the case of Canada. Another important part part of course here digital identity system is a critical infrastructure right. So we are we must be aware that the system must be secure and resilient. So security resiliency for sure are two elements that Ethereum can bring in. We know about the censorship resistance of

Ethereum. Never the network never halt since its inception. actually the uh core protocol is is heading toward postquantum uh readiness and security and the decentralization resilience of Ethereum is quite well known. Of course, we must be also honest on the limits of blockchain because this is not a solution for everything, right? So when we discuss with policy makers we must uh uh understand that uh not everything is uh solved by blockchain and two of these main limits are of course data entry that uh I mean the trust sure I mean the ledger prove that the record hasn't

changed or it was not tampered but the trust start before I mean who put the datas in so this is very important to keep in mind that's why systems are political system, sociological system, legal system than technical systems and the immutability of blockchain and this is a very core component of of blockchain of the blockchain. So you can never ever put your personal you should never ever let's say put your personal data or sensitive data on chain because otherwise you you will never be able to let's say erase. So that's not the best uh way to go.

few live cases uh to understand that this is already happening in some in some areas still we must work a lot on it but the Bhutan and the I case I will not repeat what was said before because there was a great panel uh discussing this but we we know that also in Taiwan they are doing great work actually it's probably the first country where they're trying to deploy the openc solution by by Ethereum So you see that both countries in this case that are using Ethereum they're using for verification of records. So temper evident temper evidence and privacy privacy primitives with zk proofs and other and other

elements. There are other countries that are of course adopting blockchain and uh other blockchain. Actually one example was recently announced by Avalanche which is the uh United Arab Aramates uh United Arab Emirates pass where basically are same approach they are putting on chain in this case in the avalanche chain some digital vaults that are records of the of the digital identity of uh citizens of UIE. Uh Quark ID is a system for those that were in dev dev connect last year maybe they already heard is a system adopted by the Buenosaris uh municipality and they are actually uh

putting the other records on the ZK sync chain. So again verification layer uh I call this the the silent primitives. Few people knows that in countries such as Europe uh in regions actually such as European Union, Denmark but also in crossborder the first crossborder use cases there are already primitives tech cryptographic and let's say blockchain related primitives that have been adopted especially in the privacy realm. We know these uh in the Japan U E EU um um um use case that that is being led by a blockchain which is called Partisia non

EVM another blockchain an MPC blockchain in that case we know that with Denmark they had a system they're implementing uh ZK proof actually and even in Europe actually a tech through ZK passport have been discussing with skyals which is a huge uh company providing several uh digital uh wallets I mean u European uh identity digital wallets are uh this guidel is uh using some open source ZK component thanks to this uh approach so I mean we are entering silently this space this is good to know of course there are other examples these are counter examples I will say like uh we're here we are in India the other

system is quite resistant to blockchain decentralization and CK and other kind of uh high level privacy features and it's also very centralized as in Italy my country it is uh these kind of systems they are based on legacy technology and they are efficient from one point of view of course but the they bring in huge risk and when we are talking about the identity of each of of all of us we mean we must really we really we really need to be safe and address this kind of risk. So for example, Adahar they had the case of food subsidies that were not delivered

to people because of a missing link in Italy and actually in Europe there was this huge data breach in 2025 ID married that was be uh one unique data let's say database was uh uh branched and 1 billion KYC data of more than 26 countries they were basically um leaked. So maybe many of us have they have in this room have already their own personal data on the somewhere in the dark web. So blockchain can let's say solve these issues. But now last part I want to explain after this wide panoramic of the system the use cases the values and so on. And I want to

explain how we are trying to take in action with the uh European decentralization institute in order to spread as I said before the values and the technology of Ethereum and blockchain and digital identity systems. So let me be very clear here when we have a good technology bulletproof tech that's not enough when you discuss with policy makers institutions international organizations I always say scientific ev evidence is the foundation but it's not enough you really need political arguments and you really need a so-called window of opportunity that's very important that's why and now I'm going back on what I was saying at the

Beginning we launched this panuropean trust framework initiative. What is a trans framework? First trans framework is in digital identity system the rules of the games. It's not just technical rules. Of course it's very let's say political principles uh legal frameworks and technical uh primitives especially regarding uh intervariability standards and so on so forth. So because at the at the stage of at the current stage we have still a very let's say young uh uh situation in terms of crossborder

interoperability crossborder use cases for digital identity. I saw I show before that there are hundreds of national digital identity systems and very few of them they're adopting blockchain technology and privacy primitives and so on so forth. So how how can we change things that's was our thinking and that was the recommendation in our policy brief that was what we announced in in Geneva earlier in September. Here you can scan this QR code behind me where it is uh where you have a statement of intent which is not technical at all is just a list of design principles of a trust framework at the panuropean level. When I say pan European I refer to 46 countries of the

European continent not just EU and that's what we agreed actually with all these kind of organization up there. So alium foundation is part is part of this initiative. So this is how you can start the conversation at the very let's say highest level uh with stakeholders to make them understand okay where is the where are the values how we can bring those values in the dig in our digital identity systems and only after you can explain that this technology Ethereum can actually fulfill most of the uh needs that are that are there behind the panuropean trust framework which again is our let's say area of coverage. I

just want to also make you aware that there is an interesting initiative which is called well very important initiative which is called global DBI summit. The next one is going to be in 2027 in March next year in Bali. I've been I take part at the last opening listening session where they've discussed the next priority and so on so forth. This is the main initiative bringing forward the DPI agenda all over the world. One of by the way one of the main let's say beggar is actually India as country but what I want to stress out here is that you must be uh I mean this these guys can be considered somehow the that our enemy I don't know well not not align

with our values at all but you really need to uh understand what's their language what are their priorities what are doing what what's going to happen in the next year, two years, three years. And only if you are uh aware of it, then you can frame the message in a proper way that you can fit their needs and spread the technology that actually serve those needs. In this case, we are talking about Ethereum and blockchain. So, just to finish, this is my last slide. Then if you have any questions, I will be happy if I'm able to to answer you. This is of course not a long long long short-term journey but is a very

lifelong crusade I will say. uh we want to make sure basically that we we're gonna be free in the cyber space as we are in the physical world to be free you need to be safe you need to be uh you need to have private cor communication you need to have many let's say of the many values in place where we believe that Ethereum can can feed that can can solve that so that was all from my side thank you thank you again and yeah I'll be happy to to answer any of your question if you have >> let's start at let's start at the top I

would say >> yeah I see the first question the most voted one is the north strategy actually finding open air at governments what did the adapt blockchain what is your well that's I I think I kind of explained before uh a little bit So this strategy yeah I will say that it has open airs we are discussing with several governments in Europe about this panurbanian trust framework initiative so actually there are there is interest because the need of crossber identities there in order to make identity crossboard sorry uh use case cross border possible you need trust at scale you need verifiability you need you need

coord coordination. So all elements that a technology such as Ethereum could bring. So we again we are not talking about the technology itself. We are not talking about the blockchain but we are talking about their needs and they are aware that uh let's say we we can uh fix those needs with this kind of technology. So they're open to listen us. They are open to to test pilots and yeah so we are we initiated we just started this journey. So is very long term but we are we are having some some initial results I would say.

Okay, the first qu the second question run issues. So the pan trust framework doesn't have any issues. So the trust a trust framework as I was uh explaining before is like the rules game. So the issues come in in a second level let's say in a second in a second step. So of course civil resistant decentralized registries can be let's say uh part of that system if they are a if we are able to set the rules in a way that accommodate those systems and that's

what we are trying to do by the way I invite you all to connect with us with me because these are conversation that are ongoing right now so yeah definitely this could be a possibility uh but yeah We really need to we are setting the let's say the rules of the game. So we need to discuss that before >> we can do one more from the list. >> Okay. Um I don't know what is the reason how will you convince I I I will answer to the last question.

So governments they are uh they are basically centralized entities. uh but what I will con the main argument that one of the main argument that I will bring in is that uh first this technology is not uh let's say um is not there to uh took off their power but at the same time is a technology that is there to make the system more resilient right so more sovereign and also more tamperproof so this isn't an argument ment that governments are pretty much open to her when you discuss about sovereignity and sovereignity needs some elements like

resiliency and um redundancy in nowadays system where I mean we see everyday cyber attacks security related issues. So a decentralized resilient system could be something serving also the needs and the interest of governments.