And all these little things

In my personal life, 2024 was the year of generational change.? In March, the family welcomed a new baby – the first newborn added to the family in just over twenty years.? My wonderful niece gave birth to a gorgeous little girl, making me a great-uncle (I know I don’t look old enough) and beginning the next generation of our family tree.? It is amazing the happiness and joy that has been brought, watching her over the months grow and learn, and seeing how she influences the lives of the family around her.

Just as we had become a four-generation family, the circle of life intervened, when in October my father passed away after a period of ill health over the past couple of years.? Having lost my Mum during the pandemic in 2020, what struck me most about the grief from the death of my Father was the little things – being an orphan, becoming the oldest generation - alongside my sisters - in our direct family tree.? It was an interesting time of reflection of how the little things in our lives - the ones that occur often without us noticing – that collectively shape our thoughts, our actions and our emotions for the bigger events.

In my professional life, I have valued the opportunity of working for some amazing clients on some of the most interesting projects happening right now in the digital identity industry.

I have been participating in one of the EU Digital Identity Wallet (EUDIW) Large Scale Pilots (LSPs), which has been both rewarding and frustrating.? I am a firm believer in the importance of public / private sector collaboration for digital trust services to be successful.? So being part of a project that has seen Member States and Industry working towards a common objective, with shared passion and enthusiasm to achieve tangible outcomes, has been a joy.? I am also a passionate believer in user-centred design.? And this is perhaps my biggest sense of frustration with eIDAS 2.0 and the EUDIW comes from.? ?Regulation, Implementing Acts and Standards shouldn’t be the driver, they should be there to support the needs of users and of the services that those users need or want to interact with.? The LSPs and other Member State driven initiatives will test some aspects of whether the EUDIW will meet user and Relying Party needs, though serious focus should be given to this in 2025 or eIDAS 2.0 risks similar limitations to success as experienced in eIDAS v1.

During 2024 I became the Co-Chair of the UK Government’s One Login Privacy and Inclusion Advisory Group.? This role appealed to me because of my passion for user-centred design.? I firmly believe that digital trust systems must be designed so that they enable the whole of society to benefit.? I also consider myself to be a pragmatist, that perfection should not be the enemy of good.? That sometimes we must make compromises, though that provided we do them conscionably and transparently, and with a commitment to iterate and improve that should not prevent us from moving forward.? In my career I have worked in Europe, North America, South America, Oceana and Asia.? 2024 I added Africa to this list (I’m not expecting much demand for digital identity in Antarctica) to complete the set.? Being invited to travel to a country, seeing first-hand how it operates and talking to people about their experiences and views just cannot be underappreciated.? I stayed in a beautiful boutique hotel the weekend before starting work.? Whilst there I spoke both with the owner and the manager about what I did for a living and why I was visiting.? I gained such valuable perspectives, things I would never have considered without hearing from the people who will be the users and the Relying Parties of the identity ecosystems I work to implement.? When designing solutions for such diverse user-groups; from literacy, digital competency, access to technology, data, power, trust in government and society – there is no single solution.? The key lesson was to understand how each could interoperate.

Looking forward to 2025, the big announcement from the UK Government was that digital identities will be allowable as proof-of-age for buying alcohol.? This is amazing news, something that I have been pushing for now for over a decade.? Though whilst the big announcement is most welcomed, there’s still much to be done that will define whether digital identity in the UK finally hits the hockey-stick curve of adoption.? My hope is that unlike the use of mDLs, the user is not required to share their photo with the Relying Party – proof that the holder is the subject must be done on the user’s own device if we’re to have privacy-by-design.? Which means that we need liveness and presentation standards.? Though the biggest challenge will be acceptance.? The lack of a Scheme Operator - someone to drive the network for identity credentials in the same way as Visa and Mastercard do for payments – is a barrier.? Identity Providers may drive point solutions by doing bilateral deals with Relying Parties.? Though as I wrote about in my 2017 blog post – Just in Case – unless and until users have confidence in acceptance of digital identity, physical means of identity will drag adoption.

The big milestones, announcements and changes – the EU Digital Identity Wallet, Big Tech rollout of mDLs, the UK Licensing Act amendments – that we’ve seen in 2024 may be the headlines we remember.? Though it’s all the little things; making digital identity useful in everyday life, ensuring we build systems that benefit the whole of society, designing for privacy, creating acceptance and growing adoption, and giving users and Relying Parties confidence that their interactions will work reliably, seamlessly and conveniently.? The big things we remember, all these little things collectively drive the change.

Here's to a healthy, happy and prosperous 2025.