---
id: "kerione-provisional-authenticity-and-functional-privacy"
type: "article"
type_label: "Articles, press releases and opinion"
title: "Provisional Authenticity and Functional Privacy"
maintainer: "Phil Windley"
authors:
  - "Phil Windley"
date: "2022-03-14"
year: 2022
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"
roles:
  - "communications"
  - "investor"
  - "researcher"
source_url: "https://www.windley.com/archives/2022/03/provisional_authenticity_and_functional_privacy.shtml"
source_license: null
source_license_note: null
found_on: "keri-one-resources"
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: "2026-10-14"
kskb_url: "https://kskb.dev/cards/kerione-provisional-authenticity-and-functional-privacy/"
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---

# Provisional Authenticity and Functional Privacy

A blog post by Phil Windley on the trade-off between privacy and authenticity, proposing provisional authenticity (identity revealed only when needed) and functional privacy, with confidentiality agreements that carry obligations forward to later recipients. For readers interested in the privacy reasoning behind contractually protected disclosure.

Labels: reading level Introductory; evidence informative (an author's paper, deck, tutorial or post explaining the suite).
Source: https://www.windley.com/archives/2022/03/provisional_authenticity_and_functional_privacy.shtml (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/).