During IGF 2013, a session was held to discuss emerging issues related to fair trade and taxation of virtual goods. During the session, and throughout the week, issues related to the need for payment standards on the Web were raised. These issues were taken to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Technical Plenary (TPAC 2013) and discussed. The result of those discussions solidified into a plan to hold a global Web Payments workshop in 2014.
In March 2014, the W3C hosted the first ever Workshop on Web Payments in Paris, France. The result of the two day workshop was consensus around the desire to address a number of problems related to sending and receiving money on the Web. Potential standardization targets focused on identity, initiating payments, digital wallets, and verifiable digital receipts.
Trust is a fundamental part of many financial transactions, and while the role of establishing trusted identities on the Internet was seen as vital, it was clear that the policy discussion would require a more in-depth multi-stakeholder approach.
Ensuring that any identity standard will be flexible enough to 1) align with national and international laws, 2) protect privacy and anonymity, and 3) not aid mass surveillance initiatives, while 4) working in concert with international anti-terrorism-funding laws requires input from civil society, government, intergovernmental organizations, private sector, and the technical community.
Agenda
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1. An Introduction to Web Identity (15-20 minutes, by panelists)
2. Web Identity Use Cases (30 minutes, group discussion)
3. Privacy and Regulatory Concerns (30 minutes, group discussion)
4. Government Input and Coordination (15 minutes, group discussion)
Attendees are urged to watch the speaker presentations BEFORE the event as only a brief “less than 5 minute, no slides overview” will be provided for each during the event. In this “no presentations” 90 minute group work session, attendees will generate input that will be fed into this year's W3C Technical Plenary (October 2014). The input provided by the IGF community will include comments on what an Internet Identity system should and shouldn’t do from a technical, privacy, surveillance, taxation, and legal policy perspective.
Policy Questions
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1. Should the Web/Internet have an extensible identity mechanism as a part of it's core architecture?
2. Should the identity mechanism be globally decentralized, centralized at each government, or something else?
3. Should privacy and pervasive monitoring be primary design concerns?
4. How should the technology interface with the regulatory environment in the nations in which it operates?
5. What regulatory hurdles does such a technology face?
6. Which groups and governments should have an ongoing interest in this activity?
Videos
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Check out the YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmwV_GNAvYmA4Qtssit6_U5AgLGYodxtI
