Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) v1.0 becomes a W3C Recommendation
A new tool to empower everyone on the web with privacy-respecting online identity and consent-based data sharing
Read testimonials from W3C Members and the industry
https://www.w3.org/ — 19 July 2022 — The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has announced that Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) v1.0 is now an official Web standard. This new type of verifiable identifier, which does not require a centralized registry, will enable both individuals and organizations to take greater control of their online information and relationships while also providing greater security and privacy.
There is a historical analog to this announcement in the evolution of mobile phone numbers. Originally these were owned by the mobile carrier and "rented" to the individual. This required individuals to change numbers if they changed carriers. With the adoption of mobile phone number portability, individuals could now "take their numbers with them" when switching carriers.
The same is true of most email addresses and social network addresses today—they are not “owned” by individuals and must be changed if the individual changes providers. By contrast, W3C Decentralized Identifiers can be controlled by the individuals or organizations that create them, are portable between service providers, and can last for as long as their controller wants to continue using them.
Whatsmore, DIDs have the unique property of enabling the controller to verify ownership of the DID using cryptography. This can enable any controller of a DID—an individual, an organization, an online community, a government, an IoT device—to engage in more trustworthy transactions online. For individuals in particular, DIDs can put them back in control of their personal data and consent, and also enable more respectful bi-directional trust relationships where forgery is prevented, privacy is honored, and usability is enhanced.
Fundamentally, Decentralized Identifiers are a new type of globally unambiguous identifier that can be used to identify any subject (e.g., a person, an organization, a device, a product, a location, even an abstract entity or a concept). Each DID resolves to a DID document that contains the cryptographic material and other metadata for controlling the DID. The foundational pillars of the DID specification are: 1) DIDs do not require a central issuing agency (decentralized), 2) DIDs do not require the continued operation of an underlying organization (persistent), 3) Control of DIDs, and the information they are associated with, can be proven cryptographically (verifiable), and 4) DID metadata can be discovered (resolvable).
Markets adopting DIDs
W3C Decentralized Identifiers, coupled with W3C Verifiable Credentials, are being used across a number of markets where identification and data authenticity is a concern:
- Governments – The US, Canada, and the EU, are exploring the use of DIDs to provide privacy-protecting digital identity documentation for their businesses and residents, which enable those entities to choose how and when their data is shared.
- Retailers – convenience stores, grocery stores, restaurants, bars, and consumer goods companies in the US are utilizing DIDs for new digital age verification programs to increase privacy, checkout speed, and combat the use of fraudulent identity documents when purchasing age-gated products.
- Supply chain stakeholders — global government regulators, trade standards institutions, vendors, shippers, and retailers—are using DIDs to explore next generation systems that more accurately verify the origin and destination of products and services, which will streamline and enable the reporting designed to apply correct tariffs, prevent dumping, and monitor transshipment.
- Workforce – universities, job training programs, and education standards organizations are adopting DIDs in order to issue digital learning credentials that are controlled and shared by the graduate when applying for higher education or workforce positions.
The Work Continues at W3C
W3C, composed of over 450 organizations, has made the investment in W3C Decentralized Identifiers and W3C Verifiable Credentials to ensure a more decentralized, privacy-respecting, and consent-based data sharing ecosystem. Official standards work will continue on these technologies through the newly re-chartered W3C Verifiable Credentials 2.0 Working Group, which will focus on expanding functionality based on market feedback. Further incubation on future privacy-respecting technologies will occur through the W3C Credentials Community Group, which is open to participation by the general public.
About the World Wide Web Consortium
The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy.
W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is jointly hosted by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the United States, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France, Keio University in Japan and Beihang University in China. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.
End Press Release
Media Contact
Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <w3t-pr@w3.org>
+1.617.253.5628 (US, Eastern Time)
Testimonials from W3C members
Avast • Block Inc. • China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) • Conexxus • ConsenSys • Danube Tech • Digital Bazaar • Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) • Fundacion CTIC Centro Tecnológico • GS1 • Identity.com • Intel Corporation • Jolocom GmbH • Mavennet Systems Inc. • MIT Open Learning • Mesur.io • Ology Newswire, Inc. • PassiveBolt Inc • Spruce Systems, Inc. • Transmute • 51Degrees
Avast
"Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) are critical to ensuring a safer Web and the type of empowered consumer experiences we’re enabling at Avast. We are incredibly proud of our colleagues who have contributed so much to making this specification a reality, notably Drummond Reed (who served as a co-author and co-editor) and Brent Zundel (who co-chaired the W3C’s DID Working Group)."
Charles Walton, SVP & GM Digital Trust Services Business, Avast Software s.r.o.
Block, Inc.
"At Block, we are excited to leverage the Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) specification to help build a standards-based decentralized identity layer for the Web. We believe DIDs, and associated technologies being developed in the Decentralized Identity community, will be critical in bringing about an evolution of the Web platform that equips individuals to own and control their identifiers, personal data, and every facet of their digital interactions. Block is actively developing open source packages, products, and services that incorporate DIDs in many areas to create new value and experiences for individuals and business customers."
Daniel Buchner, Head of Decentralized Identity, Block, Inc.
China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT)
"We are excited to witness this historical moment on the Decentralized Identifiers specification. We believe that the self-sovereign identity, or the decentralized digital identity is the future of the Web, and it will induce tremendous impacts not only on the way people behave on the Internet, but also on the digital economy development worldwide. In China, CAICT and our partners have been putting great effort in creating this decentralized identity ecological community for many years. We have launched the DID-oriented Blockchain infrastructure called Xinghuo BIF since 2020, and we will publish the Chinese version self-sovereign identity-decentralized digital identity and verifiable credentials book this year so that people from all industries can realize the potential power of the new technology. We wish to build more partnerships with communities from all over the world, and we are happy to share our story with the world. The new generation of the web is coming."
Jian Jin, General Director of Institute for Industry and Internet of Things, CAICT
Conexxus
"W3C Decentralized identifiers represent a huge step forward in being able to create privacy preserving systems. Coupled with W3C Verifiable Credentials, Decentralized Identifiers have enabled design and standardization of an Age Verification system that meets regulatory requirements while protecting private information. Creating systems that can do both things has formerly been a challenging task, made easier with Decentralized Identifiers and Verifiable Credentials. Conexxus is a long term W3C member, and is the standards body for the convenience retail sector representing 152,000 retail outlets. W3C Decentralized Identifiers have helped create an important privacy preserving standard for the TruAge program."
Gray Taylor, Executive Director, Conexxus
ConsenSys
"ConsenSys are pleased that W3C has endorsed the DID 1.0 specification as a W3C Recommendation. This is an important step toward empowering individuals to control their own identity and how it is used.
The DID framework enables an interoperable approach to identity that can be based on different platforms, providing cross-network interoperability. We value this approach, and the ability of W3C to produce such standards to underpin the highly hetergeneous web of today, and of the future.
At ConsenSys we have been working half a decade with this approach in the Ethereum technology stack. This can provide an ideal basis for the implementation of secure and scalable DID methods, that frees the world from relying only on very large scale providers to manage people's identity.
We look forward to this work, along with Verifiable Credentials and other connected standards, forming an underpinning for the new future we are building where decentralised identity management and reputation systems give people more control of their online identity."
Charles "chaals" Nevile, Lead Standards Architect, ConsenSys
Danube Tech
"Like many other companies, we welcome the decision to advance DID Core 1.0 to W3C Recommendation. For Danube Tech, DIDs are more than just a technical building block and a prerequisite for other functionality such as Verifiable Credentials or DID-based authentication. For us, DIDs are a symbol of empowerment and independence. They lie at the heart of a vision that relates physical to digital identities, in a way where human rights and democratic principles are "built-into" the technical architectures. We believe DIDs are a foundation for a better Web, and we look forward to contributing to their success with our DID-based products and customer projects around the world."
Markus Sabadello, CEO, Danube Tech
Digital Bazaar
"Our work with various governments, education institutions, banks, supply chain, and the retail sector utilize W3C Decentralized Identifiers and W3C Verifiable Credentials to build next generation privacy-enhancing digital credential issuance, verification, and encrypted storage services. All of our products support W3C Verifiable Credentials and W3C Decentralized Identifiers and help reassure our customers that they are investing in a broad, competitive ecosystem of software vendors that all support these interoperable Web standards.
From an individual's perspective, DIDs enable a simpler, safer way to store, share, update, and verify personal data using privacy-respecting identifiers under their personal control. From an enterprise perspective, decentralized technology has the potential to reverse the trends of data breaches and data theft. Companies will no longer need to spend a fortune in the expensive collection–and protection–of data that can quickly become out-of-date, incomplete, or inaccurate. Furthermore, organizations can know with greater certainty that they are interacting with an individual that has the right to use the data they are sharing rather than receiving it from a thief or illicit data broker.
We applaud the newest global standard at the World Wide Web Consortium and look forward to new work at W3C that will enhance and further standardize consent-based data sharing standards that respect individual right to privacy."
Manu Sporny, CEO, Digital Bazaar
Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI)
"ETRI, a government-affiliated research institute in South Korea, leads the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging ICTs. We are delighted that W3C has approved the Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) as W3C Recommendation. The W3C Recommendation for DIDs will serve as an excellent foundation for the digital transformation and the metaverse era, where every company globally strives to understand and reach. Furthermore, recognizing the importance of DIDs, the South Korean government and companies are cooperating to gradually apply DIDs to government-led public services, such as COVID-19 vaccination certificates and mobile driver's licenses. Therefore, ETRI is confident that the approval of the W3C Recommendation for DIDs will contribute significantly to establishing a safe and convenient DIDs-based digital ecosystem."
Seungyun Lee, Director of Open Source Center, ETRI
Fundacion CTIC Centro Tecnológico
"At CTIC we believe that DIDs are an important building block towards a truly decentralised web. We will therefore help companies and public administrations to apply DIDs in ways that go beyond replicating known centralised identity management schemes."
Pablo Coca, Director for business development and operation, CTIC Centro Tecnológico
GS1
"GS1 believes that DIDs, and the closely related technologies around Verifiable Credentials, are likely to make a very substantial difference to the level of trust in the data that underpins supply chains. We therefore welcome the transition of the DID-Core to Recommendation status. We are working on a number of initiatives involving national accreditation agencies, governments and industry partners around the world and GS1 will continue to be an active member of the community developing and testing these standards at W3C."
Phil Archer, Web Solutions Director, GS1 Global Office
Identity.com
"Identity.com fully supports the advancement of DID Core 1.0 to W3C recommendation as an official web standard. Identity.com is an open-source identity verification platform offering developers a native identity layer based on the blockchain. For us, decentralized identifiers are the fundamental technology underpinning decentralized digital identities, providing the security and standards for the future of the Internet and Web3. We believe end-users should have full ownership over their identities. This standard is a positive development for the industry."
Phillip Shoemaker, CEO, Identity.com
Jolocom GmbH
"The DID-core spec becoming an official W3C recommendation is a major and long overdue milestone for the decentralized community. At Jolocom we are currently piloting a DID-based Self-sovereign Identity Wallet in a multitude of use cases and with over two dozen partners. Questions of standardization and interoperability have always been at the core of our work in these projects. It is therefore especially gratifying and exciting to witness this step towards community cohesion. We also take it as a major motivation to continue our efforts on interoperability, to keep implementing DIDs and to further contribute to W3C efforts."
Joachim Lohkamp, CEO, Jolocom GmbH
Intel Corporation
"Intel Corporation congratulates the DID Working Group on Decentralized Identifier (DID) 1.0 reaching W3C Recommendation status.
DID provides a framework to unify and consolidate multiple evolving identity systems. Consolidating identity systems within a single framework is useful for validating the authenticity of information and preserving its integrity as it is moved and processed among cloud, edge, and client systems. This potentially increases the capabilities of the Web to connect and unify multiple sources of information.
The continuing evolution of this work will be key to the development of new technologies in the fields of supply chain management and Internet of Things (IoT) devices and services. For example, a Birds of a Feather (BOF) discussion group at IETF Supply Chain Integrity, Transparency, and Trust (SCITT) has already highlighted DID as a useful approach in providing much needed structure for exchanging information through the supply chain, and the Web of Things (WoT) WG is planning to support DID for identifying and discovering IoT devices and metadata.
Intel Corporation supports this work and encourages the DID Working Group to continue working towards the convergence of widely implemented and adopted standardized best practices for identity in its next charter."
Eric Siow, Web Standards and Ecosystem Strategies Director, Intel Corporation
Mavennet Systems Inc.
"Mavennet is a firm believer in the power of Decentralized Identifiers. We believe DIDs, and associated technologies are a fundamental cornerstone to building a more transparent, trusted and resilient web enabling commercial applications that were not possible before. Mavennet is actively building a number of products utilizing DIDs to augment trust, security and automation in the supply chain."
Mahmoud Alkhraishi, Director of Engineering, Mavennet Systems Inc.
Mesur.io
"Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) alongside W3C Verifiable Credentials (VCs) are enabling our customers to have confidence in the data that they capture and share in pursuit of ESG goals and regulatory requirements. These two standards provide a path to interoperability where the user is in control of their own data in a privacy preserving manner, which is critical for us in solving global problems such as biodefense, food and water security, and in combating forced and child labor."
Michael Prorock, CTO, mesur.io
MIT Open Learning
"The members of the Digital Credentials Consortium (DCC)—comprising 12 international universities—are working together to develop new digital systems for academic credentials. The DCC approach focuses on open standards, open processes, and developing open source software to ensure learner agency in the use of their digital credentials. One of the key components of these approaches is using the W3C Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) specification so that learners and issuers can securely associate themselves with their credentials. The DCC has chosen to implement DIDs along with W3C Verifiable Credentials to enable an interoperable, verifiable, and more trustworthy exchange of digital academic credentials."
Brandon Muramatsu, Associate Director, Projects, MIT Open Learning
Ology Newswire, Inc.
"Decentralized Identifiers are an important tool to level the playing field. With DIDs, individuals and small teams enjoy the same level of cryptographic verification of identity, claims, and content that is available to the largest and most powerful governments and corporations.
At Ology Newswire, DIDs enable digital publishers to contribute content to the public square with cryptographic provenance to enhance censorship resistance. A free WordPress plugin serves DIDs for each author on a WordPress site giving the publisher direct control over verification.
The DID standard is flexible enough to empower not just major corporations and governments, but also individual people and small groups with something important to say or a small enterprise to build. The wide range of applicability embodies the heart and soul of open internet standards."
Christian Gribneau, CEO, Ology Newswire, Inc.
PassiveBolt Inc
"PassiveBolt is thrilled that W3C has endorsed the Decentralized Identity specification DID 1.0. As the first company developing Web 3 based physical access control solutions, we are applying decentralized identity to address problems in the security industry. Issuing credentials for people to access secure spaces currently requires property managers to centrally store PII which exposes them to security risks, regulatory risks, and high costs. PassiveBolt is pioneering a Web3 platform that eliminates regulatory and security risks by enabling property managers to provide access to their secure spaces via user-owned and controlled digital identities based on DIDs."
Kabir Maiga, CEO, PassiveBolt
Spruce Systems, Inc.
"Spruce’s mission is to let users control their data across the web, and we strongly believe that the W3C Decentralized Identifiers are critical to achieving that. DIDs increase user choice, manage complexity across trust models, and when used with adjacent specifications such as Verifiable Credentials, can form the identity layer for a user-centric Internet. We strongly support DID-Core’s transition to a Recommendation, and will continue our contributions to the community."
Wayne Chang, Co-Founder and CEO, Spruce Systems, Inc.
Transmute
"Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) enable identity holders to assert control and reputation outside of centralized authorities, which is an unprecedented win for individual and organizational autonomy across the globe.
Transmute helps companies and governments operate more efficiently across contexts without compromising competitiveness by providing provable and secure ways of exchanging critical trade data. DIDs implemented with Verifiable Credentials (VCs) are the core technologies Transmute relies on to secure data at scale. The tremendous community effort to standardize DIDs with W3C makes this work possible and enables wide adoption of this important technology."
Karyl Fowler, CEO and Co-Founder, Transmute
51Degrees
"DID 1.0 is a fantastic demonstration of much needed decentralized innovation."
James Rosewell - CEO 51Degrees
Testimonials from the industry
Blockchain Commons • European Commission • Decentralized Identity Foundation • Diwala • Dock Labs AG • GATACA • Gimly • Identity Woman in Business • iGrant.io • The National Association of Convenience Stores • Open Credentialing Initiative • Patient Privacy Rights Foundation • Pinnacle Corporation • Spherity • Trinsic • TruAge • Trust Over IP (ToIP) Foundation • United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) • U.S. Customs and Border Protection • U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Blockchain Commons
"DIDs are at the core of our next generation of digital identity on the internet. I'm thrilled at their recognition as an international standard. However, they are just the first step. In order to ensure a compassionate digital infrastructure that protects digital human rights, we need to design DID-centric architectures that fulfill their decentralized possibilities and minimize the identities and credentials that we share. We've laid a great foundation with the DID 1.0 spec; now we need to build on it."
Christopher Allen, IETF TLS 1.0 co-editor, W3C DID spec co-author, and Principal Architect at Blockchain Commons.European Commission
"The European Commission’s European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) team warmly welcomes the vote by the W3C to promote the W3C DID Core 1.0 specification to "Recommendation" status.
The European Commission strives to ensure that European values are at the heart of our digital transition. This notably includes ensuring trusted digital identities for all EU citizens and residents and the creation of a secure and interoperable European Digital Identity, in which digital identity and identification are in the citizens’ control.
Decentralised identifiers (DIDs) are a type of identifier that enables verifiable, decentralised digital identity. DIDs therefore contribute to creating a decentralised identity ecosystem and to build the supporting services and capabilities that will allow citizens to create, control, and use their own digital identity.
The Commission’s EBSI team looks forward to adopting the W3C DID Core 1.0 specification in the EBSI framework as a full W3C standard."
Decentralized Identity Foundation
"We believe DIDs will change the course of digital identity, building in portability and interoperability at the lowest possible level. DIDs are a foundation for creating a new class of products, services, and experiences that advance our digital lives, and we look forward to leveraging DIDs and other technologies developed in the community to champion a new class of user-first, self-owned digital identity systems.
DIDs are an important technical foundation for the products (such as the Universal Resolver, the Sidetree protocol, and DIDCommv2) and activities of virtually all of our members, many of whom actively contributed to the specification."
Diwala
"Diwala is working in parts of the world where digital interconnectedness has some way to go. We see W3C Decentralized Identifiers as critical to build a better digital world for these countries. We see that DIDs is the foundation to achieve an evolution of the Web platform, and leapfrog countries who have yet to reach the same digital resources as the digital leading countries of this world. DIDs will help people of the web have better control of complexity. Combining this with adjacent specifications such as Verifiable Credentials will greatly increase innovation speed, innovation opportunities and data control. We support the move of DID-Core to a Recommendation, and look forward to continuing to build on it."
Snorre Lothar von Gohren Edwin, CTO, DiwalaDock Labs AG
"Decentralized identifiers (DIDs) represent a much needed, privacy preserving innovation that enables individuals and organizations to create, own and control their online identities. This technology is a core part of the identity and credentialing solutions offered by Dock, and the W3C recommendation of the DID-Core specification is a welcome milestone that ensures that we continue to develop our technology with interoperability in mind."
Nick Lambert, CEO, Dock Labs AGGATACA
"For the past 3 years GATACA has had its own DID method enabling us to implement successful use cases across Europe. We’re grateful to have had the support of projects like eSSIF-Lab to advance our DID technology, and look forward to continuing using these core W3C SSI mechanisms & standards to advance its adoption. Our mission to bring real-life trust to the internet in the simplest way through one single, global digital ID is guaranteed by standardised, globally recognised decentralised identifiers and verifiable credentials."
Samuel Gómez Escalante, Founder & CTO, GATACAGimly
"With self-sovereign identity - DIDs and VCs - we finally are able to add the identity and authentication layer that had been missing since the inception of the internet. At Gimly we are bridging the digital and physical worlds, leveraging SSI in combination with NFC capabilities of smartcards and mobile devices to bring trust and transparency back into our digital as well as physical interactions. This work has been partly funded through the Horizon 2020 Essif-lab program."
Caspar Roelofs, Founder, Gimly Projects and PartnershipsIdentity Woman in Business
"I still remember that first whiteboard session for what would become Decentralized Identifiers (DID) v1.0 that I helped facilitate following the ID2020 conference in 2016. Since then, as a community steward and contributor, I have had the pleasure to watch the DID specification progress through workshoping at the Internet Identity Workshop and pre-standardization in the Credentials Community Group before spec work graduated into an official W3C working group - which I participated in as well. It is a big milestone for the community and towards the infrastructure we need to support individuals really owning and controlling the digital representations of themselves. In my new role as a Principal of a Decentralized Identity consulting firm, I look forward to helping organizations understand and implement this standard."
Kaliya Young, Identity Woman, Founder and Principal at Identity Woman in Business, W3C Invited Expert, co-founder of the Internet Identity WorkshopiGrant.io
"Decentralised Identifiers open a new world for individuals to share personal data (credentials) while protecting their privacy. One fundamental aspect of any data exchange is auditability and regulatory compliance. Through our work with NGI-Trust eSSIF-Lab, MyData and similar organisations, iGrant.io has contributed to defining and standardising data exchange agreements (did:mydata) that make every personal data transaction immutable, trustworthy and auditable. This will create new opportunities with seamless data sharing across public and private entities governed by new data regulations."
iGrant.ioThe National Association of Convenience Stores
"In the Convenience Retail channel, age restricted items represent roughly 50 million transactions a day! Restricted items traditionally have been limited within a single transaction, with the age checked using a driver’s license. Regulatory scrutiny now extends to industry-wide sales of items to individuals no matter where they purchase them, and verifying age for the sale of those items using a driver's license presents a big privacy threat. Addressing this issue, NACS has created the TruAge program using W3C Decentralized Identifiers and Verifiable Credentials. Working with our partner Conexxus, NACS has been able to provide a system using open standards that gives a clear “on ramp” for additional participants in the ecosystem. TruAge supports both in-store and on-line transactions, providing safe and responsible sales of age restricted goods while preserving consumer privacy.
NACS advances the role of convenience stores as positive economic, social and philanthropic contributors to the communities they serve. The U.S. convenience store industry, with more than 152,000 stores nationwide selling fuel, food and merchandise, serves 165 million customers daily—half of the U.S. population—and has sales that are 11% of total U.S. retail and foodservice sales. NACS has 1,900 retailers and 1,800 supplier members from more than 50 countries."
Open Credentialing Initiative
"The members of the Open Credentialing Initiative (OCI) were thrilled to learn about the approval of W3C Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) 1.0 as a W3C Recommendation. OCI's architecture heavily relies on this work by W3C to create solutions using DIDs and Verifiable Credentials that solve current challenges in the pharmaceutical supply chain. We see tremendous potential in leveraging this technology for further use cases and look forward to exploring the possibilities."
Bob Celeste, Facilitation, Open Credentialing InitiativePatient Privacy Rights Foundation
"Standardized DIDs are an essential first step toward empowering individuals to engage peers, institutions and service providers without having to trade platform surveillance for convenience. A standardized digital identifier empowers the individual by reducing their switching costs among service providers and platform intermediaries. The power of individual choice and self-determination will not be realized, however, unless the protocols that incorporate identity enable delegation in order to manage the burden of choice and the anxiety of self-determination."
Adrian Gropper, CTO, Patient Privacy Rights FoundationPinnacle Corporation
"W3C Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and W3C Verifiable Credentials (VCs) enabled Pinnacle to be a leader in introducing privacy-preserving digital age verification in convenience retail. By integrating this advanced technology, NACS TruAge gives our web-based Affiniti POS state of the art industry standard-based capabilities to sell restricted goods in the markets we serve.
Standards make investing in technology development safe, and quality standards make it easy. Having the technology based on a worldwide standard lends immediate credibility and bears out the inherent privacy and security promised by DIDs and VCs."
Spherity
"Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) are a verifiable and interoperable cryptographic method of identifying users and things. With DIDs and adjacent specifications such as Verifiable Credentials, a user-centric Internet can form an identity layer that increases user choice, establishes trust, and creates a seamless user experience.
Spherity’s DID-powered solutions provide verifiable, compliance solutions for enterprise and object identity. The W3C DID spec is wired into the core of our identity SaaS solution for enterprise identity wallets, intelligent serial numbers, and process compliance, which integrates with existing ERP and tracking systems via easy-to-use APIs."
Trinsic
"The Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) specification is at the core of our efforts to solve the governance problem in the decentralized world. At Trinsic, we believe in the power of everyone to control their identity. We also believe that ecosystems should have the ability to express their solutions using a trust model that is secure, scalable, and interoperable. The W3C recommendation of the DIDs data model is a milestone that completes the required infrastructure to make this vision possible. We're honored to partner with eSSIF-Lab to develop an open source solution for Trust Registries as a solution to governance based on DIDs."
Tomislav Markovski, Cofounder and CTO at TrinsicTruAge
"TruAge utilizes W3C Decentralized Identifiers and W3C Verifiable Credentials for its nation-wide digital age verification system in the United States. We are pleased to see the advancement of these global W3C standards, which enabled the National Association of Convenience Stores and its 1,900 retailer and 1,800 supplier members in more than 50 countries to build a next generation privacy-respecting digital age verification system. TruAge, which is based on W3C and Conexxus standards, are currently being integrated into point of sale systems that perform more than 50 million age verifications per day."
Kyle McKeen, CEO, TruAgeTrust Over IP (ToIP) Foundation
"Decentralized identifiers are one of the key building blocks of the decentralized digital trust infrastructure for which the Trust Over IP (ToIP) Foundation is defining a complete architecture. DIDs will put the power of cryptography directly into the digital wallets of every person and organization using the Internet, enabling personal information to be protected, privacy to be preserved, and trust to be established at a scale that has never been possible before."
John Jordan, Executive Director, Trust Over IP (ToIP) FoundationUnited Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)
"Digitalisation is a key enabler of the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs). The decentralised architecture of the W3C’s DID and VC standards offer important opportunities to accelerate progress towards the SDGs. Improved access to finance for micro business in developing countries, transparency of sustainable supply chains, reduced environmental impacts, and reductions in counterfeit goods are all good use cases for the application of VC/DID based solutions. The UNECE explores important factors for establishing trust in the next-generation digital world and promotes the vision of a more open, free and secure digital future for all."
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) - United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT)U.S. Customs and Border Protection
"US Customs and Border Protection is actively pursuing interoperability standards based on W3C Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and W3C Verifiable Credentials (VCs) as next generation supply chain enhancements for 2023 and 2024. The standards developed by W3C will have a profound effect on the future of supply chain modernization by driving down development costs for both public and private sectors, allowing technology choice, as well as maintaining a safe and open environment for the international community."
Vincent Annunziato, Director of Business Transformation & Innovation Division, U.S. Customs and Border ProtectionU.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) works to protect privacy and reduce vendor lock-in by ensuring open standards and demonstrable interoperability testing. "As the US government agency that initially funded the work leading up to the Decentralized Identifiers specification, we are pleased to see its ratification as a global standard,” said Anil John, Technical Director of S&T’s Silicon Valley Innovation Program. “We have and continue to contractually obligate our vendors to adhere to open global standards, including W3C Verifiable Credentials and W3C Decentralized Identifiers, as part of our ‘Preventing Forgery & Counterfeiting of Certificates and Licenses’ workstream, and participate in open standards processes in order to ensure transparency, protect privacy, and increase global equity in technology outcomes that affect not only those in the US, but abroad as well."
U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T)