If you send a passport in a shipping container via a ship, a train, or a truck, it’s still a passport when you open the container at the other end.
The same applies if you do this electronically. The data content of a credential – the claims and evidence - is the same regardless of the protocol used to transmit it.
If a common type of credential (e.g., covid certificate) from different issuers has data in different formats this is a problem. Equally, if different credentials carry the same data (e.g., address) but it is formatted differently, this is also a problem.
Whilst issuers of credentials can self-publish the format of data they are providing, if these are not agreed across an ID ecosystem the problem of interpretation, translation, and data normalisation is pushed to the relying party. This we be a major barrier to Digital ID adoption and international Digital ID interoperability.
Common data standards will make adopting Digital ID easier.
How do we create protocol independent standards? Is there a need for some standards to be set at a global pan-framework level? The OIX Architecture Interoperability working group has some ground-breaking and global recommendations you will want to hear.
