The trust layer: AI and the future of identity with alongID

As AI systems become more autonomous, the conversation is shifting from capability toward something much bigger: trust, legitimacy, identity and participation in digital systems.

In this episode of Shaken Not Burned, Felicia speaks to Erika Maslauskaite, co-founder and CEO of alongID, about the rapidly evolving world of digital identity, interoperability and cross-border trust infrastructure — and why these questions are becoming increasingly important as AI agents begin acting on behalf of people and organisations.

From digital wallets and verification systems to fraud, privacy and governance, the conversation explores the growing tension between convenience, security and control in an increasingly AI-driven world. 

Because beneath the technology itself sits a deeper challenge: how do societies build systems that people can trust, how do institutions adapt to rapid technological change, and what happens when increasingly autonomous technologies collide with fragmented infrastructure and real-world human complexity.

This episode is a grounded and wide-ranging discussion about digital identity, AI infrastructure and the future of participation in an increasingly connected world.

If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, TikTok and Instagram – and why not spread the word with your friends and colleagues?

Transcript

Felicia Jackson (00:06)
Hello, and welcome to the latest episode of Shaken Not Burned. Over the last couple of episodes, we've been exploring critical dimensions of the rapid evolution of AI, looking at why transformation is often far harder than the hype might suggest, why organisational readiness, governance and human judgment, they still matter when these technologies meet the complexities

of organizations and the way in which we live our lives. Then we looked at the rise of agentic AI, where these systems, not just generating outputs or drafting emails for you, but starting to take actions. They're building businesses, managing workflows, and potentially reshaping how work itself gets done. But as these systems become more capable, more autonomous, and more importantly, deeply embedded in the way organizations and services operate,

It raises another question and one that doesn't get as much attention. How do we actually make sure that these systems function safely? Because once AI starts doing more than just supporting people, once it starts acting on behalf of people or organizations, the issue is no longer just about what its capabilities are. It's about legitimacy. It's about trust, authority and permission. So,

These are actually really infrastructure questions about how the world around us works. We already have digital identity. We rely on that for banking systems and passports and payments, enterprise logins and compliance frameworks, but they were largely built around a much simpler model. And in most cases, identity systems are designed to prove that you are who you say you are, control access to specific things and

meet compliance requirements. So they're good at answering questions like, are you allowed to access this service? What are you authorized to do? And who are you? But the world emerging around AI may demand something a lot more dynamic. So if AI agents are increasingly expected to make payments, access services, sign up to systems, deal across borders, then identity

can't be treated as a static box ticking exercise. It's about delegation and trust. It's about interoperability between systems and between countries. It's about whether or not the systems that we already have in place are going to adapt fast enough to a future where participation in digital systems actually increasingly includes autonomous tools like AI. So our conversation today is not really about

replacing digital identity as we know it. But actually, how do we evolve to face the pressures that are far more than just AI? There's climate disruption and displacement. There's issues around financial inclusion, mobile first populations, cross-border systems and widening inequality. The ways that people participate in economies and societies is already changing.

AI is accelerating that, but it's part of a much broader shift. So the real challenge is how we extend and adapt identity systems. today we're lucky enough to be joined by Erika Maslakagte, who's one of the founders of cross-border digital identity provider, Along ID, a company working directly in this space, to explore what digital identity looks like when AI moves from being used as a tool

to acting independently in broader human systems and why digital identity might be one of the most important, if least understood, layers of infrastructure shaping what comes next. So, Erica, thank you for joining us and welcome to the show. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to be with AlongID?

Erika Maslauskaite (03:45)
Thanks Felicia, it's my privilege and pleasure to be here discussing the most critical topic in the current digital ecosystem. This is how we perceive it. So yeah, I'm very pleased and happy to spend the time with you. briefly about me, I'm...

co-founder of AlongID and CEO of the company. I'm based in Vilnius, Lithuania.

initially I'm former executive coming from the domain of fintech telco media and then after more than few

decades in business, I just realized that, it's right time to start and bootstrap something of our own. So I invited my two co-founders. One of them is my brother and CEO, and the other my former colleague, our business partner from Sweden, and we bootstrap software developing company.

we predominantly started working with digital identity providers. So this is where our domain domain knowledge lies. And we discovered the challenge for cross border verification for global enterprise companies. And then we thought, okay, most probably it's the right chance how we can start thinking about our products. we just realized that there is a

lack of ecosystem, the neutral player that is connecting like all of the identity verification providers, issuers, so to say, of digital identity attributes into one ecosystem.

and bring those digital attributes into the wallet. So as part of the ecosystem, we have digital identity attributes infrastructure, which acts as a trust layer. And also we have a cross border wallet because Europe said that by 2030, we need to do and like to be as much as digitized so that the member countries of the European Union would be ready

to deliver services on digital channels in an interoperable way. So for that to happen, all of the member countries would need to be ready with the national wallets.

that are interoperable within European Union.

But it's not about the wallet at the end of the day. It's about the ecosystem starting from European Union, how the certification gonna look like, what kind of services we could offer out of that legislation. So since we were very involved into the industry, we realized that we can take the lead and be ahead of the curve before the regulation kicks in. And this is how we started building a long ID

of the European grant that we have secured last year of 2 million and we're investing 1 million of our own capital and now moving to the pre-seed round to start commercializing and expanding the product globally. We're lucky that we have four strategic partnerships from the top 10 global players in the world, but initially the challenge we're solving is the interoperability. So we're connecting.

Felicia Jackson (06:41)
Okay.

Erika Maslauskaite (06:42)
different digital identity attributes into one ecosystem, incentivizing issuers so that they would get an additional revenue stream, basically doing the same as Stripe did for payments, connecting all of the local payment methods into one core infrastructure, global infrastructure,

This is where interoperability started and we kind of forgot about times, you know, how it was challenging to get an access to different libraries.

Felicia Jackson (07:11)
one of the things that's very clear is that with the new EU regulations, these national wallets are coming and the interoperability is going to be a huge challenge. But with all these multiple approaches, we've got requirements in different places for know your customer. We've got platform logins that already exist. Obviously, there are digital wallets that'll have to be

combined or able to work with national wallets. But is it the same solution that works for cross-border interoperability as it is for encouraging those current providers to come into one stack? what I'm trying to understand is what is the evolution of that ecosystem going to look like?

Erika Maslauskaite (07:52)
So the way we see it, we as humans and as businesses, we got very cross border, we got very authentic and very diverse. So the current KYC and KYB standardized approach for the regulatory institutions that would need to comply with the licenses, right? In payments, in banking or the others.

it's very narrow approach that we have. And it does not cover the need of the industries to secure first of all, the cross border verification. Because in most of the cases, you would need to integrate at least with the few providers.

in order to get, the right KYC in place so that you wouldn't lose a lot of capital because, you know, this is where the challenge lies, that businesses are experiencing...

very high amount of fraud because there are gaps. none of the provider that would cover the full required attributes mix that is required for the certain industry. Second, the regulation implies that the centralized approach, the way we verify users ⁓ or businesses

is enough, but wallet is the tool how we can assure the highest level of assurance. So that is with regards to EIDAS. So bringing wallet into the place, we as humans and as businesses, from the national perspective, from the regulatory perspective, we become a carrier of our identities.

Felicia Jackson (09:21)
Okay.

Erika Maslauskaite (09:32)
it's easier to distribute and establish the interoperability. So the wallet's gonna become higher in terms of level of assurance in terms of current KYC standardized process that is secured by the current industry players.

Felicia Jackson (09:50)
basically it means that anyone who wants to operate in the EU is going to have to actually use all of this infrastructure as well. Whether it's the UK, the US, Asia, doesn't matter. You are actually going to have to work with this system.

Erika Maslauskaite (10:01)
Exactly and to expand on that

When we start pitching and saying that, A, EU regulation is coming, we need to be prepared because there is a lack of understanding what's standing behind. We would get the feedback that, so you're very predominantly EU focused, which is not true. As you rightly mentioned, there shall be bridges established between EU and US and the other way around, UK and EU and the other way around and other continents as well.

So what helps and what is amazing that actually EU took the step forward and established strategic partnerships with Japan, with Brazil and other countries like Canada so that EIDAS framework for issuing credentials actually gonna be applicable in those countries. So imagine how interoperability is getting into other kind

of level of accessing the services, opening the bank account for the company that is very challenging for any startup company or even established company. And also for us moving cross-border as humans and securing that our ⁓ identity credentials are accepted in

every country, let's say UK or the US, they're still building on the IAEA standard and trying to implement like the national wallet and there's a big debate, especially with the immigration and emigration. whether we need to do that, because then we kind of get into the human human rights topic, whether the big boss is watching

us right and no one is willing to get into that topic so this is where the is a bit of a topic.

Felicia Jackson (11:54)
the fact that you mentioned that the human rights issue brings up, one of the really big challenges around this idea of a truly interoperable national digital wallet. This idea of central control is, concern for a lot of people because there is the opportunity for governments, tech platforms, you know, there is the potential for control.

So I love the fact that you're talking about the need for it to be distributed in order for it to work for everybody and that you have to feed into it and that you have to build this distributed trust network that isn't owned or controlled by one group. But at the same time, this opens up a big can of worms because what you're talking about is the fact that we need to build this now because it doesn't exist. Yet at the same time, we've got AI agents coming into the system. So I think

there's a conversation that needs to be had, there's education that needs to be done about what we actually mean by identity, how we actually want it to work across borders, across services, and how we want potentially future agents to be able to operate within it. Because one of the things that interests me is this idea that if AI systems, if agentic systems can get involved in the...

already complex area that we're discussing. What changes when they get involved as well in terms of making payments, accessing services? What do we need to prove for agents in the same way that we're trying to find a way to prove for people?

Erika Maslauskaite (13:17)
It's a very great question. we look at the innovation from the decade perspective or the 15 years perspective. There was a recent study released where

I think by PW case, where it was actually shown that identity becomes a crucial infrastructure for AI. But in general, the way internet started, it started without identity layer.

And this is why we're uploading our credentials, our contact details, our passport, like submitting passports or our face match to like different forms and we're repeating the same process again and again. Or we're signing in through Google, Facebook and the others, right? But nevertheless, behind AI and behind those agents,

there is identity layer required. One thing in general, agentic payments, agentic logistics, agentic traveling. everything is like agentic right now. So security and privacy online, especially for vulnerable.

for vulnerable age groups like underaged or even elderly society becomes crucial because with the agent, with the bot, whatever, deep fakes, right? You could copy, could false everything and everyone. So then the question appears, so how do we secure that what we see online or the

agents who are gonna be acting and already are acting on our behalf are actually us. So KYC and KYB processes that are existing right now, we think those need to be redesigned.

because they do not fit into the current phase the way AI could easily adjust and adopt to information and deliver the final results. So what that means that the current infrastructures that we have that are not interoperable, they are not communicating with each other. We have our identity attributes scattered everywhere with like some parts

owned by telco operators and the data centers, The others are obtained by Apple and Google and their wallets environment. But how do we secure that actually...

those different issuers would provide the required attributes to the right source and who's in charge in that. So EIDAS is a great regulation in EU but the whole world is being challenged about the interoperability. If we take Australia, if we take Southeast Asia, there are plenty of like at least three infrastructure providers.

that would secure the right set of the attribute needed. But there is no ecosystem, that's the problem. And what's currently happening that we're talking AI, AI got to all of the headlines, all of the services, all of the pitch presentations, but no one is talking that AI is not possible without identity. Those are intervened.

Same for payments. So now we have MasterCard and Visa, also Apple and Google joining the field in terms of payments industry, And those are core infrastructures for delivering the service. But where is the identity layer?

Felicia Jackson (16:53)
Definitely. And there's a real element here which I also think needs to be included in the conversation but is much harder. And this is the privacy issue because it's not just a question of the security of the system, it's also the people who engage with the system because I think there are people who will give up privacy in exchange for a small discount on something.

And it says that they're going to share their information. may not say who they are, but it might show details of what they've bought, where they've been. So I think that is an element that probably needs to come into play. But of course, that's part of a conversation that should be engaged with when trying to work out.

What do we actually mean when we talk about digital identity? Because you mentioned different platforms, different approaches, the lack of an ecosystem. When we're talking about identity in this way, when we're talking about identity in a digital environment, whether that's people or agents, what does that actually mean at a technical level? So what are the core components that we really need to ensure that an identity can be verified?

Erika Maslauskaite (17:59)
It's a very great question, of course, and angle how you would put it from the technical perspective, right? There are two approaches, first of all, like central and decentralized. From the decentralized approach, we have plenty attributes that we can put on the wallet and...

Felicia Jackson (18:10)
Mm-hmm.

Erika Maslauskaite (18:18)
the user or the business that is the wallet carrier could actually set the rules according to the business needs or the services he or she uses, what kind of attributes he or she carries. So from the technical perspective, from the decentralized approach, the zero knowledge proofs are the angle we're pursuing and we need to adhere.

Because, and it also supports the fact how the privacy challenges can be actually solved. Why? Because currently we're disclosing everything about us. mean, businesses do not care. You're uploading your document or any kind of attribute they require, right?

And in general, the definition of the attribute and the definition of digital identity, still, we would get like mixed definitions in our head, depending on the context, what we mean by that. So in the decentralized way, you could just have the right to be forgotten.

and you have the right to disclose only that certain information that is required by the third party meaning business. Exactly, so to answer your question, what is required from the centralized perspective to represent you as a digital identity, most probably only one field that is required by the business.

Felicia Jackson (19:26)
And so you can set those rules differently for everyone you engage with.

Erika Maslauskaite (19:43)
which services you use, not all of the attributes, your name, your surname, and et cetera. So this is how, with the decentralization, we think we can challenge the current narrative about the privacy online and bring maturity, meaning, maturity in terms of

bringing more security but also bringing being more anonymos in a way that we're not disclosing everything right

And then there is a central approach. So from the central approach, we have the outcome, is called know your customer, know your business, Which is very standardized, but still it's based on the set of the standards that we're using. Same as on a decentralized way. But at the same time, it's narrow. It's just so that we could,

fill the check boxes because it is required by certain regulatory body, but we do not think.

specifically, so what I'm sharing exactly about myself, We think that we were opening the bank account. This is what is required by the bank because they're a licensed institution. This is why we're providing certain sets of the attributes. But it's a business behind it.

I mean, if we could go on the street, like as humans simply, and ask the questions, how does the, certain person understand whether his or hers personal information is being solved to identify them, most of them would still get to the point that they would say no.

it would be surprised when actually this is what's happening. And of course regulation helps. Again, Europe, have GDPR, we have AI Act with regards to AI, we have AMLA, and lots of regulation. But then on the final note,

There are a set of the things that we need. this is personal identifiable information that would

fit into the KYC and KYB process. So those are the attributes. again, depending on the country, you would get the different mix of the attributes required, name, surname, maybe your identity number, like personal identity number, birth update, location. But

Felicia Jackson (21:50)
Mm-hmm.

Erika Maslauskaite (22:05)
Other than that, if we take the new way, the redesigned way or reimagined way, the way we understand the digital identity, it's not only the personal identifiable information, it's actually other attributes, our diversity patterns, our biometrics patterns online, what we do online.

behavioral attributes. So like plenty of the attributes can be built around depending on the industries. And that would enhance the value proposition businesses could offer to their customers. Because currently we know everything but actually not really.

Felicia Jackson (22:45)
this is fascinating to me because what's happening at the moment we do know is that people are giving away their data for free and companies are making money out of it. You get, I don't know, a store card, we have these cards and you get a bit of a discount.

Erika Maslauskaite (22:51)
Yeah. This is how we started online.

Felicia Jackson (22:59)
but it's worth a fortune to businesses because if you know what people's buying patterns are, you can make offers at a time when you think they might be replacing something. And one of the most fundamental things in all marketing is knowing customer acquisition is incredibly expensive. Customer retention is how you build margin. And if you can manage and understand your buyers behavior and give them offers at the right time and keep them coming,

that's worth a lot of money. It seems to me that what you're talking about with attributes means that we could actually control whether or not that information is shared with any company when we want to, which would mean that as individuals we have more power almost to charge for that information if the system worked that way. Is that possible?

Erika Maslauskaite (23:45)
Yeah, it is a great catch, I'd say. Exactly, because the way we started on the internet, you know, we've been given like the inbox on Gmail, and this is how we would share our personal information in return. So we thought like, okay, whatever, I just get an inbox, right? So this is how it started.

Felicia Jackson (23:46)
See, I love this.

Yeah, it's that exchange

and the value on each side is not the same.

Erika Maslauskaite (24:09)
Yeah,

so we helped kind of the internet start, but at the same time, we did not think that we become an actual seller of our identity attributes. We do not require any intermediary party anymore. So the ecosystem approach

we're acting as an enabler for the user, because if you carry your attributes in your wallet, you could revoke those attributes,

I mean, wallets in general as a concept that you store everything and you control your identity attributes is a great concept for us kind of get safe with our digital life.

Because currently, we're very much dependent on the systems we're on, like social media platforms, media outlets, any kind of services we would use. And we're kind of in this like pleasers mode always, like, my God, if I lose my Instagram right? Or bank

Felicia Jackson (25:09)
it

as if we as people have become the product and we have no power.

Erika Maslauskaite (25:15)
Yeah, and we're very vulnerable.

And we have no power. So that's correctly put that, it enables a lot of opportunities for the businesses. And for us, I think it's not about the monetization or getting the revenue personal or business perspective, but it's more like what kind of opportunities I get in exchange.

that I could easily track where and with whom I shared what because currently, we're discussing like new technologies and etc. But in general, our population in Europe, in the UK, in US is getting older. elderly people, they get so much vulnerable online.

Felicia Jackson (25:44)
Why?

Erika Maslauskaite (25:59)
I mean, the bot can call you and you would share everything like your savings and etc. And we have no responsibility with regards to that because the speed of the development, it gets like to the place of total uncontrolled, so to say. the answer is most probably finding the right balance because regulation it is required.

Felicia Jackson (26:08)
which is scary.

Erika Maslauskaite (26:22)
currently, our digital attributes are everywhere, but if we keep them, what opportunities do we get? And how do we educate society in terms of the value of having those digital identity attributes? Because currently, people are trying to hide themselves from

the registration forms, like getting the accounts and et cetera, just so that they are not so much involved, but it causes fraud losses for businesses. So the goal is so that we would be credible and that we are legitimate online without being a

that those attributes or credentials we're sharing would be stolen, So I think this is the challenge that world needs to adhere. And just bringing that chaos of different kind of systems that are existing into the order. But what is the order? The order is like getting all of the players

Felicia Jackson (27:11)
Yeah.

Yep.

Erika Maslauskaite (27:30)
that are acting on the standards and according to the legislation that is there to agree on the points that the world needs interoperability and connectivity for services to move quicker, to boost the economy, and also to bring inclusion in terms of access to services that we are getting online.

Felicia Jackson (27:55)
when

you mention inclusion, this brings up the political economy question, because when we're talking about fraud, when we're talking about attributes that we control, when we're talking about the imbalance, for a lot of people, it's wanting to keep that private.

It's not wanting to give your personal data to the government or to companies or whatever it means. And you're right. We do need this interoperability if we're going to move on to the next stage of the technological evolution. But what we're not having the conversations about are who gets power and who captures and owns value. And how do we share that? Who actually is setting the standards and what kind of difference does it make?

And then of course there's the cost, because you're a private company, you're building something really important. But for it to be globally effective, there are going to be costs in different places that different people are going to cover. There are going to be people who are excluded. So, again, you mentioned education, we do need to think about whose interests are actually shaping

what we're doing.

Erika Maslauskaite (28:57)
First of all, big techs need to highlight the importance and bring awareness what is coming and what is the impact gonna be. Like all of them, they're saying that, A, we don't know, it's gonna be an enabler, But we are talking about AI agents, how are we gonna be efficient and et cetera, but no one's talking about the aftermath, that we're replacing people.

So.

behind that still the human identity would need to be there. So we can't just release AI or agentic product and forget about human behind it. So talking about the global economy, what needs to be very precisely stressed out because I didn't hear that the governments are discussing that what impact AI is bringing to in general.

capitalism and the way we as independent countries and how our social systems are ready to accept AI as an innovation. Because there are

Felicia Jackson (30:02)
and it differs from

place to place.

Erika Maslauskaite (30:04)
Of course it differs. think Singapore is taking the lead and also in certain parts of the US. But in general, if we look globally, the adoption of AI, it is enormous. But if we gonna get to the point that there are less and less people, right, working and contributing to the social ecosystem, so then how does it work

who is doing what? So then I'd suggest that AI agent needs to pay taxes.

Felicia Jackson (30:32)
And that's the thing, if you are an economic actor, you are expected to pay taxes. And there is no discussion about that. And I'm fascinated by that in terms of the challenges we have around human identification in a digital world, and then thinking about what that would mean for agentic AI. And I was thinking about what are the things they would need, what attributes would they need to identify.

Erika Maslauskaite (30:37)
Yeah.

Felicia Jackson (30:57)
who they're working on behalf of, who has delegated that authority. Is it something that's considered legitimate? Do we trust where it comes from? But actually what you're talking about is a fundamental upending of what we're used to experiencing in the economic system and we need to rethink the bigger picture.

Erika Maslauskaite (31:17)
we need to rethink capitalism in general.

Felicia Jackson (31:19)
Well I love that idea!

So one of the things that I've always thought about capitalism, I think possibly the one fundamental problem is that capitalism is always defined on the basis of financial capital. But if you look at different types of capital, human capital, natural capital, social capital, intellectual capital, there is the potential for looking at things in an entirely different way that wouldn't be necessarily.

so challenging,

Erika Maslauskaite (31:43)
but just getting back to the agents and what attributes are required for agents, to act on our behalf, to execute and what are maybe the...

Felicia Jackson (31:56)
Can I ask a specific question about this?

Which is that one of the things that has come up when you're talking about digital identity for humans is where does the friction exist between convenience and trust and control? And I think that's going to be the same question for agentic AI, is it not?

Erika Maslauskaite (32:13)
It is, of course it is, because currently, digital identity

in general as an industry, works the way payments industry works. So you're being charged per transactions or per checks we are pursuing on certain human attributes, right? So for agents, it's gonna be the same, but just gonna be like wider scale of the attributes required and quicker. So the onboarding process,

is gonna become like...

the way we understand it, very crucial how quick we can onboard the customer, how quick we can check that agent who is acting on behalf of somebody. So what do I mean by that? companies or the governments, they would need to build internal infrastructures to support that. Currently, no one's talking about it. So agents in US for SMEs and...

I think Lithuanian Sintra AI startup just raised 20 million or something, but they just literally launched AI agents that have avatars. It's like a character that you have for certain tasks.

and they're doing so greatly. But, you know, US is not so regulated as the other continents, right? So there is no,

common approach or at least less standardized way. So, okay, how do we handle those agents? It just seems that, the agents came in and now we need to deal with them. Like try to understand, so if those are simple tasks they are performing, that's one thing. But if they're getting off representing me or representing my...

my family member underaged kid. So how does it handle? How the legislation is being prepared as well so that it would be implemented correctly?

And for agents, same as for, humans, we also need to understand, and let's not forget the robots, right? So where are the gaps between them? to which extent are we using them? No one is...

Felicia Jackson (34:24)
this is something that comes up again and again and again, which is fragmentation.

Erika Maslauskaite (34:28)
Exactly. we need to think and I agree with Scott Galway, where he like very much encourages to look at AI as your thought leader, But I mean, then we get into the agent. So is it more like your, executive

PA or like in your life that is helping you to be more efficient,

I think the outlook towards identity will transform because the

agents gonna enable the variety of the things or the services online that we could not have experienced or just didn't get to the point of setting that experience in place

Felicia Jackson (35:10)
one of the things I think is worth exploring because we're talking about the challenges here and the fact that what we don't have at the moment is shared standards or shared infrastructure or institutional alignment, even across countries, nations aren't even aligned on what they're actually doing.

And we've been talking about the fact that the conversation we need to have is about how to rethink the way we structure society, But getting back to the real world, one of the challenges is always recognising how difficult it is to get things done right in practice.

And one of the things that's worth companies exploring whether or not they're going to get involved with agentic AI, with digital identity, what is it that makes identity hard to integrate for organizations and existing infrastructure? the problems technical or are they, as we're talking about, issues around regulation, organizational complexity and legacy systems?

Erika Maslauskaite (36:04)
in general, it is expensive because it's an old infrastructure with all of the standards used. So it's a heavy lift to handle for the SMEs.

But if we look from the e-commerce perspective, we rightly see that that's the volume where all of the fraudulent activities happen or where the complexity lies and where the identity is needed.

that leads us to the point that we can make digital identity solutions accessible more widely to the small and medium companies, e-commerce shops, marketers, you name it, it's across the industry so that we could bridge the gap to have identity everywhere on digital channels.

and actually reusability as a concept needs to happen because once we have our digital identity attributes on the wallet, this is how we can establish the reusability and reuse those credentials.

At scale, the transaction price gets cheaper and this is how we are building better access for SMEs to be able to afford that. Of course, there are legacy systems that are hard to maintain and hard to support and the way the industry has formed over the years,

One of the vendors would focus on certain identity type.

and would have like the deep dive on the AML or the deep dive on the biometrics because all of the patents are secured. And now when wallets are coming into the place and like the regulation that supports the higher level of assurance, companies struggle, same applies for payments by the way, to secure other domains that are required for companies to meet the regulation requirements

or even the cross border needs.

Felicia Jackson (38:02)
when thinking about how the space is evolving, we've got different private companies which have specialized in different attributes, which currently don't speak to each other. We've got governments that need to provide services and want to do so electronically, and they need ⁓ digital identity and verification. So that is a key factor of access and who gets access to what. But at the same time,

Erika Maslauskaite (38:08)
Yeah.

Felicia Jackson (38:23)
You mentioned SMEs and over 80 % of all businesses in the world are SMEs. They employ the most people. It's small businesses and the gray economy that actually most people touch on a regular basis. So how are we going to be able to get digital identity and the right attributes in a

Erika Maslauskaite (38:25)
It's a globe.

Hmm?

Felicia Jackson (38:47)
way that is owned by the individual when it's big companies who are having to talk to each other about how they make their own proprietary systems interoperable.

Erika Maslauskaite (38:55)
It's a great question, So when they already started talking, so there is a beautiful initiative founded by

Switzerland, a global collaboration forum that brings all of the policymakers, standard issuers, business representatives in the identity domain to discuss the topic how we can enhance and change across the industries the interoperability topic per se.

So the discussion already started because everybody understand that the world gets smaller because after COVID we didn't travel, we just understood that we could be remote. So digital services would become very much a need and the businesses and the governments were not ready for that change. So the change happened very quickly.

Now, we're so much concerned about how social media platforms are impacting our lives, our mental health, our work environment, So age verification becomes a crucial part. So.

Who can change it? first, we need to agree on the governmental level that it becomes critical infrastructure, that we need a dedicated budget to secure that identity with AI plays well, with payments with telco plays well. Like core infrastructure providers need to include.

identity as a topic to their priority list because currently what's happening that know governments are buying different solutions like procurement process to secure the verification that's usually one identity verification provider or the few

but it doesn't change on a wider scale the challenge we're solving here because we're still running in the engineering mindset in a way, which is great to have, but it's not quick.

Felicia Jackson (40:41)
Yeah.

Erika Maslauskaite (40:49)
those old systems, the way we verify users and businesses. And then as an aftermath in the UK, we have such a big topic for the SIM swap, right? Challenges, but that's also because of the lack of identity infrastructure. Let's say in the Baltics, we would easily verify ourselves.

Felicia Jackson (40:59)
Yep.

Erika Maslauskaite (41:10)
calling to the call center by the mobile signature that is a byproduct from telco operators or the smart ID, that's the name of the product, but initially this is the byproduct of banks that join their forces together because they just understood that maybe it's worth investing into infrastructure.

that solves the identity verification challenges instead of having big losses and doing nothing and depending on the external parties. we saw a great, leadership from UK actually quite recently with regards to social networks, right? With regards to age verification. not, I'm not gonna touch like whether it is good or bad or whatever.

But in general, bringing awareness that identity verification, because H is one of the digital attributes that we cover, it is very important for our safety online and in general safety for the country if we think so.

Felicia Jackson (42:07)
Totally.

One of the things I do find challenging is the conversation about safety because there is a conflict between safety and freedom, and partly because of the way it's defined by different groups. this is bringing me back to this idea that who is involved in making the decisions? For example, I know in the UK we have government ID. You have to register with the government to do various different things, but I know someone who couldn't do it.

Erika Maslauskaite (42:31)
Yeah.

Felicia Jackson (42:34)
because the mobile phone on her camera didn't work. So she couldn't take a photograph So where's the flexibility? it's the user experience, the flexibility of the systems and this idea,

about who decides what counts as a legitimate attribute of identity, what counts as a valid delegation or acceptable trust because for me, trust is such a fundamental part of it and yet we've got this massive increase in AI. We're all having to deal with things that we've never really dealt with before.

governments, companies, individuals, and yet at the same time we're going through a period where trust in institutions seems to be decreasing. So who's making these decisions?

Erika Maslauskaite (43:12)
Forgotten. And a bit, and a bit forgotten.

to be honest, there is no common body that is in charge of...

securing the trust globally and trust from different angles and digital environment, like one of the layers that needs to be solved on the global scale. Maybe Davos could take this into their agenda and discuss with the countries because currently,

the way EI does implementation from European Union as an enforcement to the national governments is roll outing and is going not well. It's going very slow. European Union just released the age verification app for the budget that was done for a million that sadly does not work well.

The project took time to develop, but the value we get out of that, it's kind of questionable, And with the local implementation, by the national governments, it's still a local approach, but you don't establish interoperability like that because

they're going to be countries who just fill the checkbox so that they would comply with the regulations so that they have it. But they're going to be the other countries who would, from the market perspective and maturity and also the mindset perspective, how they look at trust services in general, they would invest a lot of money, like Germany, for example, and make it the priority and also

Felicia Jackson (44:36)
Yeah.

Erika Maslauskaite (44:43)
that would be a structural change, but that would be also local approach. So to answer your question whether that's a challenge from the technical perspective or the mindset perspective, I think both, but in general, it's actually the gap, the way,

No business approach.

is why the mindset was delivered to the regulatory bodies who would then think, okay, so there is internet and the infrastructure. So most probably engineers would think about that. Maybe it's not like that, but I think what's required to bring engineers and policymakers, which is a global collaboration actually if initiative is doing.

and standard makers into one room to understand that it's the same challenge we're solving here and that it is very much required to communicate with each other and this is how we can build trust in a more structured way

Felicia Jackson (45:47)
this is such an important lesson in how we don't learn lessons. I still remember when e-commerce was introduced in Europe and that US companies coming over to the UK, lots of things launching. But there was a huge issue when trying to roll e-commerce out in Germany because the engineers were building really sensible, clever systems to get money off people with a credit card.

but the culture in Germany was that you pay on delivery. So if you don't understand the cultural differences, the human factor in those relationships and what people expect, then you're always going to have pushback, you're always going to have problems. your point about the engineering mindset, very much speaks to my experience of watching innovation and deployment and where the challenges come from.

And given that these systems are actually not just about providing services and making money, but actually genuinely about ensuring people have access to support, ensuring participation in society, ensuring that we can actually manage this explosion of technical innovation,

you can't just have engineers working on a system which fundamentally impacts on everybody every person and every individual.

Erika Maslauskaite (47:02)
It's a great insight, Patricia, and actually, I've been involved in tech innovation for more than two decades now. Myself, I started as a product owner, and I've been mediator between business and engineering or IT, always.

trying to navigate and trying to first be a tutor so to say so that those two parties would actually connect and talk to each other and stop competing with each other and this brings me to your point that every system that is built for online services

could not be built just by engineers without having diverse teams and diverse approach to the things we're building. What do I mean by that? I mean, there plenty of the products released that were not tested on women, for example. There are plenty of the business skyscrapers developed without...

taking into account the different temperature levels we adhere as females and males because there was none of the women in the product team that would highlight that question. And this is how the standards then are born, right? So.

Felicia Jackson (48:20)
So we need to

have this conversation now.

Erika Maslauskaite (48:22)
Exactly.

Our systems need to be a replica of real life, not just the replica of the standard or the regulation. So I think so. And not forget about the human. Same with the AI. Amazing that AI is quick and fast, but it's textbook. You could train the algorithm.

but it's still you get a different outcome because behind the prom there's a human.

Felicia Jackson (48:49)
and different people ask different things in different ways.

Erika Maslauskaite (48:50)
So this is how you bring out authenticity, right? And creativity.

we shouldn't forget about this. And you brought a very important topic. think that's a big challenge right now in terms of even geopolitics, understanding and culture everywhere in our business environment, in our social environment.

And also from the trust tech or the identity point of stand, it also establishes culture on the internet.

it's not about only the gadget or the platform or the system or the standard or the infrastructure. We're actually building the extension of the reality that we have. So that means that

the social norms that are existing in real life, you might question them whether they are good or bad, they would still need to be existing to some extent on the extension of our lives, whether it's AI environment, whether it's VR environment or ⁓ online.

Felicia Jackson (49:52)
And

there's a genuine risk there that you start to homogenize everything. Whoever is dominating the system at any given time, that may end up being the culture, the approach that dominates. And it's not for all people and it's not accepted or welcomed by all people. for me this idea that we're

extending reality is possibly one of the most important parts of this conversation because we have to recognise that we're not yet actually having the conversation we need to have as we hurtle forward and start developing all these systems People are already using agentic AI and we know these discussions, these conversations, these concerns have not been explored. So if listeners take away one thing from this conversation,

What do you think is the most important idea or distinction that they should understand about digital identity where it is today and where it's going?

Erika Maslauskaite (50:46)
first of all, that digital identity is not our digitized passport or purely credentials online. It's actually our presence online and the mix of the attributes that represent us. And we need to take control of them. Identity is very tight with the AI and with the payments industry and with...

plenty of the other industries that were using services. the biggest challenge it's interoperability. Why? Because we do not have control of our digital identity attributes online. It brings us to the big concerns about our privacy.

that we became very vulnerable online and the whole environment becomes very harmful and it shouldn't be. So regulation helps, Europe is taking the lead and other countries would adhere, but it's a global challenge. need to secure the right...

bridges to secure cross border verification. And this is what digital identity as a critical infrastructure that is becoming right now is trying to solve. on a final note, I think what's important to mention that we all contribute to our trust, trust or digital trust online.

So we're all contributors to that and that in the long run, we will have control of our digital identities. But then the question would be, how do we use them and in what manner? the policy making process from the digital identity perspective becomes very crucial.

because digital identity most probably in the future will surpass identity as we understand it right now. So that means we think about the

future governing process in the countries. Now we're going to the voting polls. Most probably also that's gonna change. So this is why the critical infrastructure becomes very huge topic. So to secure that, we need to, to secure the further development so that it gets to the right point, we need to bring all of the stakeholders together.

industry representatives, policy makers, engineers and business people, so that we could bring more inclusion and diversity and like so that those digital attributes would be available for everyone, not for the commercial business.

Because what world needs, the world needs. Of course, there are certain countries that are still following this authoritarian, right, or big brother's approach. But in general, if we talk about the Western approach or the inclusive world, the identity is tied to us as humans. And even from business perspective, everything starts from us as a human. So human approach should not also

be forgotten and actually it should be re-prioritized in the sense that human is at the core of the whole ecosystem and only then we talk about digital identity attributes and everything what follows so we shouldn't forget about us per se

Felicia Jackson (53:57)
that's such a beautiful place to end our conversation the end this is about being human and what that means and the world that we choose to live in and we have to take control of the choices that are being made and and where things are going

Thank you so much for joining us today, Erica, helping us to unpack why digital identity is going to be one of the defining elements of from the advent of AI, from this next stage of technological disruption. And I think what's come through more than anything else is that

While there's a long way to go in building the technical infrastructure of digital identity, one of the most important things is understanding the systems of trust, legitimacy and participation. Because those don't just underpin digital identity, They actually underpin the function of society as a whole and the economy.

So we need to remember that real transformation isn't just about technology itself. It's about what we want that technology to be, where we want it to take us and how. So as AI does become more autonomous, the question isn't just about what it can do. It's whether or not the systems that we have in place, the infrastructure beneath them, identity and permissions and governance and trust and

interoperability, whether or not they can evolve fast enough to support what is going to be a far more dynamic digital environment. an extension of the real world. So we need to think about this question of digital identity, not just as about the impact of AI, but of all the overall pressures that are changing the world in which we live, where questions of access and inequality, of mobility and climate disruption,

and digital dependence, they are reshaping the way we act. So I think digital identity is fundamentally a far more important issue than people have yet realized. Anyway, to our listeners, I hope you've enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. As always, we'd love to hear what you think, what questions this raises for you, and what you'd like us to explore next. So you can get in touch with us directly. And

Please do like, follow, subscribe and share Shake and Not Burned wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.