Putting Humanity Back
In Identity
We are creating a new professional class, the Digital Fiduciary.
Fiduciaries
Fiduciaries address situations where a principal necessarily depends on the loyal engagement of agents. Doctors, lawyers, and accountants are fiduciaries, each in their own specialty. Doctors help people manage complex health issues, beyond the expertise of the typical citizen. Lawyers help people and businesses deal with legal matters beyond most people’s understanding including civil, criminal, procedural, and regulatory issues. Accountants help people and businesses document, understand, and apply financial tools in both personal and business contexts. Digital fiduciaries help individuals and organizations manage identity.
Digital Fiduciaries
Digital Fiduciaries are oath-bound professionals with the moral, ethical, and legal commitment to place the interests of identity subjects above their own. They help us manage how society recognizes, remembers, and responds to specific people and things. They advise individuals and organizations about how best to manage identity, both their own and others, and are entrusted to deal with personal information in a privacy-respecting, yet verifiable manner.
Digital Fiduciary Association
The DFI will create the Digital Fiduciary Association (DFA) as the Self-Regulating Organization (SRO) for Digital Fiduciaries to establish best practices and ethical rules for its members. Through the DFA, Digital Fiduciaries collaborate to define Digital Fiduciary Protocols, which rigorously describe how to provide Digital Fiduciary Services, in which the identity interests of users are addressed in a fair and equitable manner. Providers of Digital Fiduciary Services legally sign the protocol’s operating agreement, appoint a Digital Fiduciary to oversee the service, and accept the Digital Fiduciary Association’s dispute resolution process as the first venue for resolving concerns. These Digital Fiduciary Signatories have a legally enforceable commitment to delivering the service as defined.
The Virtuous Triangle
The Digital Fiduciary Association enables a powerful virtuous circle of protocols, services, and accountability that literally places a human being at the center of how we ensure auditable identity assurance in any domain.
1) Protocols defined by Fiduciaries
2) Services offered by Signatories and managed by Digital Fiduciaries, and
3) Accountability enforced by Digital Fiduciaries through the DFA
Together, these create a self-sustaining, generative architecture for advancing the state of the art in privacy-respecting identity, enabled by Digital Fiduciaries.
Our first protocol: a Digital USCIS I-9
USCIS I-9 Proof of Eligibility to Work is the most broadly used identity verification protocol in America. Every legal employee and every legal employer performs this verification. We digitize it through the Digital Fiduciary, enabling anyone in America to prove their employment eligibility without revealing national origin or immigration status.
Our first protocol: a Digital USCIS I-9
The Digital USCIS I-9 service is provided by a Signatory who has legally agreed to the protocol’s operating agreement and appointed Digital Fiduciaries to manage and perform it. Prospective employees (at any employer) can use ANY Digital USCIS I-9 service provider to get a Digital USCIS I-9 Verifiable Credential, which they can present to any employer to prove eligibility requirements for working in the United States, all using open technology compatible with emerging global standards from the World Wide Web Consortium.
Fair Witness Credentials
The Digital USCIS I-9 credential is the first Fair Witness Credential, issued as a result of Fair Witness Ceremony, where identity claims are physically verified in person and evidence is digitally archived and stored offline to enable post-facto verification of the initial evaluation to any level of precision supported by the protocol. The resulting Fair Witness Credentials are usable by the data subject at any relying party that accepts that protocol. In case of anomalies, Signatories can challenge any particular Fair Witness credential (according to the rules of the protocol) and have any Digital Fiduciary re-evaluate the archived details. Fair Witness credentials ensure that oath-bound Digital Fiduciaries can verify the accuracy of claims without revealing the claims to the public or competitors.
Other protocols
For novel situations, where no existing protocols satisfy jurisdictional or business requirements, new protocols can be defined, fully leveraging the ethical framework that makes Digital Fiduciaries trustable. Email and web hosting. AML and KYC. Key escrow and data backup. These are all potential areas for protocol development. The DFA creates a meta trust framework for identity related protocols appropriate for any jurisdiction and level of confidence.
The Oath
All Digital Fiduciaries must take an oath to put the interest of identity subjects above their own. This oath binds the individual fiduciaries to the legal, moral, and ethical obligations that make them trustworthy.
I, __________, do solemnly swear to faithfully execute the responsibilities of a Digital Fiduciary, protect the interests of identity subjects, and advance best practices in how to recognize, remember, and respond to specific people and things.
- I shall place the interests of identity subjects above my own, in any and all actions taken regarding information about, or related to, those subjects,
- I shall ensure the fair and appropriate use of subject information by services placed under my care,
- I shall treat all information received in the course of acting as a Digital Fiduciary with the utmost duty of care to ensure its security and confidentiality,
- I shall cooperate with all appropriate audits made by oath-bound Digital Fiduciaries, retrieving and providing onsite access to archived evidence according to rules established by the Digital Fiduciary Association (DFA),
- I shall cooperate with, and defer to, the DFA’s dispute resolution processes for any and all Digital Fiduciary activity,
- I shall engage with fellow Digital Fiduciaries, the public, and private stakeholders to advance the best practices of Digital Fiduciaries and Digital Fiduciary Services,
- I shall make Fair Witness credentials based solely on those facts which I have physically observed, verified, and documented, according to the practices recognized by the DFA,
- I shall document, retain, and register all necessary evidence for the independent audit of all Fair Witness credentials made by me, and · act as an ambassador to advance the profession of Digital Fiduciary.
By this act, I proclaim myself a Digital Fiduciary and join the community of Digital Fiduciaries.
Join
If you are ready to help create this new social institution, take the oath and join the movement.