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title: 'Revisiting #4: More Than a Digital Shadow - Revising Principle #1 "Existence"'

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# Revisiting #4: More Than a Digital Shadow - Revising Principle #1 "Existence"
*— Article 4 in the "Revisiting the Ten Principles of Self-Sovereign Identity" Series (2025)*
(see [Overview](https://hackmd.io/oUIM9j8TTa-wvhBvvO5vZA))

# More Than a Digital Shadow - Revising Principle #1 "Existence
- Revisiting the Ten Principles of Self-Sovereign Identity (part four)

# Outline

## I. Introduction: Why Revisit "Existence" ?
- Principle 1 is the ethical root of SSI: it defines who has standing in a digital identity system.
- When misunderstood, it leads to architectures where **personhood is conditional on credentials**, and **dignity is contingent on machine legibility**.
- Over the last decade, too many systems have treated visibility as a prerequisite for inclusion — reducing individuals to data shadows.
- We must reassert: **existence is not granted by systems**. It is recognized — or violated — by how systems are built.
- This rewrite grounds Principle 1 in human dignity, legal precedent, global philosophy, and design accountability.

## II. The Original Principle: What It Meant in 2016
- **Original phrasing:**  
  > “Users must have an independent existence.” — [Path to SSI](https://www.blockchaincommons.com/articles/Path-to-SSI/)
- Intended meaning:
  - Identity must precede any digital or institutional encoding.
  - Existence must never be dependent on being known, recorded, or verified.
  - Rooted in resistance to Aadhaar-like systems where lack of a number = denial of service or rights.

## III. What It Became: Misreadings and Misuses
### Technical Misreadings
- **IEEE (2020):**  
  > “...to assert her existence in the digital domain.” — [IEEE Paper](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9277476)
- **CSSPS IP1 (2022):**  
  > “...associate individual users’ identities with their unique identifiers.” — [CSSPS](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9875265)
- These statements imply that **being encoded is being real**, rather than one possible interface for already-existing human identities.
### Real-World Exclusion Scenarios
- **Worldcoin** requires a retina scan to issue a "proof-of-personhood" token.
- **Wallet-only DAOs** deny governance rights to those without cryptographic keys.
- **Biometric ID-only aid systems** exclude migrants and refugees lacking “recognized” traits.
- **Credential-based logins** replace relationships with schema compliance.
- **Schemas that erase** nonbinary, Indigenous, or pseudonymous identities.
> These systems **turn existence into compliance**, forcing people to become legible or be left out.

## IV. Global, Philosophical, and Legal Reframing
### From Cartesian to Ubuntu
> “I think, therefore I am.” — Descartes  
> “A person is a person through other persons.” — [Michael Onyebuchi Eze, *Aeon*](https://aeon.co/ideas/descartes-was-wrong-a-person-is-a-person-through-other-persons)
- Western frameworks see identity as internally self-contained. Ubuntu sees it as relational and contextual.
- SSI must protect **identity that emerges through connection**, not just identity that can be cryptographically asserted.
### Decolonial and Social Justice Anchors
> “Being excluded from the registry is tantamount to being denied existence.” — [Ruha Benjamin](https://www.ruhabenjamin.com/race-after-technology)
- Systems that treat digital records as the precondition for humanity repeat the violence of colonial bureaucracies and modern surveillance capitalism.
### Legal Foundation for Pre-System Personhood
- **UDHR Article 6:**  
  > “Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.”
- **ICCPR Article 16:**  
  > “Everyone shall have the right to recognition as a person before the law.”
- These provisions affirm that **legal and moral standing must be unconditional** — even if digital systems cannot yet "see" the person.

## V. Rewriting Principle 1: A 2025 Version
### Flawed Interpretations:
| Source        | Misreading                                                   |
|---------------|---------------------------------------------------------------|
| IEEE (2020)   | Existence = encoding characteristics in the digital domain   |
| CSSPS IP1     | Existence = mapped to public identifiers                     |
| Web3 patterns | Existence = key/wallet control, proof-of-humanity            |
### Rewritten Principle:
> **Existence**  
> Every person has an identity that exists before and beyond any digital system.  
>  
> Digital identity systems must recognize and respect this pre-digital personhood. They must not require public visibility, database registration, or formal identifiers to validate someone's right to exist, act, or relate.  
>  
> A self-sovereign system must affirm dignity, not demand disclosure.  
> It must honor the right to be pseudonymous, private, plural, and even offline.

## VI. Design and Governance Implications
### Privacy-by-Existence
- Systems must enable:
  - Pseudonymous, unregistered access to services  
  - Voluntary and revocable visibility  
  - Analog fallback paths and social claims  
  - Narratives over numbers — relationships over registries
### Challenge the Legibility Fallacy
> *To be unreadable to a machine is not to be unreal.*
- Design for:
  - Intermittent presence  
  - Plural self-representation  
  - Emergent reputation — not predefined identity schemas
### Encoding is Not Ontology
- Interoperability is about *format alignment*, not *identity definition*.
- Encoding is a **tool for systems**, not **a condition for existence**.
- Use privacy-preserving tech (ZKPs, blinded credentials) to **enable participation without forced visibility**.
### Dignity-by-Design Checklist
| Audit Question | Yes / No |
|----------------|----------|
| Can users participate without generating a DID or wallet? |          |
| Are pseudonymous or partial interactions fully supported? |          |
| Are any services gated behind mandatory credentialing?    |          |
| Is registration a requirement before relationship?        |          |
| Are off-chain, analog, or informal identities accepted?   |          |
| Is there clear support for plural and non-normative identity schemas? | |
> Failing any of these means **the system risks encoding exclusion**.
### AI and Synthetic Identity Boundary
- Principle 1 applies only to **natural persons**.
- AI agents can act, but cannot be excluded in a way that violates dignity.
- **Do not conflate programmability with personhood.**
> An agent can interact. Only a person can be erased.

## VII. Integration with Other Principles
- **Control (P2):** Requires a subject with innate standing.  
- **Consent (P4):** Depends on presence not contingent on registration.  
- **Access (P5):** Must be available without encoding.  
- **Cognitive Liberty (Article 2):** Tied to identity that exists even without system awareness.

## VIII. Conclusion: Being Before Encoding
- Principle 1 isn’t just the first — it’s the root.
- It reminds us that no system, however decentralized or cryptographic, should **replace personhood with profile data**.
- In a decade where biometric proofs, key-based voting, and synthetic agents proliferate, we must preserve a space for **the quiet, the undocumented, the plural, the private**.
> “Digital identity must never be a precondition for dignity. Systems must bow to the person, not the other way around.”  
> — [AKASHA Forum](https://forum.akasha.org/t/generative-identity-beyond-self-sovereignty/90)

## IX. Appendix: Interpretive Timeline for Principle 1
| Interpretation       | Summary                                               | Risk                                           |
|----------------------|--------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------|
| Original (2016)      | Every person has identity, independent of systems     | Too minimal — left room for misinterpretation  |
| IEEE (2020)          | Identity = encoded digital characteristics            | Legibility replaces dignity                    |
| CSSPS IP1 (2022)     | Existence = linked to identifiers                     | Reduces existence to compliance                |
| Revised (2025)       | Identity precedes systems; must be protected from coercive visibility | Upholds personhood, plurality, and privacy   |
