The Verifiable Claims Task Force

A Task Force of the Web Payments Interest Group


Verifiable Claims Telecon

Minutes for 2015-12-08

Gregg Kellogg is scribing.
Manu Sporny: Last week we went through the problem statement and have agreement from those participating. We can change if we have consensus on changes.
… Today, we’ll try to get concensus on the remaining items.
Manu Sporny: We’re going to go through the points on the agenda as time allows. Any changes before we start?
None.

Topic: Introductions to New Participants

Jason Weaver: Jason Weaver with Parchment, interested in work as it relates to educational credentialing
Chris Webber: Christopher Allan Webber, lead developer on GNU MediaGoblin, working also on the W3C Social Working Group, interested in work as it relates to federation and other distributed network problems
Bob Way: I’m Bob Way, I work at Ripple and have been discussing verifiable claims with Greg Kidd as an enhancement to Ripple.
Henry Story: I am Henry Story ( full CV on http://bblfish.net/ ) I am an Apache member and am joining as part of the W3C . I have worked on WebID series of specs . see http://webid.info/spec/ , which I implemented along with Http-Signatures on client and server ( see https://github.com/solid/solid-spec/issues/52 ). What I am interested is authentication and authorization for distributed social networks. What we have at present is probably enough to get us going for a while, but we're looking out for what might be enabled by credentials.
Sunny Lee: Hi everyone Sunny Lee here. I was previously director of open badges at mozilla and have been the digital credentialing space for the past 4 years. At Mozilla I helped oversee the growth and adoption of the open badges spec from nearly 0 to 25K orgs. excited to see these efforts around digital credentialing (verified claims) coalesce.

Topic: Review of Scope

Manu Sporny: The previous link is for things which are specifically out of scope: those things the task force will not work on, such as choice of technology.
… Such technical discussions should happen in a WG with an appropriate charter.
… But, we can talk about the eco-system, but not make any technial descisions or recommendations.
… Scope: problem statement and deliverables.
Manu Sporny: We’ll name out-of-scope items explicitly
Manu Sporny: Scope updated to be explicit.
PROPOSAL: Adopt the Scope statement as it exists in the Task Force Proposal wiki.
David Ezell: +1
Stuart Sutton: +1
Chris Webber: +1
Matt Collier: +1
Manu Sporny: +1
John Tibbetts: +1 On scoping statement
Daniel C. Burnett: +1
Dave Longley: +1
Shane McCarron: +1 To the updated scope section
Greg Kidd: +1
Richard Varn: +1
Henry Story: +1
Gregg Kellogg: +0 (Browser refresh issues)
Bob Way: +1
Shane McCarron: I note that I didn't like that there was a section called "out of scope"
Gregg Kellogg: +1 (Now that page is refreshed)
RESOLUTION: Adopt the Scope statement as it exists in the Task Force Proposal wiki.

Topic: Review Stakeholders

Manu Sporny: We’re trying to make clear who the stake-holders are. These are stake-holders who answered the survey and wanted to be involved.
Gregg Kellogg: Governments should be stakeholders too. [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
Nate Otto: What is the sense that NACS is an issuer.
Chris Webber: (While technically true, that seems like an alarming direction for this group to go)
… okay, major oil companies, for example.
Chris Webber: Re: government backdoors
Henry Story: From the UK we don't really know what NACS is. A hyperlink perhaps to a wikipedia page would help.
Shane McCarron: Companies that provide credential management software are a category
Shane McCarron: Okay
Eric Korb: +1
Manu Sporny: I believe Credential Management software are IDPs.
Henry Story: Government agencies of particualar interest should be DMV
Daniel C. Burnett: I think “government” is a very broad term. It’s difficult for us to discuss them coherently.
Chris Webber: +1 Dan
Henry Story: Universities that wish to publish degree credentials
Dave Longley: +1 Dan's comments
Daniel C. Burnett: I’m concerned that once we list them, we would actively need to seek every posible governemental organization to be involved.
… The needs can very quite substantially.
Eric Korb: +1
Manu Sporny: The only government we’ve heard from is New Zeeland. The US Federal Resrve has noted their interest, but not yet joined.
Dave Longley: I think there's a presumption that government/law enforcement will always be potentially involved in any of these systems... but somewhat in the periphery
Henry Story: One should ask the Estonian government, as they have a very good reputation in this space
Eric Korb: I think we might want to add “authoritative bodies” or other organizations with some specific authority. That’s often government, but could be unions or other organizations.
Manu Sporny: Are they issures? Do some issures need special consideration.
Eric Korb: +1 Regulutory compliance
Dave Longley: Govenment does make sense in the issure sense, but we’re also interested in regulatory compliance. In these cases, they might not be issuers.
Manu Sporny: We might need to mention regulatory compliance, specifically in the benefits section.
… Perhaps we need a section on regulators as being a stake-holder.
Gregg Kellogg: These might not be issuers of things - not direct consumers / not direct issuers - but indirect consumers/issuers. [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
Chris Webber: :\
Dave Longley: We want to be sure we can comply with regulatory concerns, but maybe not call them stake-holders.
Daniel C. Burnett: In the IETF, they use is “Lawfull Intercept”.
… IETF says they have no intention to expressly create support for Lawfull Intercept. It’s virtually impossible for one agency to provide for compliance in all regions.
Daniel C. Burnett: +1 Deciding to leave "lawful intercept" (or, backdoors) out of scope [scribe assist by Chris Webber]
Dave Longley: +1 To adding "regulatory compliance" etc. in a few other places for each stakeholder.
Daniel C. Burnett: The issue I was bringing up is that compliance means different things in different geopolitical regions, so it's better to stay out of that space if we can just because it can take too long to figure out how to accommodate compliance for the whole world
Manu Sporny: We can add some parentheticals. This requires some lawyering on the language, but is intended to provide clear terms for different roles and that there are clear users behind each.
Chris Webber: Does anyone else hear music playing over things?
Henry Story: Yes, not too bad
Carla Casili: Dance break
Manu Sporny: Does anyone have issues with the stakeholders section?
PROPOSAL: Adopt the Stakeholders section as it stands in the wiki.
Daniel C. Burnett: +1
Gregg Kellogg: +1
Manu Sporny: +1
Dave Longley: +1
John Tibbetts: +1
Chris Webber: +1
Matt Collier: +1
Bob Way: +1
David Ezell: +1
Shane McCarron: +1
Richard Varn: +1
Greg Kidd: +1
Stuart Sutton: +1
Erik Anderson: +1
RESOLUTION: Adopt the Stakeholders section as it stands in the wiki.
Henry Story: +1 I had some suggestions above ( eg: DMV, Estonia )

Topic: Review Task Force Operation

Manu Sporny: We’re basically saying that when the TF is formed, it will be formed as described:
Be composed of representatives from the Financial, Education, Healthcare, NGO, and Government sectors
Have individual recorded interview calls at times that work for the interviewees
Have weekly calls starting on Tuesdays at 11am ET (but could be rescheduled for other times that work better for participants) on a to-be-determined teleconference bridge
Work on completing the identified deliverables
Will report its findings to the WPIG by early February
Daniel C. Burnett: Manu, did we expressly approve the benefits section? (or did I miss you saying we wouldn't)
Manu Sporny: We skipped it, it's at the end of the agenda.
Daniel C. Burnett: (Sorry, thanks.)
Manu Sporny: The proposal should be that it is composed of the stake-holders described in the proposal.
David Ezell: Two different lists might be confusing.
Daniel C. Burnett: How about "will encourage participation from the stakeholders"
Manu Sporny: The participants should be at least those listed.
Dave Longley: +1 To burn
Dave Longley: Better because we can't force them to participate.
Daniel C. Burnett: I don't want us to be stuck because we couldn't get one of them to join
Manu Sporny: Now read "will encourage participation from at least the stakeholders identified in this proposal"
Dave Longley: +1
John Tibbetts: +1
Stuart Sutton: +1
Richard Varn: +1
Manu Sporny: Do we want to say we’re trying to be inclusive and there are no restrictions on joining as long as you’re constructive.
Chris Webber: +1
Gregg Kellogg: +1
Dave Longley: +1
Greg Kidd: +1
Nate Otto: +1 No objection here (just joining on chat have been on audio for the last few minutes)
Manu Sporny: The TF is open to non-W3C members, but once it goes to the WG there are membership requirements.
Daniel C. Burnett: +1 About inclusive as long as we include Manu's second part about constructiveness
Chris Webber: One thing that could be helpful is having a way to understand how to handle when someone goes into unconstructive territory (could adopt one of the boilerplate code of conduct documents out there)
Dave Longley: "Anyone is permitted to provide constructive input"
Manu Sporny: "Anyone is encouraged to participate so long as they are providing constructive input"
Henry Story: Constructive seems like the equivalent to "working code" in the IETF
Gregg Kellogg: +1 To manu
Chris Webber: Well I also think "constructive behavior" is important
Stuart Sutton: +1 To Manu
Dave Longley: Should be "everyone" in manu's version.
Chris Webber: Manu, right that was a reply to "working code" as bblfish raised it
Henry Story: +1
Chris Webber: +1 To manu
David Ezell: +0 Is concerned that it's non-informational.
Shane McCarron: +1 To manu with "everyone"
David Ezell: I think people already expect constructive participation.
Manu Sporny: I’m trying to make it clear that you don’t need to be W3C members.
Richard Varn: +1 Constructive behavior
David Ezell: “Membership in the taskforce is open to the wider community of stake-holders”
Manu Sporny: "Membership in the Task Force is open to the wider community of stakeholders (everyone)"
Dave Longley: "Task force participation is open to the public; the only requirement is constructive input."
Chris Webber: Fine by me
Chris Webber: +1 To either
David Ezell: +1 Dave longley
Richard Varn: Wide community ok +1
Daniel C. Burnett: +1 To either manu or dlongley text
Stuart Sutton: +1 To either
John Tibbetts: +1 To dlongley
Henry Story: +1 To dlongley
Erik Anderson: +1 So long as W3C doesnt contest membership
PROPOSAL: Adopt the Task Force Operation section as it stands in the wiki.
Shane McCarron: I note that the second bullet is NOT parallel with the others
Gregg Kellogg: +1
Bob Way: +1
Dave Longley: +1
David Ezell: 1
Carla Casili: +1
Stuart Sutton: +1
John Tibbetts: +1
Erik Anderson: +1
Nate Otto: +1
Carla Casili: It's not grammatically parallel
Daniel C. Burnett: +1
Shane McCarron: +1 But editorially want to fix item two to be gramatically parallel
RESOLUTION: Adopt the Task Force Operation section as it stands in the wiki.
Shane McCarron: Notes gramatical inconcistency which is an editorial fix.

Topic: Review Success Criteria

Manu Sporny: This says the we can either not add value, or a WG charter which is generally acceptable and can go to vote.
… We thought the IG should provide the starter, and the TF provide documentation.
… Alternatively, TG writes charter and hands off to IG.
Dave Longley: "Sufficient documentation for the WPIG to create a well-socialized W3C Credentials Working Group charter."
Dave Longley: "Produce sufficient documentation for the WPIG to create a well-socialized W3C Credentials Working Group charter."
Erik Anderson: I’d leave a —placeholder— WG, not credentials, as that might not make it through.
Manu Sporny: Documentation to support the creation of a WG.
Dave Longley: It seems that the success criteria aren’t symetric.
… Basically, the result should be to create or not to create.
Shane McCarron: Clear documentation demonstrating that W3C *can* add value along with sufficient information to create a working group charter...
Nate Otto: Is not putting a draft charter into our scope going to slow things down if we decide yea one should be created?
Carla Casili: Now all we're delivering is documentation
Erik Anderson: Why not actually create the proposal?
Manu Sporny: Carla, yes, task force delivers documentation in 3 months - Working Group does the technical work to solve the problem.
Manu Sporny: I don’t think that would slow us down. We’ve been building momentum in the Credentials CG. The larger community isn’t aware of the work, so we need to get buy-in from a larger community.
… The job of the TF is to do that outreach in a neutral fashion.
Shane McCarron: Note that we would need to modify the deliverables area so that it says something like "A widely socialized Verifiable Claims Working Group charter, or sufficient documentation so that such a charter can be drafted"
… The outcome will be a WG to address the technical solutions.
… It’s difficult to have this discussion and propose a particular technical solution.
Carla Casili: All good
Manu Sporny: Charter writing is pretty straight-forward once you have a good problem statement. Trying to block out the work to be focus and scoped.
Manu Sporny: (Asks for concensus on success critera)
PROPOSAL: Adopt the success criteria as it stands in the wiki.
John Tibbetts: +1
David Ezell: +1
Shane McCarron: +1 On the success criteria
Gregg Kellogg: +1
Dave Longley: +1
Manu Sporny: +1
Stuart Sutton: +1
Nate Otto: +1
Daniel C. Burnett: +1
Matt Collier: +1
Carla Casili: +1
Bob Way: +1
Erik Anderson: +1
Richard Varn: +1
Chris Webber: +1
RESOLUTION: Adopt the success criteria as it stands in the wiki.

Topic: Next Steps

Manu Sporny: We need to talk about breaking this work into phases ... so we can convince other organizations that we're doing it in small chunks (haven't bitten off more than we can chew). [scribe assist by Dave Longley]
Dave Longley is scribing.
Manu Sporny: We'll also be bringing in experts in the field, Brad Hill, Dick Hardt, etc. Having them look at the problem statement and give us feedback.
Manu Sporny: There will be a series of interviews, they may not all occur on this call but we'll record all of them.
Manu Sporny: We may be doing 3-4 interviews a week that are an hour long with each of these experts.
Manu Sporny: Do interviews and start documentation. [scribe assist by Gregg Kellogg]
Carla Casili: Thanks, all!