First Person Credentials next solution in line to solve proof-of-personhood

An announcement from Ayra Association says that Customer Commons has provided funding to develop “a framework for governing interoperability of First Person Credentials across digital trust ecosystems worldwide.” It will be helmed by Drummond Reed, a co-organizer of the First Person Project, and a former Chief Trust Officer for Evernym, which was acquired by Avast. Reed is leaving his role as director of Trust Services at Gen Digital to focus full-time on First Person Credentials.

What are First Person Credentials?

First Person Credentials are a variation on cryptographic proof of personhood (PoP). Rather than encrypted and decentralized biometric identifiers, First Person credentials work based on personal trust relationships.

Ayla says that “at the heart of the First Person architecture are verifiable relationship credentials (VRCs) – cryptographically verifiable proof of a real personal trust relationship.” The release quotes Doc Searls, author of The Intention Economy: “First Person Identity (FPI) works like the first person voice in language: it puts the individual in charge of how they present credentials, and how they build out webs of verifiable relationships.”

Phil Windley, a co-founder of the Internet Identity Workshop (IIW), describes Verified Relationship Credentials (VRC) as “a modern, peer-to-peer approach that enables actionable, contextual trust built on decentralized identifiers, and secure messaging. First-person identity emerges from direct connections that form relationships, mutual authentication, and portable, verifiable trust.”

He describes a scenario in which an individual issues a VRC to another: Alice assigns their personal agent to create “a standard verifiable credential with self-asserted attributes describing her side of the relationship” to Bob.

The credential could include name and contact information, a claim that they met in person at X, a role or label, a note on context and a timestamp for a validity window. And, “importantly, her identifier within a shared community context.”

The signed credential can be issued to others, who store it in wallets as evidence of their connection. “Crucially, this credential is voluntary, signed, and contextual,” Windley says. “Alice isn’t vouching for Bob’s entire identity – just the fact that she knows him, in a specific capacity, at a specific time.”

Standards, governance work ahead for First Person Identity

What FPI is not, is biometric. “Some proposed solutions to proof of personhood rely on a global biometric database,” says Ayla. “While this might solve the problem technically, it comes with massive privacy and governance implications: it is all but impossible to ensure that any such global database could not be subverted or abused.”

In a post on LinkedIn, Reed says “the First Person Project began as a solution to proof of personhood that did NOT use a global biometric database. However, its core concept of using verifiable relationship credentials (VRCs) to build a decentralized trust graph based on personal trust relationships has turned into something much more powerful – the First Person Network.”

The First Person Project says it is “deeply aligned with Customer Commons’ mission to ‘restore the balance of power, respect and trust between individuals and organizations that serve them’.” It faces the task of developing technical standards and open source code – a project currently underway within Linux Foundation projects including LF Decentralized Trust, Trust Over IP (ToIP), the Decentralized Identity Foundation and the OpenWallet Foundation.

“But equally as important,” it says, “are the governance policies that will enable First Person credentials to be interoperable and trusted across companies, communities, sites, and apps anywhere on the internet.” This work on the First Person Network Governance Framework is what Ayra is tasked with.

Reed says the team is “in the very early stages of forming two new legal entities (nonprofit and for profit) that will drive the First Person Project forward in conjunction with the Ayra Association, LFDT, ToIP, Decentralized Identity Foundation, OpenWallet Foundation, the Decentralized AI Society, and many other partners.” He promises that a website is coming soon.

The next set of announcements on the First Person Project are expected to be made at the Global Digital Collaboration event taking place July 1-2 in Geneva.

Article Topics

Ayra Association  |  digital trust  |  Drummond Reed  |  First Person Credentials  |  First Person Project  |  proof of personhood  |  verifiable relationship credentials