The Future of Identity

In this episode we talk with Adrian Field, the Director of Market Development at OneID, which is a bank-based identity verification product focused on the UK market. We cover a range of topics, including: Adrian has a very good grasp on the digital ID ecosystem and is generous sharing his insights after four years working in this space. You can learn more about OneID on their website: https://oneid.uk/. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for more announcements related to the future of identity at trinsic.id/podcast Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

In today’s episode we spoke with Taylor Liggett, Chief Growth Officer of ID.me, which is the largest reusable ID network in the United States and may be the largest private digital ID network in the world. With over 100 million user wallets and $150 million in revenue, ID.me has figured some things out about reusable ID adoption and monetization. We talk about how reusable identity reduces the friction required to undergo a verification, and therefore expands the market. Taylor shares specific stats on conversion rates and completion times that are very interesting. We cover a bunch of tactical topics, like: ID.meID.meTaylor spoke to some of the common objections that people online and in the media tend to have with ID.me. He did a great job addressing ID.me's tie-in with government, their strategy to build consumer trust in their brand after experiencing both good and bad press, and how they’re thinking about the evolution of interoperability in the space. You can learn more by visiting the ID.me website. Listen to the full episode on Apple podcasts, Spotify or find all ways to listen at trinsic.id/podcast.

On today’s episode we talked with Eric Scouten, Senior Engineering Manager at Adobe, who has been working for the last four years on solving content authenticity. What does that mean? We’ll get into it in the episode, but suffice it to say that it’s an effort to bring trust to content online. Was the pope really photographed in that puffy jacket? Was the photo of a war zone really taken this week, or is that from several years ago? And we’ll get into how to identify the identity of the individual or business behind the content, in a privacy-preserving way. We talk about adoption of the C2PA standard, how the content authenticity initiative recruited so many of the most influential tech and media platforms, and how Adobe built the conviction to ship the first versions into production despite a cold start problem. We also talk about the user experience of content authenticity, both from the creator side and consumer side, and some thornier issues including potential for censorship and deceit. This is a fascinating episode into an emerging standard that I believe will be an important part of all our lives over the coming years, and example of incredible innovation coming from a large technology company. You can learn more about the Content Authenticity Alliance at https://contentauthenticity.org/ and you can find more about the C2PA standard at https://c2pa.org/ Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for more announcements related to the future of identity at trinsic.id/podcast Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

On today’s episode we spoke to Adam Gunther, SVP and General Manager of Digital Solutions at Equifax. This was a fascinating conversation about Adam’s journey leading decentralized identity at IBM, moving into an operating role within Equifax, and how their reusable identity strategy has evolved over time. We talk about tactical factors that are needed for reusable identity adoption, like solutions to liability and common taxonomies for onboarding and recovery. We also talk about how to move forward ambitious identity projects within large enterprises. Listen for Adam’s three rules for getting products off the ground, and why he says “no smart refrigerators.” You can learn more about Kount, an Equifax Company, on their website and you can find Adam on LinkedIn. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for more announcements related to the future of identity at trinsic.id/podcast Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

In this episode we talk with Phil Windley, Sr. Software Development Manager at AWS, Cofounder of IIW, former Chair of Sovrin Foundation. We talked about his experience building and leading the Sovrin Foundation, which at one point was almost synonymous with the term self-sovereign identity. It was set up to be an identity metasystem that would reinvent how identity was done online… and we talk about why it didn’t end up becoming that. Phil shares lessons from identity systems that got adopted, like the social login metasystem, as well as from things that didn’t get a lot of adoption, like certain identity blockchains and information cards a decade prior. We hope this an interesting episode. We’re glad we got to tell a small part of the Sovrin story as we think a lot of today’s reusable ID projects have their roots in the movement Sovrin started—including Trinsic. To learn more about Phil you can visit his personal website https://windley.com/ where you'll find ways to contact him, and buy his new book. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for more announcements related to the future of identity at trinsic.id/podcast Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

Today we talked with Nick Thomas, cofounder of Finicity, which was acquired by Mastercard, where Nick went on to be the EVP of Global Open Finance Innovation. Nick has a fascinating career that has paralleled digital identity for a long time, as a cofounder of Bluetooth and FDX, the major open banking standards body in the US. These are both organizations that brought an industry together around common standards to grow the market far bigger for everyone involved—and we talk lessons learned and how this applies to identity. Nick shares a deep look into Finicity’s story starting as a consumer application and eventually becoming a major data aggregator. Then we dive into Finicity’s journey disrupting themselves by pushing into open banking. We explore the work Finicity did with verifiable credentials as an issuer, and the big challenge that prevented them from rolling it out. You’ll appreciate all of his takes on the parallels between fintech and IDtech. To learn more about Nick you can find him on LinkedIn. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for more announcements related to the future of identity at trinsic.id/podcast Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

In this episode, we talk with Jacques von Benecke, CTO of DHI, the commercial and investment arm of the government of Bhutan. If you haven’t heard, Bhutan has launched one of the most complete SSI ecosystems in the world! We spent most of the time diving in to how it’s going since launching just a few months ago. We get into metrics, like how many users have onboarded, and the growth rate over time. We cover use cases, business models, governance, and more! We even cover how they productize wallets for accessibility, and we were amazed to hear they have iOS, Android, and web… but they have 11 other wallet configurations they’ve had to build to cover the whole population! Most of all it was really interesting to see what can happen when you have top-down mandate to develop better digital identity and a strong technology approach to execute. To learn more about Bhutan’s National Digital Identity initiative you can visit Bhutan NDI or listen to Jacques' interview on the (un)Trustables podcast. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for more announcements related to the future of identity at trinsic.id/podcast Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

In this episode, we talk with Jon Gelsey, founding CEO of Auth0 Inc, which sold to Okta for $6.5B, as well as the CEO of Xnor.ai which he sold to Apple for $200m. Jon told the story of the early days of Auth0, including how they got their first $1m of revenue. Then we spent time diving in to how new technologies get adopted—Jon even went as far as saying that technology adoption is always incremental, not revolutionary. Then we talk about the role of big tech, and why he doesn’t think reusable identity will be dominated by massive incumbents. That led us to talk about what he would do if he were running a company whose business model could be cannibalized by reusable identity, which is that he would look to disrupt himself in a safe way. This was a rare look into some great advice from one of our industry’s best operators. To learn more about Jon, you can visit his LinkedIn profile. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for more announcements related to the future of identity at trinsic.id/podcast Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

In this episode, we sit down with Harrison Tang, Co-founder and & CEO of Spokeo, which is a “people search engine”. Spokeo aggregates many sources of data about people and sells that data to verifiers. So at first blush, Harrison is an unlikely person to be a massive advocate for SSI and co-chair of the W3C Credentials Community Group. We dig in to why Spokeo cares about verifiable credentials, and how verifiable credentials represent the opportunity to deliver more trust to Spokeo’s customers and how they allow Spokeo to participate in the next wave of digital identity innovation. We also explore complex concepts like negative reputation and how AI will impact the personal data landscape. We finish out by talking about what current IDtech companies can learn from Spokeo’s early go-to-market and what it will take to get verifiable credential adoption. To learn more about Spokeo visit https://www.spokeo.com/ or follow Spokeo on social media (@Spokeo). You can find Harrison on social media as well (@tang_talks) and keep up with his latest thinking through his podcast ‘Tang Talks’. Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

In this episode, we chat with Carlos Korten, Co-founder & Chief Product Officer of Bindle Systems. Bindle built one of the largest private-sector deployments of decentralized identity in the USA, and Carlos shares tons of stories from the trenches of getting hundreds of thousands of consumers on board. We dive in to the go-to-market strategies Bindle employed, including how they sold directly to verifiers, and how if they could do it over again, Carlos would focus even more narrowly on verifiers. We talk about their business model and what they learned about making money with verifiable credentials. And we talk about some of Carlos’ hard-earned lessons that he recommends to anyone building an IDtech product. From discussing the founding of Bindle, its journey through the pandemic, and then the decision to pivot away from a COVID product, Carlos and Riley’s discussion makes for an engaging episode. To contact Carlos or to learn more about Bindle’s current focus, reach out to carlos@bindlesystems.com. Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

In this episode, we sit down with Nate Soffio, Co-founder and & CEO of Portabl. Nate is applying decentralized identity to fintech and open banking, which is such an important but also challenging use case. We discuss the ins and outs of Portabl’s user experience and how it differs from other reusable KYC products. Nate also provides insight into lessons learned, deliberate product decisions Portable has made, and common mistakes he has seen IDtech founders make. This episode should be useful for anyone interested in fintech or adding SSI to their identity stack. To contact Nate or to learn more about Portabl, reach out to hello@getportabl.com. Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

In this episode, we speak with Andrew Black, Managing Director of ConnectID, which is part of Australian Payments Plus. Andrew, who is an expert in the convergence of IDtech and open banking, sheds light on a unique approach to building bank-backed digital identity and the user experience that it enables. It was fascinating to unpack the role governance plays in ConnectID with some tangible examples, and analyze how the UX of an identity exchange differs from that of an identity wallet. We also speculate a bit on why both true open banking and true interoperable digital identity have weaker-than-expected adoption, and how to balance solving business problems with building a future we all want to live in. To contact Andrew, you can reach out on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-black-a5118239/. Learn more about ConnectID at https://connectid.com.au/. Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

In this episode, we sit down with Sarah Clark, SVP of Digital Identity at Mastercard, to discuss Mastercard’s ID network. As one of the world’s largest payments networks, Mastercard has been on the leading edge of reusable identity. Sarah takes us into Mastercard’s corporate strategy related to identity, plus some of the specific go-to-market strategies the company has employed in Australia and Brazil where its network is live. The conversation continues as Sarah explains why now is the time for reusable identity to take off. We discuss the challenges relying parties and traditional identity verification companies face with the advent of reusable identity as well as how tech giants like Apple and Google will play a role. And as always, we end the conversation by delving into why Sarah believes that digital identity is the best place to be if you want to work in the cutting edge of technology. To contact Sarah, you can reach out to her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahmclark/. She is also available at sarah.clark@mastercard.com. Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

In this episode, we sit down with Keith Uber, VP of Sales Engineering at Ubisecure, to discuss the role of verifiable credentials in identity and access management. Keith shares his insights on Organizational Identity and how vLEIs change the game, create new business opportunities, and unlock efficiencies for representatives of businesses to transact more seamlessly. Keith also shares his perspective on how Ubisecure is engaging with the eIDAS 2.0 and European Identity Wallet initiatives on the consumer identity side. We explore the fascinating overlap between Organizational Identity and Consumer Identity. While Ubisecure’s focus is in the EU market, there are loads of insights that will be helpful to people building IDtech products around the world. To learn more about Ubisecure, visit https://www.ubisecure.com/. Be sure to check out Ubisecure’s podcast titled ‘Let's Talk About Digital Identity’ at https://www.ubisecure.com/lets-talk-about-digital-identity-podcast/. Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

Today’s guest is Ankur Patel, Head of Product at Entra Verified ID which is Microsoft’s decentralized identity product. We begin the conversation by reviewing Microsoft’s storied history of identity initiatives, and why one of the world’s most valuable companies made decentralized identity one of their major focus areas. We dive into the recent announcement about verifiable credentials on LinkedIn, which allows companies to issue employment credentials, so LinkedIn members can truly prove they actually work at the organization listed on their LinkedIn profile. Ankur is one of the pioneers in decentralized identity and his perspective on why enterprises are adopting decentralized identity is fascinating. Reach out to Ankur on Twitter (@_AnkurPatel) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/4ankurpatel/). To learn more about Microsoft Entra Verified ID visit the following two links: https://aka.ms/verifyoncehttps://aka.ms/didfordevsReach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

Today’s guest is Eric Starr, Co-founder & CEO of UltraPass ID—an IDtech product for governments. Eric shares his story trying to solve civic problems through the political system via Andrew Yang’s presidential campaign and how he ended up starting a company to reimagine how citizens interact with government. We go through the problem caused by many government silos of personal data, why Eric landed on verifiable credentials to solve the problem, and why governments are a challenging but super important segment to target because they hold the keys to verifiable credential adoption. Eric is convinced that solving problems for government stakeholders with real solutions, not with technological dogma, is the way verifiable credentials will be adopted. Reach out and connect with Eric and his team at https://www.ultrapassid.com/. Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

Today’s guest is Timothy Ruff, General Partner at Digital Trust Ventures. Timothy is an early pioneer of self-sovereign identity as a co-founder of Evernym, a co-creator of Sovrin, and an advisor to several IDtech startups. Timothy has countless battle scars from being on the ground floor of so much innovation in the decentralized identity space. In this episode, we discuss the difference between a use case and a business case and how to bridge the gap. We also talk about the humility required to change your mind about your idea when you’re wrong. And one of the most pivotal things Timothy has changed his mind about in recent years is that blockchain isn’t needed for SSI. We close by talking about where Timothy thinks the most ripe path to verifiable credential adoption lies in the near term. Multiple resources for SSI entrepreneurs are recommended within the episode and are listed below: The Cold Start Problem - Andrew Chen (Book)Running Lean by Ash Maurya - (Book)Disciplined Entrepreneurship by Bill Aulet - (Book)Without Their Permission by Alexis Ohanian - (Book)To reach out to Timothy, email him at timothy@digitaltrust.vc Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

Today’s guest is Manny Nijjar, co-founder and CEO of Truu, which is a healthcare-focused IDtech product that’s been involved in one of the most impressive production verifiable credentials rollouts to date. Their platform, alongside a handful of other vendors, helped the largest health system in the world respond to the COVID-19 pandemic—all while Manny was also serving on the front lines as an infectious disease doctor, leading his hospital’s COVID-19 response. The main takeaway from this episode is that involving end-users in your product development is key. You’ll hear how the biggest barriers for the NHS staff passport were not technology problems but user experience and adoption problems. And as an end-user of his own product, nobody can speak better about these points than Manny. He then breaks down those learnings and how he’s applied them to adjust both the product and go-to-market approaches he’s taking at Truu. This is an amazing opportunity for IDtech builders to shortcut the trial-and-error process of launching a product, by hearing what worked, what didn’t, and what Truu is doing about it next. To learn more about Truu or to contact Manny, email manreet@truu.id. Visit Truu’s website at https://www.truu.id/. Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

Today’s guest is Evin McMullen, co-founder and CEO of Disco.xyz. We start and end this episode with Evin framing identity as the coolest, most interesting thing people should be working on. She paints such a compelling picture in language that’s so accessible, and she shares tips on how the rest of us can level up our messaging to attract more users as well. We break down Disco’s product and the origin of their term of choice—the “data backpack”. We go into some of the choices they made in their journey, including how NFTs and verifiable credentials relate in web3, and how they’ve tackled the 3-sided cold-start problem most IDtech businesses face. We also spent some time talking about the factors that make now such a compelling moment in time for digital identity and IDtech product builders. Evin is easily one of the most fun people in the digital identity world. She has such a way of taking complex things and turning them into snack-able bits of content. If you don’t come out of this episode with a new pithy way to describe digital identity, you should probably go back and listen again because there are so many useful takeaways. To get your very first data backpack, visit app.disco.xyz. Learn more about Disco at disco.xyz, and follow Disco on Twitter @discxoxyz. Follow Evin on Twitter at @provenauthority. And feel free to join Disco's Discord community. Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

Today’s guest is Paul Ashley, CTO and co-CEO of Anonyome Labs. Paul starts by talking about how the erosion of privacy online and the rise of data brokers and surveillance capitalism led them to create their IDtech product MySudo. MySudo is a privacy application that allows users to create secure digital profiles, or personas, with unique disposable phone numbers, emails, credit cards, and other identifiers to use across the internet. With hundreds of thousands of users, MySudo has defied conventional wisdom that consumers won’t pay for identity services, making it among a handful of successful, sustainable IDtech businesses. Paul breaks down how they’ve succeeded by taking a practical product approach and by talking about use cases rather than features. Our conversation naturally led to a discussion about how decentralized identity fits into their roadmap, which Paul called the biggest privacy breakthrough of the next decade. We talk about some of the opportunities and challenges in this nascent space, including navigating the complex technology landscape, how to find good problems for decentralized identity to solve first, and how their experience building what some would call a “web2” identity product is informing the way they tackle the UX of verifiable credentials. This is a conversation that will interest anyone who has a passion for privacy and safety online and will be very insightful for anyone building a consumer identity product. To learn more about MySudo and Anonyome Labs or to get in contact with a team member, visit https://anonyome.com/. Download MySudo on the Apple Store. Download MySudo on Google Play. Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.