notes: events/talks/kericonf26-11-mcewan-landscape-of-sedi

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events/talks/kericonf26-11-mcewan-landscape-of-sedi George McEwan: The Landscape of SEDI (KERIConf 2026) summary v0.1 — 2026-10-15: drafted by Claude from the curated transcript; unread by Mark; marked partner on Mark's word 2026-10-21, paraphrase only, no quotation partner 794 # George McEwan: The Landscape of SEDI (KERIConf 2026) **Abstract.** George McEwan, privacy architect for the State of Utah, walked through the presentation the state gives non-technical audiences on SEDI (State-Endorsed Digital Identity), with emphasis on healthcare and rural care. He set out SEDI's principles, the boundaries of what the state will and will not do, and the problems he expects SEDI and KERI (Key Event Receipt Infrastructure) to address. The talk is for KERI practitioners who want to see how a state frames the program and where it leaves room for the private sector. ## Summary McEwan began from his time as information technology director at the state health department during the COVID-19 pandemic, when public backlash to government-offered technology taught the state to set frameworks and regulation while leaving some roles to the private sector and the individual. He described the program's framing, which he credited to Chris Bramwell, of grounding digital identity in constitutional rights rather than vendor needs. Whoever holds the data holds control; today institutions own people's identity data and grant it back with limited rights, and errors in that data harm real people, as in his example of a Medicaid eligibility outage leaving a patient without medication. Under SEDI, identity belongs to the individual and the state endorses it for legal purposes after vetting. He contrasted this with mobile driver's licenses: a SEDI is meant to be perpetual, so records associated with it survive a move to another state, while state-specific privileges such as a driving endorsement are replaced. He described the risks of government aggregation of health data, such as all-payer claims databases. He then went through the program's principles, inviting the audience to note which KERI solves or enhances. Privacy and autonomy: no monitoring by government or third parties, no cross-context correlation, selective disclosure, and personas that bundle common disclosures. Delegation and guardianship: parent and child, caregivers, powers of attorney, with multi-signature consent among family members. He raised agentic AI (artificial intelligence) and the wish to move hundreds of logins off a platform account onto an identity the person controls, and recalled a demonstration at IIW (Internet Identity Workshop) of a parent credential deriving a child credential that limits who the child can talk to online. Security and recovery: KERI's key state and compromise detection, mutual authentication, and a prediction that providers could reach payers directly. Utility: offline verification with ACDC (Authentic Chained Data Containers), lessons from an off-highway vehicle credential pilot, open standards with no vendor lock-in or paid specifications, and any app able to act as a wallet. He was firm that the state is not the wallet, key escrow or key recovery service, though it expects third parties to audit wallets and may recognize approved wallet builds while still issuing to self-compiled ones with informed consent. Further principles were individual control of health data, interstate reciprocity, no phoning home to foreign servers during events such as the 2034 Olympics, a blast radius of one, and rotating keys after a device is seized. For rural healthcare he described the cost and delay of credentialing clinicians, the fragility of facility cash flow, and his aim to replace the intake clipboard with a trusted tap. He closed on reducing the share of every process spent re-establishing trust. In questions he discussed identifying unhoused people, a possible encrypted biometric record, other care relationships, and the need for a way to switch off an endorsed relationship. ## Key terms state-endorsed digital identity, perpetual identity, endorsement, selective disclosure, personas, delegation and guardianship, cross-context correlation, key escrow, blast radius of one, kill the clipboard ## Claims and their evidence - The State of Utah will endorse SEDI credentials but will not act as wallet provider, key escrow or key recovery service. [presenter-reported] - The state expects third parties to audit wallets and plans to check a hash and signature of the wallet application at issuance. [presenter-reported] - A SEDI remains valid after a move between states; only state-specific endorsements are replaced. [presenter-reported] - Credentialing a clinician costs a provider an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 dollars nationally, according to peer-reviewed studies he cited. [presenter-reported] - KERI's key state and rotation allow a holder to move to new keys after a suspected compromise, such as a device copied at a border. [informative] ## Related SEDI program (State of Utah), KERI specification, ACDC specification, healthKERI's KERIConf 2026 talk on FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) and CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services), the KERIConf 2026 panel with Joe Jackson, Blue Button, mobile driver's license, IIW ## Provenance Drafted by Claude on 2026-10-15 from the curated transcript (11-george-mcewan-the-landscape-of-sedi.md), all minutes read (the transcript runs to about 44:30, though its header gives the duration as 38:35). No quotations; paraphrase only. Not yet read by Mark.

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