Research Summary: Multi-Jurisdictional Legal Identity Assurance for Capability Gating: A Design-Science Proposal for Tiered, Reusable Identity Assurance of Natural, Juridical, and Machine Entities

Current digital identity assurance systems are inefficient, over-collecting data, excluding participants, and applying a 'flat maximum verification' model. This approach imposes high costs on all interactions, regardless of risk, by requiring a single high level of identification at entry and binding verification to individual institutions and legal spaces. The abstract suggests the need for a more nuanced, multi-jurisdictional framework for tiered, reusable identity assurance across various entity types.

Why it matters

Inefficient digital identity assurance creates significant operational overhead, impedes participation, and introduces friction into digital systems. Addressing these challenges through a tiered, reusable, and multi-jurisdictional framework is critical for fostering broader digital inclusion, reducing operational costs, and enabling more flexible and secure interactions across diverse entities and legal environments.

Key insights

• Existing digital identity assurance systems incur significant costs due to dishonesty and uncertainty.
• Current methods often employ 'flat maximum verification,' requiring a single, high level of identification for all participants.
• This 'flat maximum' approach leads to over-collection of data and excludes participants who cannot meet stringent requirements.
• The strength of identification is often disproportionately bound to the activity it unlocks, taxing every interaction with the cost of rare high-risk cases.
• Current frameworks are limited by fixed per-credential levels within single legal spaces and institutional verification dependencies.
• The system needs to accommodate natural, juridical, and machine entities for identity assurance.

Source

arXiv — Computers and Society — https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.00287