The OpenID Foundation is pleased announce the final publication of the white paper on “Government-Issued Identity Credentials and the Privacy Landscape,” published here (https://openid.net/Government-issued-Digital-Credentials-and-the-Privacy-Landscape-Final). The Foundation joins with five other non-profits (the Kantara Initiative, ID4Africa, Open Identity Exchange, Secure Identity Alliance, Better Identity Coalition, and the Trust Over IP Foundation) along with a wide range of experts from civil society, government, and the private sector for this thorough assessment of the global privacy landscape in the context of government-issued digital identity credentials.

This paper is an especially timely as governments around the world seek to scale their existing digital identity credential implementations, or chart a path to deliver new digital identity credential programs. It seeks to offer a balanced, global view of privacy concerns by exploring laws, implementations, gaps, and tradeoffs facing the people developing these new ecosystems. It builds on the thoughtful work of other studies and concludes with tangible recommendations in three areas:

Beyond identifying issues, the contributors to this paper seek to point our concrete areas that will inform how to build more privacy preserving ecosystems, and what issues the community needs to continue working on together. This is a final paper, but  those interested in taking part in future discussions and papers on this topic are welcome to share your interest to director@oidf.org.

Our thanks to lead editor Heather Flanagan, who has distilled a complex and rapidly changing domain space for the benefit of lay people and experts alike.