On-demand webinar:

Decentralized Identity
& Government

A conversation with experts from Evernym and Accenture on what the shift from federated to decentralized identity means for individuals, enterprises, and governments

  • Originally aired December 8, 2021

Up until recently, the majority of digital identity systems have been federated, where a small group of “identity providers” supply individuals with a digital identity that can be used to access other websites and services within the federation. Now we’re seeing the shift to decentralized identity solutions and open ecosystems based on verifiable credentials, where anyone can participate, issue, and verify.

In the first of a new series on digital identity and government, we’ve invited leading experts from Accenture and Evernym to discuss the state of digital identity systems within the public sector and the reasons why government interest in decentralized models continues to increase.

We’ll cover:

  • The key differences between federated and decentralized identity systems
  • An analysis of a few notable government-led projects, such as Aadhaar (India), Verify (UK), eIDAS (EU), and the Ontario Digital Identity Program (Canada)
  • What decentralization means for portability, scalability, flexibility, and privacy
  • How governments and commercial organizations can enhance existing federated identity systems with verifiable credentials

Presented By:

Andy Tobin, Evernym

Andy Tobin

EMEA Managing Director, Evernym

Andy Tobin is Evernym’s Managing Director, EMEA. He has 30 years of experience delivering innovative technology solutions to complex business problems. His career has spanned the three rapidly converging sectors of identity, mobile, and payments. He has written code to control cash machines, built the world’s first mCommerce server, run a £1.2bn mobile messaging network, and served as the CTO for Europe’s first fully mobile bank. He is a passionate technology strategist who dropped everything to join Evernym. He believes that the identity ecosystem and the personal information economy is poised for massive change, triggered by the capabilities being delivered right now by Evernym. The result will be a new and rapid growth in “IDTech” innovation, which will dwarf what’s happening in Fintech, and a shift to a more open, post-silo world.

Christine Leong, Accenture

Christine Leong

Managing Director, Global Lead Decentralized Identity & Biometrics, Accenture

Christine leads Accenture’s Decentralized Identity & Biometrics group globally and is also part of the global blockchain leadership team. She has over 20 years of experience in technology focused on security. Prior to her experience in IT, Christine worked for 9+ years in financial services. She has been supporting Accenture’s thought leadership and efforts in investments in blockchain since 2014.

Christine has worked in several industries including Financial Services, Retail and Social Impact. Her relevant knowledge spans: Blockchain, Biometrics, Digital identity and Authentication. She is the inventor and sponsor the Circular Supply Chain initiative; she led Accenture’s work with WWF and Moore Foundation on Feasibility of blockchain for food supply chain amongst other inventions. She has led Accenture’s work with ID2020 showcasing how biometrics and decentralized Identity can be used in a secure and private manner in 2017. She is a regular speaker at conferences globally and has published articles on blockchain for social impact, identity & blockchain. She is a passionate supporter of environmental sustainability and wildlife conservation. She is the program advisor to World Economic Forum’s initiative for Identity in the Digital World and the Known Traveller Digital Identity project.

Drummond Reed, Evernym

Drummond Reed

Chief Trust Officer, Evernym

Drummond has spent over two decades working in internet identity, security, privacy, and governance. He joined Evernym as chief trust officer after Evernym acquired Respect Network, where he was co-founder and CEO. At the W3C, he is co-editor of the DID (Decentralized Identifiers) specification. At the Trust over IP Foundation, Drummond is a member of the Steering Committee and co-chair of the Governance Stack Working Group and Concepts and Terminology Working Group. At the Sovrin Foundation, he was one of the founding trustees and serves as co-chair of the Sovrin Governance Framework Working Group. For 10 years, he served as co-chair of the OASIS XDI Technical Committee, a semantic data interchange protocol that implements privacy by design. Prior to starting Respect Network, Drummond was executive director of two industry foundations: the Information Card Foundation and the Open Identity Exchange. He has also served as a founding board member of the OpenID Foundation, ISTPA, XDI.org, and Identity Commons. In 2002, he received the Digital Identity Pioneer Award from Digital ID World, and in 2013 he was cited as an OASIS Distinguished Contributor.