Who Are We?
This workshop brings together people committed to improving how digital identity systems serve human dignity, autonomy, and societal well-being, with our work informed by human-centric design, civic responsibility, and critical perspectives on technology. We are here because the original SSI principles, while visionary, were shaped in a different era. The technologies, incentives, institutions, and harms surrounding digital identity have changed dramatically. Revisiting these principles now requires thoughtful inquiry, interdisciplinary dialogue, and a willingness to challenge assumptions across diverse backgrounds.
We represent a wide range of disciplines including technology, law, policy, design, social sciences, community work, and lived experience. Some participants develop new architectures and open standards. Others work within institutions to evolve policy, governance, and practice. Many engage in both. In these workshops, these approaches are treated not as competing ideologies but as complementary ways of understanding and addressing complex societal challenges.
Though we come from many different places, we are united in the recognition that identity systems shape power, agency, and opportunity, and that their impacts reach far beyond technical implementation. We share a common North Star: human dignity over system efficiency, autonomy over control, and meaningful choice over hidden coercion.
This project is a space to think together, to learn from each other, and to help shape the intellectual foundations for the next chapter of SSI, whatever form it ultimately takes. It may generate refined principles, new conceptual frameworks, or strategic insights into societal risks, but its exact outcomes will arise through collective inquiry.
These workshops are intentionally structured for collaborative exploration rather than adversarial debate. Christopher Allen, as the initial host, facilitator, and academic referee, will help to guide the process, ensuring rigor and supporting constructive engagement. He will provide context from prior efforts while creating room for new perspectives to emerge.
Who Is Christopher Allen?
Christopher Allen is an Internet trust architect, entrepreneur, and long-time advocate for human dignity and autonomy online. He co-authored the IETF Transport Layer Security (TLS) standard, helped shape early decentralized identity ecosystems, and authored the first articulation of the Ten Principles of Self-Sovereign Identity in 2016.
As the founder and moderator of the Rebooting the Web of Trust workshops and the Principal Architect at Blockchain Commons, Christopher has spent decades convening interdisciplinary communities to explore decentralized identity, human-centered digital wallets, governance models, rights-preserving infrastructure, and open research. His work consistently seeks to ensure that technology treats people as peers rather than petitioners, protects them from coercion, and expands their agency rather than extracting it.
Supporting Revisiting SSI
For nearly three decades, Christopher Allen has helped steward community-run security and identity work, including open standards, human-centered research, and decentralized digital trust. This work has created lasting impact: the TLS standard securing internet communications, the original SSI principles shaping a global ecosystem, and the Rebooting the Web of Trust workshops that have produced dozens of papers and specifications.
The #RevisitingSSI workshops continue this tradition of independent, community-driven inquiry. Your support enables:
- Rigorous facilitation: Moderating nuanced conversations, guiding Working Circles, and synthesizing diverse insights into coherent principles
- Scholarly stewardship: Preparing materials, curating readings, and connecting outputs to academic and policy venues
- Neutral governance: Maintaining community-first independence without commercial or institutional capture
- Sustained availability: Providing ongoing support to Working Circles and participants throughout the year-long initiative
- Strategic impact: Shaping the next generation of SSI principles that will influence policymakers, implementers, and advocates worldwide
This is not a commercial program; the work is open, collaborative, and principles-driven. Sponsorship enables Christopher to dedicate focused attention to guiding this initiative with the rigor, continuity, and care it requires to achieve meaningful impact.
If you or your organization value this effort—its independence, its integrity, and its commitment to human dignity—please consider supporting it.
Gold SSI Patron — $5,000
Gold SSI Patrons recognize the importance of shaping the next decade of SSI and wish to be publicly associated with this work.
Patrons receive:
- Inclusion on the SSI Patron Slide at meetings
- Logo on Blockchain Commons versions of papers
- Text-name acknowledgment in papers published elsewhere
- Invitation to all meetings
- One 15-minute presentation at one meeting (to inform a lens or working group paper)
👉 Gold SSI Patrons: Please contact Christopher directly.
Individual Sponsorship
Individual supporters are welcome through GitHub Sponsors, either as a one-time gift or a recurring monthly contribution:
👉 https://github.com/sponsors/ChristopherA