Show Notes
Jeff and Jim welcome back Heather Flanagan for her fifth appearance on the show. Heather shares updates across a wide range of current work including her new role as content chair for the Identiverse conference, an appointment to the W3C Technical Architecture Group, ongoing support for NIST and NCCOE, advising the SIROS Foundation open source wallet project, and the continued growth of the Identity Salon. The conversation explores who is actually building identity standards for AI agents and whether traditional standards bodies can keep pace with AI development. Heather breaks down the authentication challenges posed by agentic AI, the problem of continuous identity and delegation, and why posting a spec on your website does not make it a standard. The discussion shifts to national digital identity programs in the US and Europe, the underserved relying party problem in credential frameworks, and why financial services may be the next major proving ground for mobile driver's licenses. The episode closes with a look at digital estate planning as the identity community's most uncomfortable but increasingly unavoidable problem.
Connect with Heather: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hlflanagan/
A Digital Identity (Heather's Podcast): https://sphericalcowconsulting.com/digital-identity-digest/
Death and the Digital Estate Community Group: https://openid.net/cg/death-and-the-digital-estate/
Death and the Digital Estate Planning Guide: https://openid.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Digital-Estate-Planning-Guide-1.pdf
Connect with us on LinkedIn:
Jim McDonald: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimmcdonaldpmp/
Jeff Steadman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffsteadman/
Visit the show on the web at http://idacpodcast.com
TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Introduction and Heather's Conference Knitting Story 6:00 Heather's Current Work: Identiverse, W3C TAG, NIST, SIROS Foundation 14:00 What Is the Identity Salon? 16:00 AI Agents and the Authentication Challenge 22:00 Standards, Interoperability, and MCP 25:30 IETF, W3C, and Who Governs AI Identity Standards 31:00 AI in Standards Development: Opportunity or Risk? 32:30 National Digital Identity Programs: US and Europe 36:30 Mobile Driver's Licenses and Financial Services 40:00 Digital Credentials for I-9 and KYC Use Cases 43:30 The Digital Estate and Death in the Digital Age 46:00 OpenID Foundation Resources for Digital Estate 47:00 Identity Management Day Theme Songs and Wrap-Up
KEYWORDS identity and access management, IAM, standards, AI agents, agentic AI, digital identity, digital credentials, mobile driver's license, W3C, IETF, OpenID Foundation, FIDO Alliance, MCP, authentication, delegation, digital estate, identity proofing, verifiable credentials, selective disclosure, zero knowledge proofs, KYC, NIST, identity salon, Heather Flanagan, Identity Management Day, IDAC, Identity at the Center, Jeff Steadman, Jim McDonald
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