2022-09-22 Human Experience Group Meeting

SSI Harms Update (NH)

• Nicky Hickmanresponded to feedback comments and email threads. Second draft coming the week of 26 September; if WG approves, will circulate more widely within ToIP and to expert series speakers for more feedback. 
• One issue: "SSI Harms" as a name for the problem is its own problem. Should we reframe as "digital identity harms" or "decentralized identity harms"? 
• Andrew Slack suggested - use verb - mitigating / preventing digital identity harms. -is more proactive
• Kalin Nicolov considering Lisa Talia-Moretti's talk - technology, ethics, inclusion = considerations from a HX perspective, talk about edge cases, ethics, tech thresholds, inclusion etc
• Neil Thomson 'online identity harms' 
• Phil Wolff 'Can decentralization help with human harms?' fears of triggering a meme/ label that associates SSI w/human harm.  The outcome:  start of something, designing to prevent or mitigate harms, impacts/implications for all stakeholder groups.  These are the activities we need to start, not just the as part of risk avoidance, budget, planning, charge to community a responsibility - then goes into specifics w/other WG's for specific actions.
• Here's the mandate:
• Andrew Slack ‘Building towards a positive/safe/.. digital identity ecosystem’
  ‘On human/social harm challenges in digital identity ecosystems’
  ‘Overcoming human/social harm challenges in digital identity ecosystems’
• Separate doc = ACTIONABLE GUIDANCE FOR SSI IMPLEMENTORS & Policy Wonks!
• Neil Thomson reviewing PCTF - shoehorning authentication using user ID /pw into full identity.  No possibility of creating identifier unless it came from the government.  Observation that there is a deliberate need to look at all aspects of a digital identity system. No P2P provision, all relates back to foundational/legal identity.  Ability w/SSI to reduce harms.   See section on relationship between legal identification & digital identity.  
• Phil Wolff we have Kim's laws and other Mattr's principles or ToIP principles & manifesto's going back to cluetrain manifesto which talk of centering human concerns in digital identity system.  Risk in decentralized identity is not delivering on these aspirations.   You can deliver decentralized ID as incomplete or purely at technical value but not hit these values.  Shared purpose is key, and this is a way to work together.  Are we living up to the values.
• Nicky Hickman morals are contextual and bound to communities. virtue ethics are pertinent to our work here, the values we hold. The moral character of the human actors matters (like political systems or business organizations) where the character of the individual trumps systemic values. 
• Phil Wolff e.g. USA consitution attempted to mitigate harms of monarchy, so there are mechanisms in organisational design to mitigate, but there are known knowns etc, and you can try and design to avoid coercion, or those short-circuiting via 'mob rule' - you can design against these human things, and try to design for technical harms in tech design e.g. use of encryption to avoid corruption.  If ethics is a code of morals, not sure how this is assured.  We can't tell any given trust ecosystem what their code of ethics should be except you should have one, you should be accountable for it, you should design for it.  e.g. NZ Mattr.
• What does it mean to be accountable? Even criminal organizations can have a code of honor and have systems for accountability to that code. 

Feedback from other ToIP groups,

• eg. Tech architecture TF (TATF) need better engagement with each of the WG's
• Andrew Slack  to ensure that what we're doing isn't in a bubble and that the HX angle is useful & relevant on other WG deliverables.  Need to reflect our current understanding of HXWG in order to produce useful output for them
• Nicky Hickman cross pollination with other groups.  

Andrew: Recommended Reading: https://www.jamesbridle.com/books/ways-of-being
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691220550/the-mushroom-at-the-end-of-the-world - on tree communication

Kalin Nicolov best approach?

Neil Thomson member of I&SWG - x-pollination potential, Problem is delegation & tracablility to root of trust..  Technical architecture can support decentralization w/o central authorities, but just a toolset

Neil Thomson and Phil Wolff provenance & authenticity of data is base

Phil Wolff commented that all examples ar of institutions as issuers, no examples of edge-issued identities or assertions