0:01 You have to admit, we've brought a diverse group of opinions today. And as Governor
0:07 Cox has said, we do know how to disagree better in Utah. And I assure you, I have
0:12 not slept well for four years balancing all of these different requirements, but
0:17 we're doing a good job. I am really excited to announce the next person who's
0:22 going to address us, Jeremy Grant. So he's managing director in Venable, Venable's
0:27 LLP technology and innovation practice. this. But I think most interestingly and
0:32 most importantly, he coordinates the Better Identity Coalition and has been
0:36 working in the space for decades and is going to be an extremely valuable member
0:41 as we move forward to learn how to work with those he represents. Thanks, Jeremy.
0:47 Hey, thank you, Chris, for the invitation to come out and great meeting so many of
0:50 you today and also seeing a few old friends. So Better Identity Coalition, I
0:55 just want to say from the start, we're really thrilled to see this today and that
0:58 if there's one thing we have been consistently calling for since the
1:02 coalition was first formed in 2018 and published our initial policy blueprint.
1:06 It's that as a country and an individual state, we need to be thinking about this
1:10 constructively and strategically. We have not had a strategy for digital identity in
1:15 the US that outlines what good looks like and how to get there or for that matter
1:18 what the bad outcomes could look like and how to avoid them since the last time we
1:24 had a strategy was one that I ran. It was an Obama administration initiative that
1:27 was launched in 2011 that was called the National Strategy for Trusted Identities
1:31 in Cyberspace. And there were some things that worked well in that program and some
1:35 things that didn't. But I think one thing that everybody should take away is that
1:39 for the last 10 years as our peers across the globe are all thinking about identity
1:43 different ways and they're thinking about it strategically, we've been tackling it
1:47 really on sort of a siloed approach, something for age verification, something
1:51 for government login, something perhaps for KYC for banks, but there hasn't been a
1:55 holistic approach. And so this is what we've been, in some cases I would say,
1:59 begging policymakers to take on. And so seeing what Utah has done and other so
2:05 many officials today from governor's offices and state legislatures and other
2:08 states, it's awesome to see. In terms of who we are, so I mentioned my time running
2:14 the NSTIC initiative. I was also dual -hatted as the guy who led the digital
2:18 identity research and standards team at NIST in the DC area and helped launch the
2:24 privacy engineering team around identity that still does a lot of great projects
2:27 today on that front. The coalition is an interesting group. So we've got big tech
2:33 giants that some of whom people have been calling into question what they want
2:36 today. So Apple's a member of Google, Microsoft. We also have companies that
2:40 help pioneered or led efforts in decentralized or self-sovereign identity
2:44 companies like Gen Digital or Block. The coalition's really driven, however, by
2:50 those that I would say are on the buy side of identity. Our origin story was around
2:55 this time eight years ago, there was a little breach that happened that wasn't in
2:58 the news of all from a company called Equifax where they lost 141 million social
3:03 security numbers and it also raised some bigger concerns around identity in that
3:07 the default way we would prove who we were online say to open a bank account or apply
3:11 for a government service was to use knowledge-based verification. Here's five
3:15 questions from your credit report or you can answer them. It must be you. Well, we
3:18 all know that hasn't been true for a long time given all the breaches we've had. And
3:22 so we were largely founded by the buyers of identity who just need better solutions
3:27 to run their businesses. So think companies in banking, payments, fintech,
3:31 healthcare, telecom. We have some of the vendors at the table as well, but it's a
3:36 pretty motley assortment and the companies probably don't agree on much other than we
3:40 should be thinking about digital identity strategically. I called Jay in 2021 when
3:45 he published his paper, which is a great read by the way on the risks of digital ID
3:50 because he talked a lot about the shadowy identity industrial complex that was
3:54 pushing for things like mobile driver's licenses. And I said, I think I'm running
3:57 that. But the good news is we mostly agree with you on the issues that are in the
4:03 paper. We actually think they did an amazing job at highlighting the risks to
4:08 digital ID along with potential decisions in terms of architecture or policy on how
4:13 you could be designing things like MDLs. Chang was mentioning before the great work
4:19 that's happening at NIST right now through their National Cybersecurity Center of
4:23 Excellence to come up with a family of standards and our playbook of standards
4:26 and best practices to help states including you know the folks who are here
4:30 set a high bar for security and privacy and ensure interoperability. Five states
4:34 are participating alongside Apple and Google and seven banks and a lot of other
4:38 big players right now. It's a great example of how you can actually get
4:42 interest from all across the board to collaborate on you know achieving good
4:47 outcomes here. So you know we're out there you know quite a bit sometimes excited
4:51 about MDLs not because we think the DMVs are the most awesome place for identity to
4:55 be housed. But it is at the end of the day, the one place that most adult
5:00 Americans go through and prove where they are in person to get either a driver's
5:05 license or a non-driver state ID card. And so we think as we look to get away from
5:10 companies who are basically trying to hoover up a bunch of data on us and guess
5:15 who we are. Look, I live in DC. I went to the DMV three years ago to get my real ID
5:19 driver's license. It was not a pleasant experience. I've gone through a similar
5:23 process with the post office at the who partners with the State Department to
5:27 issue passports. If I'm trying to open an account online and there's a legal or
5:31 regulatory requirement that they need to know who I am, why can't I ask the DMV or
5:36 the State Department to vouch for me? That idea that we should start to give people
5:39 the ability to ask government to provide this to them as a service in a way that
5:43 actually is secure and privacy enhancing, that's really what we're calling for. So I
5:47 mentioned before we published a policy blueprint at the end of 2022. We published
5:51 one specifically for state policymakers. I hauled a bunch of them over in my suitcase
5:55 this morning and they're in a stack downstairs if you'd like to grab one. But
5:59 I think my final message would be for those of you who are engaging on the
6:03 policy side of this, we'd love to work with you. So please don't be shy about
6:07 reaching out. You know, our goal, look, the reason our members are all funding
6:11 this effort is because they want to have an organization that can engage and
6:16 collaborate constructively on getting these issues thought through properly and,
6:21 you know, get good outcomes for everybody. So appreciate the invite again and look
6:24 forward to talking to you. Thank you. Thank you.