Remove "identity owner" as a term in the spec

[jandrieu]

The term "identity owner" is problematic in a few ways.

The simplest, practical argument is that proof of control (via private key) does not actually establish or prove ownership. Anyone could easily steal a private key and assume control over a DID. That would not make them the owner of the DID, which is a legal question and therefore a matter for the courts and evidentiary proceedings.

My second reason for removing "identity owner" is that it violates the functional notions of identity. Identity is how we recognize, remember, and respond to specific people and things. The only owner of that is the observer, the person or system doing the recognizing, remembering, and responding. This is 180 degrees out of phase with the wishful thinking that the self-sovereign individual "owns" their identity. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of self-sovereign identity; it just has nothing to do with ownership.

The third reason is that it violates the subjective notion of identity, which recognizes that identity is literally manifest solely at at the point of identification. It isn't a thing outside that recognition. In contrast, the reification of identity as a concrete thing, such as might be represented digitally or in a physical credential is, in mathematical terms, a projection from a higher dimensional notion of identity to at best a "digital identity" or, depending on the situation, an identifier, a credential, a token, etc. Referring to these lesser dimensional projections of identity as identity consistently confuses people. Identifiers are not identities. Credentials are not identities. Tokens are not identities. Yes, many many people in our industry use that shorthand because it is convenient when talking with others "in the know". But it lacks rigor and experience has shown that such use is a huge barrier to understanding for laypeople.

The final reason is that even if the above points don't resonate with you, they do illustrate a highly debatable and controversial point.

We only use the term 3 times in the spec. I have no doubt we can replace those three phrases with something clearer and more accurate.

[peacekeeper]

I agree the term "identity owner" can be problematic, because of the cases you mention where control != ownership.

But I'm not sure I fully agree with the functional/subjective identity concept that always depends on the observer. How would DID Auth fit into this model? In the case of DID Auth and the little I-am-me, none of the other animals was able to issue a verifiable credential, but still it has its own independent existence! Sorry this may be a bit off-topic. Perhaps let's have a discussion about this at IIW :)

[jandrieu]

@peacekeeper Exactly. I-am-me exists, but it struggles with its identity because it confuses identity with existence. But Identity != existence. We exist, independent of anyone's recognition of that fact. In contrast, our identity ONLY exists if there is identification--even if that identification is by the subject themselves.

In fact, I-am-me doesn't have a problem until the frog asks "Who are you?" The frog has an identity question--it wants to know how it should recognize, remember, and respond to I-am-me. Our hero interprets that as an existential question, conflating how one is known with the truth of who one is.

In your story, I-am-me is self-aware, as we all are. We observe ourselves, recognize ourselves, and reify our own self-identity. So it has its own sense of its identity, but it doesn't know how to express that uniqueness to others.

Of course, no one else knows that inner notion of self. All they can ever know is that which is observed or communicated to them, which in turn becomes their own notion of the subject's identity.

Who you are to me, Markus != who you are to your parents. Although the identifier Markus Sabadello may be common, they are completely separate identities, literally constructed at the moment of identification in the mind of the observer. Until I recognize you as you (through some internal psychological/physiological process), you're just an unknown person. When I do recognize you, a flood of memories return and the physical person in front of me (or the writer of the text I'm reading) is linked to you, constituting an identity.

The challenge taken up by Self-Sovereign Identity advocates, including myself, is that it is right and good that the individual have greater control over how others recognize, remember, and respond to us--greater control over our identities--than currently afforded in many technical architectures. The goal is not to unify the internal identity with externally recognized identity. Quite the contrary. Many facts that define us--e.g., sexual orientation or who we voted for--are widely recognized as private and NOT something that should or must be combined with external notions of "who we are".

Nor is the goal to force others to treat me as invisible, to deny other's ability to recognize, remember, and respond to me. GDPR's "right to be forgotten" is already being redefined and clarified to shape a more nuanced set of rights and responsibilities about data that is far more complex than simply asserting that individuals "own" their identity and as such, they control its disposition.

When we use ownership the way it is in the draft spec way, it leads people who are trying to understand identity down false paths to fairy kingdoms where individuals are restored to their rightful place as the center of the universe. The truth is far more subtle than that. Our identities are a tapestry of social construction, residing NOT under our control, but merely influenced by us. This was true 10,000 years ago when the earliest writing used names to keep track of accounting records and it is still true today.

[talltree]

Joe, what term do you suggest to replace where the spec currently uses "identity owner"? How about "DID controller"?

…

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 11:10 AM, Joe Andrieu ***@***.***> wrote: The term "identity owner" is problematic in a few ways. The simplest, practical argument is that proof of control (via private key) does not actually establish or prove ownership. Anyone could easily steal a private key and assume control over a DID. That would not make them the owner of the DID, which is a legal question and therefore a matter for the courts and evidentiary proceedings. My second reason for removing "identity owner" is that it violates the functional notions of identity. Identity is how we recognize, remember, and respond to specific people and things. The only owner of that is the *observer*, the person or system doing the recognizing, remembering, and responding. This is 180 degrees out of phase with the wishful thinking that the self-sovereign individual "owns" their identity. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of self-sovereign identity; it just has nothing to do with ownership. The third reason is that it violates the subjective notion of identity, which recognizes that identity is literally manifest solely at at the point of identification. It isn't a thing outside that recognition. In contrast, the reification of identity as a concrete thing, such as might be represented digitally or in a physical credential is, in mathematical terms, a projection from a higher dimensional notion of identity to at best a "digital identity" or, depending on the situation, an identifier, a credential, a token, etc. Referring to these lesser dimensional projections of identity *as* identity consistently confuses people. Identifiers are not identities. Credentials are not identities. Tokens are not identities. Yes, many many people in our industry use that shorthand because it is convenient when talking with others "in the know". But it lacks rigor and experience has shown that such use is a huge barrier to understanding for laypeople. The final reason is that even if the above points don't resonate with you, they do illustrate a highly debatable and controversial point. We only use the term 3 times in the spec. I have no doubt we can replace those three phrases with something clearer and more accurate. — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#101>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ADLkTcxwV3z6o_vIpqO0xiA-_cPvNCnfks5ua_ElgaJpZM4Wptye> .

[jandrieu]

Yep. I thought my branch made it into a PR, but it hadn't yet.

#102

Has my suggested edits.

[trbouma]

My two cents - replacing "owner" with "controller" is an excellent development.This really clarifies that "ownership", like "identity" are social constructs that exist outside of the system.

[cbruguera]

"DID controller" is precise in my opinion, not only it solves the assumption of "ownership", but also treats the identity-related object (DID) for what it is.

However, I'm curious as to what is the correct term when speaking in a more abstract scope (e.g. SSID as a whole). Let us remember that DIDs are just one implementation (promising and fundamental to the current development of SSID, but by any means the only possible one now and ever). When we refer to a person (as an example) that is able to prove identity-related matters about her, abstractly speaking, regardless of the implementation or underlying system, isn't this person the identity owner in this case? Or might we better call it the identity subject?

[rhiaro]

Closing, as resolved by #102