---
id: "hardman-three-dimensions-of-identity"
type: "paper"
type_label: "Papers and paper collections"
title: "Three Dimensions of Identity"
maintainer: "Daniel Hardman; Jason Law"
authors:
  - "Daniel Hardman"
  - "Jason Law"
date: "2019-01-29"
year: 2019
reading_level: "intro"
reading_level_label: "Introductory"
reading_level_meaning: "no prior knowledge of the suite"
evidence: "informative"
evidence_meaning: "an author's paper, deck, tutorial or post explaining the suite"
status: "quiet"
status_meaning: "no change in six to eighteen months; still correct"
access: "public"
access_meaning: "anyone with the link"
topics:
  - "theory"
  - "history"
roles:
  - "researcher"
source_url: "https://dhh1128.github.io/papers/3dim.html"
source_license: null
source_license_note: null
found_on: "hardman-papers"
kerisse_credit: false
abstract_license: "CC BY 4.0"
abstract_license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
abstract_attribution: "KSKB, the KERISuite Knowledge Base (https://kskb.dev/)"
last_checked: "2026-10-15"
kskb_url: "https://kskb.dev/cards/hardman-three-dimensions-of-identity/"
kskb_app_url: "https://kskb.dev/#item/hardman-three-dimensions-of-identity"
kskb_record_url: "https://kskb.dev/data/kskb/resources/hardman-three-dimensions-of-identity"
kskb_markdown_url: "https://kskb.dev/export/cards/hardman-three-dimensions-of-identity.md"
---

# Three Dimensions of Identity

A 2019 article by Daniel Hardman and Jason Law that models digital identity along three dimensions: relationships, attributes and agents. It examines the planes formed by each pair and argues that identity systems should model all three and then automate away what a context does not need. It predates KERI and draws its examples from self-sovereign identity (SSI), Sovrin and Hyperledger Indy.

Labels: reading level Introductory; evidence informative (an author's paper, deck, tutorial or post explaining the suite).
Source: https://dhh1128.github.io/papers/3dim.html (license not recorded).
The abstract is KSKB's own text under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/; credit KSKB, the KERISuite Knowledge Base (https://kskb.dev/).