A Community Engagement to Explore the Compatibilities between W3C VCs and ISO mDL
Thanks to the sponsorship of Spruce and the support of many who are working on and/or following the W3C Verifiable Credentials (VCs) and ISO 18013–5 mDL, we have had the pleasure of conducting a community engagement project in the 2022 to find out where the two standards can meet.
By “meet,” we mean finding common ground and alignment so that the two standards can be compatible to the fullest extent for the market to understand their respective unique values, for implementers to build on them with ease, and for users to manage credentials based on them with a good experience. We started the project with some knowledge, but it was more from the W3C VCs side than the ISO 18013–5 mDL. With such awareness, we felt it important to put aside our own judgments of the situation at the time so that we could really engage with those experienced in both, particularly the ISO 18013–5 mDL, and keep our minds as open as possible to learn about mDL.
The entire engagement included a community input session, reviewing relevant existing materials, one-on-one interviews, and a community feedback session. Through these efforts, we were able to conclude the project with some thoughts and recommendations.
"We’re excited to work with such a longstanding member of the identity ecosystem on this important initiative to create a level playing field for identity wallets without compromising on security. At Spruce, we believe that users should have a choice in which wallet manages their most critical data, and that two or three companies should not dictate the most meaningful and high-stakes digital interactions for billions of people. We are working on a set of requirements that we believe would enable wallet vendors to achieve the same levels of user experience, functionality, and security that are enjoyed by wallets with privileged, internal APIs not currently available to third-party developers. We want to invite you to do the same through this community effort so that together we can ensure that wallets have a level playing field and that users have true choice."
-Wayne Chang, Co-Founder and CEO of Spruce
