1. Introduction
A formal objection was raised against the proposal to add a Digital Credentials API to the chartered deliverables of the Federated Identity Working Group, identifying the following fundamental concerns with such an API:
- Increased sharing of personal data and corresponding reduction of privacy due to reduced friction for sharing such data.
- Increased centralization of trust on the Web.
- Increased restriction of the ability to publish, view, and participate on the Web, and corresponding fragmentation of the Web as a whole.
- Reduction of user agency and perpetuation of existing societal power imbalances.
A detailed exposition of this case may be found in the report prepared by the W3C Team.
A Council was formed to rule on this objection. This Council Report documents the conclusions of this Council.
2. Decision
The Council resolved to overrule the objection, allowing the charter to be adopted as proposed.
3. Rationale
The Council shares the concerns raised in the Formal Objection about the proposed deliverable, and agrees that this type of technology has potential for the described societal harms. However, given the level of engagement on this topic and pressure (particularly from the EU) to address its use cases, the choice in reality is between chartering this work at W3C or having it progress elsewhere, likely with less attention to these risks.
The Council concludes that the objector's concerns would be best addressed—to whatever extent is possible—by overriding their objection and chartering this work on the W3C Recommendation Track, bringing its development formally under the framework of the W3C Process, rather than risking its development elsewhere without the expertise and safeguards that the W3C Process and the engagement of its standardization community can provide.
This decision is specific to the question of chartering, and does not preclude sustaining objections on these same grounds against future deliverables of the Working Group.
4. Recommendations
The Council recommends that:
- The Working Group take the concerns raised in this Formal Objection into consideration in its work, and attempt to mitigate the possible harms.
- The Team work with the objectors, the TAG, and other interested parties to develop charter amendments that might better structure and/or constrain the work to take these concerns into account, and follow up by proposing such charter amendments to the AC later.
- Concerned members of W3C to participate in the Working Group to ensure it finds ways to mitigate these concerns in its deliverables.
Appendix A: Council Participation
The Council was formed on 8 November 2024 from the members of the TAG and the AB, plus the CEO. Theresa O’Connor and Tatsuya Igarashi renounced their seats on the Council; no-one was dismissed. Therefore, the actual membership of this council was:
- Daniel Appelquist
- Matthew Atkinson
- Hadley Beeman
- Tim Berners-Lee
- Tantek Çelik
- Wei Ding
- Seth Dobbs
- Elika Etemad
- Max Gendler
- Amy Guy
- Elena Lape
- Peter Linss
- Dapeng Liu
- Tristan Nitot
- Wendy Reid
- Florian Rivoal
- Avneesh Singh
- Martin Thomson
- Lea Verou
- Chris Wilson
- Song XU
- Jeffrey Yasskin
Hadley Beeman was appointed as chair. Daniel Appelquist was appointed as substitute chair for the final call for consensus.
Of those qualified to serve, the following participated in the final decision:
- Daniel Appelquist
- Matthew Atkinson
- Hadley Beeman
- Tim Berners-Lee
- Tantek Çelik
- Wei Ding
- Seth Dobbs
- Elika Etemad
- Max Gendler
- Elena Lape
- Wendy Reid
- Florian Rivoal
- Avneesh Singh
- Martin Thomson
- Chris Wilson
- Jeffrey Yasskin
The decision was made by consensus.