Digital Identity Community of Practice Kick-Off
This video documents the Digital Benefits Network's Digital Identity Community of Practice launch, covering mission review, 2025 goals, California authentication innovations, and peer networking for equitable and effective digital identity in public benefits.
The Digital Identity Community of Practice had its kick-off January 2025 with the purpose of giving members insights into the goals, focus areas, and plans for the CoP.
The mission of the CoP is to promote the delivery of public benefits to all eligible individuals, including vulnerable populations, by informing how digital identity approaches should be used (appropriately, responsibly, equitably, and effectively) in public benefits delivery. The goals of the CoP are to facilitate and mature a strong community, amplify needs and expertise of people with lived experience, foster shared subject matter understanding, and to guide effective implementation.
The CoP will focus on addressing the following urgent challenges in digital identity: centering beneficiary experience, digital identity risks, limited opportunities for equitable and accessible verification; and addressing the following priority learning topics: beneficiary experience, data sharing to streamline identity verification, when relevant, requirements related to digital identity in public benefits delivery, Interoperability of identity systems, digital identity standards
Additionally, the Kick-Off featured two guest speakers to provide insight into resources and ways that digital identity has been implemented in the delivery of social services.
Ashlee Sellung of the DBN highlighted the value of the Digital Benefits Hub as a tool to identify and submit publications, research, and best practices of digital identity. She demonstrated ways to find and submit resources on the platform and showcased and featured the 2024 Edition of the Account Creation and Identity Proofing in Online Public Benefits Applications Dataset published by the DBN in December.
Anirban Sen, Senior Product Lead, Planning and Product Management at the Office of Digital Services for the California Department of Technology (CDT) shared about California’s Identity Gateway. The Identity Gateway is a tool developed by CDT and helps state agencies streamline the applicant eligibility verification process by securely connecting program departments with identity providers to authenticate applicants, and to data providers for applicant eligibility data.
Members ended the call in peer breakout groups to meet other stakeholders working in their focus area and learn more about their work, the way digital identity interacts with their roles, and the challenges they hope to address in this CoP. participants left the meeting encouraged to continue engaging through multiple channels through a dedicated Slack channel for CoP members.
If you’re interested in joining the Digital Identity Community of Practice we invite you to sign up by filling out the interest form.
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