SpruceID CEO pitches US health records group on verifiable digital credentials

U.S. nonprofit group the National Association of Public Health Statistics and Information Systems (NAPHSIS) recently held its annual conference on identity and security, where SpruceID Founder and CEO Wayne Chang argued for verifiable digital credentials (VDCs) to hold a key position the country’s digital public infrastructure.

NAPHSIS is engaged in a long-term project to support vital records modernization from “handwritten documents to national infrastructure.”

The 2025 NAPHSIS Identity & Security Conference talk on “Identity, Privacy, and Trust: Building the Next Layer of Digital Verification” highlighted the work SpruceID has done with state digital identity programs in California and Utah, and the lessons that can be learned from them.

Chang argues that to accelerate adoption of digital vital records as VDCs, state agencies should standardize their data formats and protocols, define a complete set of use cases for the records, engage with the full ecosystem of relying parties (or verifiers), including those from the private sector and public guidelines for procurement and models for legislation, according to a company blog post.

If they succeed, Chang argues, the benefits will range from easier use and replacement to cryptographic defense against AI-enabled fraud, and from better privacy and lower costs to broader interoperability with more different applications and jurisdictions.

SpruceID is also working on expanding the availability of verifiable digital credentials for age verification, through a partnership with OpenAge, and crypto transactions.

Article Topics

birth registration  |  civil registration  |  digital ID  |  legal identity  |  National Association of Public Health Statistics and Information Systems (NAPHSIS)  |  SpruceID  |  verifiable credentials