Christopher Allen

27 Apr

Has the concept of self-sovereignty affected your career or life? Tell me your story!

Christopher Allen@christophera.bsky.social

Do you use the term "self-sovereign"—for identity, for keys, for your wallet? If you do, it was ten years ago today I chose this term, using it to describe an inalienable right to control your own digital life. We've learned much in the last decade, so I'm offering an update.🧵…

revisitingssi.comSelf-Sovereign Identity: Ten Years LaterWelcome to the Revisiting Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) Principles series of online workshops.

Ten years ago I asked for help refining ten principles. Today I'm asking again — this time, for sixteen. Push back. Sharpen. Tell me what I'm still missing. Talk with me at IIW, join the conversation in the W3C CCG, at RevisitingSSI.com, or at GDC in Geneva next September.

The goal isn't to settle these questions. It's to make the principles worthy of the next ten years.

blockchaincommons.comDispatches of a Trust Architect: Ten Years of Self-Sovereign IdentityTen years ago this week — on April 26, 2016 — I posted “The Path to Self-Sovereign Identity” on my Life with Alacrity blog. I had been thinking for a while about what a digital identity movement would...

Today I offer a 2026 revision: 16 principles in four layers. Six are new — Inalienability, Cognitive Liberty, Relational Autonomy, Stewardship, Equity, Anti-Coercive Design. Each names a hole the original left open. www.blockchaincommons.com/dispatches/s...

The risk if these principles don't take hold: Our devices serve the platform, not you. Keys technically yours, but effectively theirs. Our wallets require permission. Identity tied to our every transaction. Exit costs higher than staying. None of this is just about identity.

I was preparing to speak at ID2020, the first UN Conference on Digital Identity. I wanted to integrate the cypherpunks' 90s concerns about digital identity with lessons from blockchain. Coindesk picked up the article. The term spread fast.

lifewithalacrity.comThe Path to Self-Sovereign IdentityToday I head out to a month-long series of events associated with identity: I’m starting with the 22st (!) Internet Identity Workshop next week; then I’...

That article offered the original ten principles: Existence, Control, Access, Transparency, Persistence, Portability, Interoperability, Consent, Minimalization, Protection. They became the foundation of an industry. They weren't wrong — just incomplete. www.lifewithalacrity.com/article/the-...

I'm always seeking out the right words for what digital systems do to people. "Privacy" means something different in every room, and has become so overloaded it has become meaningless. "Censorship resistance" sounds like it's only about speech or money. Neither names the mechanism. 🧵…

papers.ssrn.comTechnology Paternalism – Wider Implications of Ubiquitous ComputingUbiquitous Computing technologies will have a wide impact on our daily lives in the future. Currently, most debates about social implications of these technolog

She draws on Spiekermann & Pallas (2006): "the right to the last word" — people must be able to overrule autonomous system behavior. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... Twenty years later, we still don't have it. Time to make it a design requirement.

kosmaconnect.netTechnology Paternalism: AI, Algorithms, Digital Identity, and the Role of Self-Sovereign Identity | Kosma ConnectFrom dark patterns and recommender systems to identity verification infrastructure and AI agents, digital systems increasingly shape what people can see, access, and do. This article explores technolo...

Martina Kolpondinos' article on Technology Paternalism is a worthy long read. Check it out: kosmaconnect.net/interactionblog/technologypaternalism

revisitingssi.comSelf-Sovereign Identity: Ten Years LaterWelcome to the Revisiting Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) Principles series of online workshops.

This maps to work we're doing in the Revisiting SSI initiative — our four "coercion-prevention" lenses. • Design → coercion resistance • Algorithmic → self-coercion • Infrastructural → choice architecture • Protective → binding commitments revisitingssi.com

I think "technology paternalism" names the diagnosis. It names an anti-pattern. "Coercion resistance" names the treatment. Both do more work than "privacy" because they name the mechanism, not just the domain.

Infrastructural Paternalism: your credentials and relationships accumulate in one ecosystem. You can technically leave. You leave as nobody. In my upcoming "Architecture of Autonomy" work I call this inversion "Exit → Erasure". Departure as digital death.

Her four countermeasures — the test for any system: • Can you override the decision? • Can you contest it? • Can you inspect the reasoning? • Can you leave without losing everything? If no to any: that's paternalism, not protection.

Four forms, each at a different layer: • Design — dark patterns, buried alternatives • Algorithmic — filter bubbles, pre-selection • Infrastructural — lock-in where leaving means losing everything • Protective — safety framing that makes objection feel irresponsible

Protective Paternalism does the most damage to people with the least power. Frame restrictions as safety and challenging them becomes unacceptable. The people who can least afford to look unreasonable stay silent.

Martina Kolpondinos just named it: Technology Paternalism. Systems that pre-decide your choices — justified as safety, efficiency, or protection. No bad intentions required. Just decisions embedded before anyone questions them. kosmaconnect.net/interactionblog/technologypaternalism

blockchaincommons.comMusings of a Trust Architect: Progress toward a State-Endorsed Identity (SEDI) in UtahUPDATE, March 5, 2026: SB 275 has passed the Utah legislature unanimously — the Senate voted 25-0 and the House 70-0 — and has been sent to the governor for signature. It takes effect May 6, 2026. Thi...

Utah just passed SB 275 unanimously — Senate 25-0, House 70-0. Their State-Endorsed Digital Identity (SEDI) program is now law. This is a big win for self-sovereign identity. I wrote about it at @blockchaincommons.com. 🧵… /1 www.blockchaincommons.com/musings/Musi...

Utah joins Wyoming in building a model for identity legislation that treats people as principals, not products. If you're in another state, point your legislators at SB 275 and Wyoming's SF39. /7

github.comSponsor @BlockchainCommons on GitHub SponsorsBlockchain Commons is a "not-for-profit" social benefit corporation committed to open source , advocating for the creation of open, interoperable, secure & compassionate digital infrastructure to e...

I do advocacy work to make sure digital identity legislation is human-centric and rights-first. My deepest work has been in Wyoming and Switzerland. You can support this advocacy by supporting @blockchaincommons.com. github.com/sponsors/Blo...

And these aren't guidelines — they're statutory obligations. They can't be waived by clickwrap. As long as carve-outs aren't created in future sessions, the Duty of Loyalty is protected. /5

That's what we need to watch for now. Beware platforms bearing gifts. The Googles and Facebooks will push for carve-outs that make the Duty of Loyalty optional. Regulatory capture is the real fight going forward. /6

Other rights require architectural transparency, preserve management control for the user, disallow state surveillance, and require selective disclosure. You choose what to disclose. You can verify your age without handing over your birth date. /3

But the Duty of Loyalty is what really caught my eye. Wallet providers, verifiers, and relying parties must work in the "best interests of an individual." Compare that to today, where you create an identity on Facebook or Google and they extract from it mercilessly. SB 275 says no. /4

SB 275 has a digital bill of rights for identity. The first entry recognizes that identity is innate to the individual, not bestowed by the state. That's pretty close to the existence principle from my self-sovereign identity principles a decade ago. Great to see it in statute. /2

9 Feb

👍 The new Utah #SEDI draft SB0275 has the essence of my first #SSI principle that I wrote 10 years ago: "(1) An individual possesses an individual identity innate to the individual's existence and independent of the state, which identity is fundamental and inalienable." le.utah.gov/~2026/bills/...

le.utah.govSB0275

10 Feb

"**Duty of loyalty** The department, a digital wallet provider, a verifier, a relying party, and a digital guardian shall refrain from practices or activities related to the processing of an individual's identity attributes that: …

10 Feb

(1)conflict with the best interests of an individual; (2)take advantage of or otherwise exploit an individual; (3)result in a disproportionate risk to an individual; (4)are to an individual's detriment; or (5)cause harm to an individual."

9 Feb

le.utah.govSB0275