About this blog

My name is Paola, and I come at digital identity from an unsuspecting angle: experience.

I spent more than 20 years trying to make digital experiences relevant through content architecture and technology, until it finally dawned on me: no amount of structure and meaning on the content side can ensure relevance if there's no reliable data to connect to on the user side.

The revelation came while designing the first explorations into wallet-based experiences for GOV.UK in 2019, and from 2020 to 2022 I got to work in Digital Identity, on the foundations of the UK identity and credentials ecosystem (GOV.UK One Login and Wallet, with a vantage point on the DVS trust framework).

These days I get the luxury of being an informed observer, and yes, I know it's a luxury: I no longer have to ship any of it. I just have to be right about it, which is considerably easier.

If you're confused about the state of digital identity, worry not, you're in good company. A handful of individuals is trying to make this complex topic a bit less confusing, and this is the personal space where I try and give my contribution, by thinking out loud about identity, personal data, and what happens to people when either is handled well or badly.