---
title: Revisiting #1: A Decade Later: Renewal, Revision, and Invitation
robots: noindex, nofollow
---

DRAFT!!!

# A Decade Later: Renewal, Revision, and Invitation
- Revisiting the Ten Principles of Self-Sovereign Identity (part one)

*— Article 1 in the "Revisiting the Ten Principles of Self-Sovereign Identity" Series (2025)*
(see [Overview](https://hackmd.io/oUIM9j8TTa-wvhBvvO5vZA))

In 2016, I published [The Path to Self-Sovereign Identity](https://www.lifewithalacrity.com/article/the-path-to-self-soverereign-identity/) and with it proposed ten foundational principles for digital identity systems. These principles centered human dignity, agency, and consent — and quickly became a touchstone in the emerging world of Self-Sovereign Identity (aka #SSI).

At the time, I wrote:

> “I seek your assistance in taking these principles to the next level… These principles will be placed into GitHub and we hope to collaborate with all those interested in refining them through the workshop, or through GitHub pull requests from the broader community. Come join us!”

We tried. We gathered at Rebooting Web of Trust, the ID2020 Summit at the United Nations, in the W3C Credentials Community, at IIW and in GitHub threads like [Issue Principle #1](https://github.com/WebOfTrustInfo/self-sovereign-identity/issues/6). But for nearly a decade, the original principles have remained largely unchanged — cited widely and inspirational at times, yet somtimes deeply misunderstood.

Now, in 2025, as the **Self-Sovereign Identity turns ten next year**, as I’m renewing that invitation.

## 🧾 Building on a Decade of Reflection

This revision project builds on a growing body of critical and constructive writing around SSI’s evolution — including my own essays on the legal and philosophical underpinnings of the field.

Two of my previously published articles provide crucial context for this revision:

- **📄 [Origins of Self-Sovereign Identity](https://www.blockchaincommons.com/musings/origins-SSI/)** (2021)
Traces the philosophical and political roots of SSI, including its lineage in civil liberties, cryptographic activism, and human rights frameworks — a reminder that identity is not merely a technical construct, but a deeply human one.

- **📄 [Principal Authority](https://www.blockchaincommons.com/articles/Principal-Authority/)** (2021)
Explores how identity should not be framed as property, but as a domain of agency governed by fiduciary duty and inalienable rights — laying the groundwork for future legal and technical reforms.

These writings — along with the original [*Path to SSI*](https://www.blockchaincommons.com/articles/Path-to-SSI/) — serve as philosophical scaffolding for the revision series now underway.

## 📌 The 10-Year Revision Project

This is a year-long effort to revisit and refine the original SSI principles — not as a rigid standard, but as a **living framework** for people designing, governing, and deploying identity infrastructure that respects and protects the people it serves.

SSI is no longer a theory. It’s infrastructure — being adopted by governments, companies, communities, and protocols. As that adoption accelerates, the **foundational values must evolve** to meet today’s ethical, legal, and technical challenges: from coercion, biometrics, AI agency, exclusion-by-design, and gamified behavioral manipulation.

I’m revisiting each principle in turn, and in some cases, proposing new ones. Each article reflects a decade of lessons — and a renewed call to protect the dignity of all identity holders.

## 🧭 Articles in the Series

### 1. **Beyond Property: Principal Authority and the Legal Foundation of SSI**
Digital identity cannot be owned like property. Framing it as such risks reproducing exploitative data markets and erasing personhood through commodification.
This article critiques the "data as property" model and proposes lessons from **Agency Law** and in particular **Principal Authority** as a superior legal foundation for Self-Sovereign Indentity — grounded in fiduciary duties. It highlights Wyoming’s pioneering statute and the writings of Elizabeth Renieris, Margaret Radin, and others to argue for inalienable, accountable identity frameworks.
**→ Possible new or revised principles**: Market Inalienability, Equity, Contextual Integrity, and Agency Accountability.
📖 [Read it]()

### 2. **Anti-Coercive Design and Cognitive Liberty**
Consent alone doesn’t equal sovereignty — especially when coercion is hidden in UX patterns, defaults, incentives, and interface design.

This article introduces a multi-lens framework for identifying coercion in SSI systems — including behavioral economics, feminist theory, surveillance studies, and contract law. It calls for **Anti-Coercive Design** as a principle, and introduces **Cognitive Liberty** as a new frontier of rights: encompassing mental self-determination, privacy, integrity, and psychological continuity. The articles warns against **manipulation-by-design** and proposes measurable safeguards.
TBA

### 3. **From Principles to Properties: Operationalizing SSI with CSSPS**
How do we know when an SSI system actually lives up to the principles?

This article explores the **CSSPS (Compliance SSI System Property Set)** — a 42-property framework published in [IEEE Access](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9875265). It shows how CSSPS helps translate philosophy into testable operational requirements, but also where it falls short: failing to account for coercion, bias, and human dignity. A key contribution is that this work **bridges values and implementation**, and suggests we need to seperate technical properties from the core principles.
**→ Possible new or revised principles**: auditability, bias detection, cross-jurisdictional resilience, and UX transparency

### 4. **More Than a Digital Shadow: Rewriting Principle 1 – Existence**
The most misunderstood principle of all.

Over the years, “existence” has been interpreted as requiring encoding, registration, or identifiers to “exist” digitally. This article reclaims the original intent: **every person has identity that precedes any digital system**.

It draws on Ubuntu philosophy, decolonial theory, legal personhood guarantees, and real-world harms (Worldcoin, DAO key exclusions) to propose a **revised Principle 1** that affirms plural, private, pseudonymous, and even offline identity.
**→ Includes a dignity-by-design checklist and practical guidance for implementers.**
**→ Encodes the idea that systems must bow to the person, not the reverse.**

## 📅 Join the Collaboration

Over the next year, I’ll be hosting a series of **open online calls** to co-develop and discuss revised principles, new proposals, and system guidance. These sessions will welcome technologists, designers, researchers, regulators, and community stewards from across the SSI and identity ecosystem.

### How to get involved:

- 🗓 **Join our upcoming open calls** — schedule and sign-up details coming via [Blockchain Commons](https://www.blockchaincommons.com)
- 💬 **Comment, critique, and co-author** — GitHub repo and discussion threads TBA
- 🧩 **Bring your lived experience** — particularly if you work with marginalized, undocumented, or off-grid communities
- 🤝 **Discuss with us at IIW, MyData, Rebooting Web of Trust**, and other community events

## 🌱 Why This Matters

SSI has always been more than a technical spec. It’s a movement for restoring **dignity, agency, and trust** in a digital world that too often erodes all three. As its adoption spreads, we must ensure that the principles at its foundation still serve the people they were meant to protect.

Let’s not let another ten years pass before we act.

**Come join us.**