Utah is working on a state endorsed digital ID ensuring the government protects the rights of individuals to privacy.
Chief Privacy Officer, Christopher Bramwell made a key appearance at Identity Week America last week, addressing how the state as an issuer is shaping a trusted, verifiable future. Through the SB 260 Standard passed this year, Utah has outlined a policy-first and privacy-minding approach to its digital ID, which has been in the making for many years. In his session, Bramwell explained the work with stakeholders to establish principles of trust through decentralised data governance, recoverability, and security by design. Governments can take data from verifiable ID, but the “protection of individual digital ID is a state role” and safeguarding citizens is even more of a priority with the onset of AI machine learning automating decisions.
‘You can’t have privacy if you don’t have security’ Bramwell said. State endorsed digital identity is critical public infrastructure that has to be made secure or privacy can not be assured to users. He also said that breaches will always be present and ever evolving but Utah has taken several measures to instil individual control and build systems to give individuals ultimate control over their data. They are developing digital IDs against open standards and open protocols and focusing on guardianship controls. Citizens want no government tracking, a sentiment that hundreds of experts echoed in the recent “no phone home” campaign. This highlighted that phone home capabilities can become tools for surveillance when verifiers of credentials interact directly with issuers of credentials.
