Welcome to the Revisiting Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) Principles series of online workshops.

This initiative marks the ten-year anniversary of the original SSI principles in 2016. In the decade since their publication, SSI has evolved from a provocative idea into infrastructure deployed by governments, companies, communities, and open protocols. At the same time, the sociotechnical environment around identity has been transformed by new technologies and new platform models that challenge the assumptions of 2016.

Preliminary Revised Principles (First Draft)

On April 26, 2026 — ten years to the day after the original publication — we released the first community draft of revised SSI principles for public review:

Principles of Self-Sovereign Identity (2026 Revised - First Draft) (commentable)

A stable archival copy of the redline is also mirrored on this site at SSI Principles (2026 Redline).

The draft retains the 2016 language verbatim wherever it survives, revises the original ten principles, and introduces six new principles (Inalienability, Cognitive Liberty, Relational Autonomy, Stewardship, Equity, and Anti-Coercive Design), which are organized alongside the originals into four layers: foundational, relational, technical, and political.

It is published in redline form, deliberately unfinished, as a starting point for community iteration. Background and rationale for each change lives at /lenses/.

How to Participate

The project runs as an ongoing community effort. Several ways to engage:

  • Signal group — join the private working group. Working circles coordinate here, meeting links are shared here, and discussion continues between calls.
  • GitHub Discussions — RevisitingSSI/Community for threaded conversations on lens briefs and principle-specific topics.
  • Revisiting SSI community discussion — May 20, 2026, 10am PDT / 7pm CEST (Americas, Europe and Africa). A dedicated call to walk through the preliminary redlines together. Zoom access shared via the Signal group and email announcement list.

How to Join

Zoom links will be shared only through the following channels:

New participants must join one of these channels to receive meeting invitations. If you were unable to join the Working Circles formation meeting (in January), join the Signal group and query about Working Circles that you might be able to join. (You can also get info at the next all-hands meeting.)

See “Join Us” for more information on participation.

What We Did in Phase 1

From December 2025 through April 2026, working circles met to:

  • Map the problem space through interdisciplinary perspectives
  • Develop Lens Exploration Briefs (scoping papers) to seed deeper work
  • Surface emerging harms, risks, and tensions in digital identity systems
  • Build shared understanding across law, philosophy, cryptography, design, and civil society
  • Move toward rough consensus on insights worth carrying into the principle revisions

That work produced the preliminary redlines linked above. We are not writing standards, specifications, protocols, or product designs. We are engaged in high-level conceptual, ethical, and strategic inquiry — the groundwork on which principled SSI work must rest.

Upcoming

  • Internet Identity Workshop — Mountain View, April 28–30, 2026. Christopher will be present all three days.
  • W3C Credentials Community Group — May 5, 2026, 9:00–9:50 PDT / 12:00–12:50 EDT / 6pm CEST. Christopher will be a guest to walk through the revised principles. Event page
  • Revisiting SSI community discussion — May 20, 2026, 10am PDT / 7pm CEST (Americas, Europe and Africa). A dedicated call to walk through the preliminary redlines together. Zoom access shared via the Signal group and email announcement list.
  • Global Digital Collaboration (GDC) — Geneva, September 1–3, 2026. Target venue for presenting a more mature version of the revised principles.

New participants must join the Signal group or email list (below) to receive meeting invitations.

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.

Christopher is the founder and moderator of the Rebooting the Web of Trust workshops and the Principal Architect at Blockchain Commons. He has spent decades convening interdisciplinary communities to explore decentralized identity, human-centered digital wallets, governance models, rights-preserving infrastructure, and open research.

Contact

For more information: ChristopherA@LifeWithAlacrity.com

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