Purpose: a privacy-preserving, cross-border, high-assurance digital identity framework that survives the “deepfake + AI social engineering” era by combining strong authentication, verifiable credentials, and provenance—without creating a single global surveillance ID.
1) Problem Statement and Design Goal
1.1 Threat reality
Modern attacks combine:
- Synthetic personas (AI-generated photos + consistent backstories),
- real-time voice/video deepfakes, and
- large-scale conversational manipulation (automated relationship-building + targeted scams).
This breaks traditional trust signals (photos, video calls, “verified badges” based on weak checks).
1.2 Core goal
Establish cryptographic, interoperable, user-controlled identity proofs that are:
- Hard to forge (even with deepfakes),
- Easy to use (passkey-grade UX),
- Minimally revealing (selective disclosure),
- Recoverable (account recovery that doesn’t reintroduce weak links),
- Governed (auditable assurance levels + liability).
2) Guiding Principles (Non-Negotiables)
- No single global identifier (avoid “one number to rule them all”).
- Minimum disclosure by default (prove a fact, not your entire identity).
- Phishing-resistant authentication as baseline (passkeys / WebAuthn).
- Verifiable credentials for claims (e.g., “over 18”, “licensed attorney”, “bank account verified”), using standardized VC structures.
- Content provenance for media trust (tamper-evident provenance metadata to reduce deepfake impact).
- Assurance levels aligned to risk (casual social account ≠ bank wire).
- Revocation + status are first-class (credentials must be suspendable without global tracking).
- Human rights + due process for lockouts, disputes, and appeals.
3) System Model (Actors + Trust)
3.1 Roles
- Subject: the person (or organization) represented.
- Wallet/Agent: secure holder of keys + credentials (device OS wallet, hardware token, enterprise wallet).
- Issuer: trusted authority issuing a credential (government, bank, telco, university, professional body).
- Verifier/Relying Party (RP): service that needs proof (social network, bank, marketplace, employer).
- Trust Registry: lists approved issuers, assurance policies, and compliance status.
- Auditors: independent assessors of issuers/verifiers/wallets.
3.2 Trust anchors
- A federated trust framework: multiple accredited issuers, multiple wallets, multiple verifiers.
- Interop via standards: W3C VC (claims), WebAuthn (authentication), and provenance specs (media authenticity).
4) Assurance Levels (Risk-Based Identity)
Adopt a 3-dimensional assurance model (inspired by digital identity guideline patterns):
4.1 Identity Assurance Level (IAL) — “Who are you?”
- IAL0: none (anonymous).
- IAL1: self-asserted + basic checks (email/phone).
- IAL2: verified identity proofing (doc + biometric/liveness + database checks).
- IAL3: high assurance (in-person or supervised remote, cryptographic binding to strong device).
4.2 Authenticator Assurance Level (AAL) — “Are you the same person logging in?”
- AAL1: weak (password/SMS) — discouraged.
- AAL2: phishing-resistant MFA.
- AAL3: hardware-backed keys + strong device integrity.
4.3 Federation Assurance (FAL) — “How is the assertion transported/validated?”
- Strong binding between the credential presentation and the authenticated session.
Policy rule:
- Social networks: AAL2 baseline; IAL optional but incentivized.
- Financial + high-impact actions: IAL2–3 + AAL2–3 required.
5) Architecture Overview (Layered Defense)
Layer A — Authentication (session control)
Baseline: Passkeys / WebAuthn (phishing-resistant).
- Device-bound private keys in Secure Enclave / TPM / hardware token.
- Transaction binding: “I approve this transfer, this account change, this new device.”
Layer B — Credentials (portable trust facts)
Use W3C Verifiable Credentials as the common envelope for claims.
Credential types (examples):
- Personhood / uniqueness (rate-limited, privacy-preserving)
- Age over threshold
- Bank account ownership
- Professional license
- Organization employment/role
Selective disclosure: default to proving attributes, not full identity.
Layer C — Liveness + Device Attestation (anti-deepfake gate)
For high-risk flows:
- Active liveness challenges (randomized prompts).
- Device integrity signals (secure hardware + OS attestation).
- Out-of-band confirmation for critical changes (new payee, password reset, wallet recovery).
Layer D — Provenance (trust in media/content)
Adopt a provenance standard such as C2PA for “content credentials”: cryptographically verifiable metadata indicating origin/edit history.
This doesn’t “ban deepfakes”; it gives platforms a scalable way to:
- show provenance status,
- downrank unverifiable media in sensitive contexts,
- preserve evidentiary integrity.
Layer E — Governance + Audit
- Accreditation for issuers/wallets/verifiers
- Mandatory incident reporting, red-teaming, and periodic audits
- Liability rules for negligent proofing or negligent acceptance
6) Identity Proofing (Enrollment) Requirements
Objective: bind a real human to a credential without creating a surveillance honeypot.
6.1 IAL2 remote proofing (typical)
- Government ID document validation (MRZ/NFC where available)
- Biometric match + liveness
- Fraud checks (document authenticity, device reputation, behavioral signals)
- Privacy constraint: store only what’s necessary; prefer derived, signed claims.
6.2 IAL3 (high assurance)
- In-person or supervised remote
- Hardware-bound credential issuance (secure element)
- Strong recovery (multi-party, time delays, and fraud monitoring)
7) Credential Lifecycle (Issuance → Presentation → Status)
7.1 Issuance
- Issuer signs a credential containing claims + assurance metadata:
- Issuer ID, issuance time, expiration
- Assurance level (IAL/AAL binding)
- Revocation/status mechanism reference
7.2 Presentation
- Wallet constructs a presentation:
- selective disclosure of required attributes
- cryptographic binding to the session (prevents replay)
- verifier checks issuer trust + signature + status
7.3 Status / revocation
- Support privacy-preserving status checks (avoid global tracking beacons)
- Time-bounded credentials for high-risk claims
8) Mandatory Controls for Social Networks (Online Platforms)
This directly addresses the “millions of fake profiles” + AI-simulation risk:
8.1 Account creation & scaling controls
- Passkeys-first sign-up (reduce bot farms).
- Rate limits tied to device-bound keys + reputation.
- Progressive verification: higher reach requires higher assurance.
8.2 “Real Human” / “Verified Persona” tiers
- Tier 0: anonymous allowed, but restricted reach and higher friction for messaging strangers.
- Tier 1: basic verified (AAL2), can message broadly with limits.
- Tier 2: IAL2 credentialed identity (or trusted vouching), increased reach, reduced friction.
8.3 High-risk interaction protections
- “New relationship / new chat” scam defense:
- automatic flags for coercive finance language
- friction for money requests
- built-in “verify live presence” challenges that include session-bound cryptographic proof
8.4 Media authenticity at scale
- C2PA verification pipeline:
- show provenance indicators
- downrank “no provenance” in elections, breaking news, financial scams
- preserve provenance across reposts
9) Technical Standards Stack (Interoperability Core)
A practical baseline stack:
- Authentication: WebAuthn / FIDO2 (passkeys).
- Claims format: W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model.
- Assurance & policy: NIST-style digital identity guideline concepts (assurance tiers, risk-based).
- Content provenance: C2PA for media authenticity signals.
(Additional profiles can be defined regionally, but the G-DIS core should remain stable.)
10) Implementation Roadmap (Phased)
Phase 1 — “Stop the bleeding” (0–12 months)
- Platforms adopt passkeys-first login
- Tiered verification (reach tied to assurance)
- Basic provenance verification + UI signals
- High-risk flow friction (new payees, money requests, account recovery)
Phase 2 — “Credential economy” (12–24 months)
- Issuer accreditation + trust registries
- VC-based proofs integrated into major platforms
- Cross-platform “proof of adulthood / professional license / org role”
Phase 3 — “Global interoperability” (24–48 months)
- Mutual recognition compacts between trust frameworks
- Strong cross-border acceptance with localized privacy rules
- Mature dispute resolution + liability enforcement
11) What This Blueprint Prevents (Directly)
- Massive bot-driven fake profile scale (higher cost per identity due to device-bound auth + tiered reach).
- Deepfake video-call “verification” becoming useless (because “trust” moves from video to cryptographic proofs).
- Credential replay attacks (session binding + status checks).
- Silent takeover of accounts (passkeys + strong recovery + transaction signing).
12) One-page “Standard Summary” (for institutions)
G-DIS requires:
- Phishing-resistant authentication (WebAuthn/passkeys).
- Standardized verifiable claims (W3C VC).
- Risk-based assurance levels (identity + authenticator + federation).
- Provenance for media (C2PA) to restore trust signals online.
- Federated governance (accreditation, audit, liability, appeals).
