Latest / Identity at the Center / #418 - Ethical IAM with Elizabeth Garber

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#418 - Ethical IAM with Elizabeth Garber · Identity at the Center

0:04
This is identity at the center. Welcome to the Identity at the
0:11
Center podcast. I'm Jeff, and that's Jim.
0:12
Hey, Jim. Hey, Jeff, how are you?
0:15
Oh, not so bad yourself. Well is spring in North America
0:19
and with spring comes baseball, nicer weather and allergies.
0:24
And I've got some bad news from my allergies suffering friends.
0:28
I suffer from allergies. So I went into the ChatGPT today
0:31
and I said do people who suffer from allergies have higher Iqs?
0:36
The answer no. I said do people who suffer from
0:41
allergies, are they more attractive?
0:43
The answer no. And are people who suffer from
0:46
allergies more successful? Also the answer no.
0:51
So then I asked are there any benefits to having allergies And
0:55
pretty much the answer was no. It tried to make me feel good
0:59
about myself, but you. Didn't get like a you're
1:03
absolutely right, something like that.
1:05
Positive. That's what I was expecting.
1:08
I mean, I've come to. I've grown to expect that it
1:11
would meet me halfway. So you asked ChatGPT.
1:15
Come on, man, You're, you're making this up, right?
1:17
It's like you asked Chat GP ChatGPT if people with allergies
1:21
are higher IQ, lower IQ, more attractive, more successful.
1:26
So let's take down the 4th wall. Before we hit record, we always
1:30
tell our guests Jim's going to hit me with something.
1:33
I have no idea what it is. I usually just react in the
1:36
moment. So this time I decide to come up
1:39
with the most outlandish thing I could think of, and there you
1:42
go. Well, OK, so yeah, definitely
1:45
reacting in the moment. I don't think it's that
1:47
outlandish only because I know that people are incorporating
1:52
AI, especially chat bots, into their daily life.
1:55
I use it all the time. I'm sure you use it all the
1:57
time. I'm sure guest does as well.
1:59
But people are turning to it for medical advice and relationship
2:03
advice, all kinds of stuff. So it doesn't shock me, you
2:07
know, if I if, if my, my question would have been OK if,
2:12
if you got a result back that said I have allergies and
2:15
therefore I am not more intelligent than someone without
2:19
allergies. The next question would be am I
2:21
less intelligent than someone with allergies?
2:23
Because then it would be really interesting to say, OK, who's
2:26
where do I fall in the intelligence spectrum?
2:29
I was afraid of what it might say, so I didn't.
2:31
I didn't bother with any of those questions, but he made me
2:35
think like, what do you think of people having relationships with
2:40
chat bots and with virtual relationship partners?
2:46
So when you say relationship and partner, define what you mean by
2:51
that? Because I feel like that's a
2:53
slipper. Like romantic romantic
2:55
relationships? Look, if that's where someone is
3:00
getting fulfillment, fine. I don't know if it's for me.
3:04
I I don't know yet what the healthiness of something like
3:08
that would be, but if it works for somebody, cool, great.
3:12
I mean, you hear about people, people in unhealthy
3:14
relationships all the time. So I don't see, you know, unless
3:18
the the technology went bad, that could be a great movie.
3:22
OK, determining us off the rails now.
3:25
Well, it's called Terminator is is that movie technology off the
3:27
rails and AI coming back for us because, you know, the
3:30
singularity happened and decided that we I don't I don't remember
3:34
the exact story behind Terminator, but I know it wasn't
3:36
good or the matrix the same thing.
3:38
The Matrix is the same idea. Yeah, technology gone wrong.
3:42
Yeah, yeah. Or yeah.
3:44
OK, yeah, let's just keep it. Let's just keep it wrong.
3:46
Let's see before we get to our main topics today, we've got
3:50
some conferences that you and I are going to be at.
3:52
We've got EIC in Berlin coming up.
3:54
We're going to see our guests there.
3:56
We have discount codes for that conference.
3:58
It's on our website, idacpodcast.com.
4:00
But we have a 25% off IDAC 25 MKO.
4:05
If you use that, you get 25% off.
4:07
And then we're going to see our guest as well at ideniverse in
4:10
June in Las Vegas. So looking forward to that.
4:12
We are going to be doing a game show to kick off the opening of
4:16
the Expo hall, tentatively is what we have planned right now.
4:20
I think it's Monday night so people can come out.
4:24
We will be doing the game show, probably majority rules, which
4:26
we've done a couple Times Now, a couple of recent conference that
4:30
you and I've been at. It's a game where everybody can
4:32
play on your phone. I'm hopeful to recruit maybe
4:34
some sponsors to help dole out some prizes and things like that
4:38
and make it exciting to kind of kick off the Expo hall.
4:40
But we've got a discount for that one as well.
4:43
It's 30%. They've extended that one out to
4:46
us to very much right at the end.
4:47
So I don't know if there's a better discount code.
4:49
I hope not, but IDV 26 dash IDAC 30 percent get you 30% off.
4:56
Again, it's on our in our show notes here as well as on our
4:59
website. People can check that out.
5:00
But we hope to see people there and come out support us and then
5:02
we'll have a booth for recording live podcast.
5:04
And I think you've been working on maybe scheduling like who
5:07
we're going to talk to at, at both conferences, right, Jim?
5:09
Yeah. I was trying to schedule who
5:11
we're going to talk to and also evening events.
5:14
So I think we're going to partner with somebody to have an
5:19
evening event. So we'd love to get people out
5:21
to that. As far as that 30% discount
5:25
code, is there like an end date for that?
5:28
I think it goes right up to the last minute.
5:30
Right up to the last minute. OK, then.
5:32
It's definitely, as far as I know, is the best discount code
5:36
and we always insist on having the best code available for the
5:40
show. I mean, that's, you know, you
5:44
can rely on our discount codes like they're not being upended
5:48
by another discount code that you find out there.
5:51
Yeah, that's that's always embarrassing when you're
5:52
providing a a discount code and was like, oh, someone else has a
5:55
better. One, especially when you're
5:56
saying it's the best and then you find a better one.
5:59
Yeah, well, shout out to Shirley at CRA.
6:01
She's awesome to work with and she definitely takes care of us
6:04
and by extension takes care of everyone else who uses those
6:07
codes as well. So shout out to Shirley.
6:10
Let's get into our conversation today because we're going to get
6:12
an update on IT Pro. We're going to talk maybe a
6:14
little bit of ethics and and identity, but let me welcome,
6:18
shockingly for the first time, Elizabeth Garber.
6:20
She's the executive director at IT Pro and she also does marking
6:23
and open ID Foundation. So welcome to the show
6:26
officially for the first time, Elizabeth.
6:28
Thank you so much. I'm very happy to be here.
6:30
This is, I feel like you and I have stood in the same circles
6:33
at conferences, but we didn't really chat too much until
6:36
Gartner. I think it was in, in was that
6:39
December. And then I happened to walk into
6:41
the little restaurant there to get somebody after the
6:43
conference ended. And you were sitting at like a
6:45
table next to me and we just started chatting.
6:47
And that was great. But I'm glad to have you on the
6:50
show. So it's tradition.
6:52
Anybody who comes on show for the first time kind of has to
6:54
share their origin story. Well, they don't have to, but we
6:56
would prefer you did. Tell us a little bit about how
6:59
you got into the space of identity and security and and
7:02
all things ID Pro. Absolutely.
7:05
So I usually tell this story in three parts.
7:11
I spent the first bulk of my career, more than 10 years,
7:16
doing digital transformation projects at big companies.
7:19
I worked primarily in the Uki was there.
7:22
I was in the UK for over 14 years and I worked in
7:25
telecommunications, I worked in broadband, I worked in
7:28
geospatial data, financial services.
7:31
I did, I ran the gamut of big companies and big industries in
7:36
tech. Oh, I didn't even say utilities.
7:38
I did energy for a while. That was fun too.
7:42
So when I got to the US, that was back in 2018, I took a job,
7:48
I took did my second, second stint in financial services and
7:53
I was immediately dropped into the deep end of the tail end of
7:59
a of an IM project that had gone tremendously wrong for our call
8:03
center. So I ended up really having to
8:09
drive root cause analysis across the organization to figure out
8:12
what what had gone wrong and found that this industry is
8:18
incredibly far reaching, incredibly complex and really
8:24
enjoyed how far the rabbit hole went.
8:27
I pretty soon found myself working across a group of banks
8:32
that were trying to create digital identity solutions as an
8:36
industry. So I was working with the
8:37
Institute of International Finance and that led me to the
8:42
digital identity community of, of people largely out of the
8:47
Open ID Foundation, but also other communities were
8:49
represented. I found my way into editing a
8:52
white paper called Gain Digital Trust.
8:55
And this was trying to pull together the thoughts of what
8:58
ended up being over 155 people, experts, big names.
9:04
I'm sure you've interviewed many of them about how we create
9:09
interoperable high trust identity systems.
9:13
And I don't know the process of reading, writing, editing that
9:17
paper with those amazing people. It, you know, it, it led me to
9:21
do a bunch of my own research into the field.
9:24
And I was just absolutely addicted by the time I was done.
9:27
That led to Part 2 of my career, which was a digital identity
9:30
startup primarily focused on banks and open finance.
9:36
That was a wild ride lasting a few years.
9:39
I worked with some amazing venture capitalists.
9:41
I did some amazing accelerator programs, met some fantastic
9:48
people and learned a ton. But what what I also learned was
9:51
that my favorite part of working in the industry is actually
9:54
working in the nonprofit space, working with people who are
9:58
developing standards to ensure that the Internet is secure,
10:02
privacy, protecting that we have interoperability across the
10:06
systems. I love working in the policy
10:08
space and I love working to build capabilities across this
10:12
industry. I think that that's really where
10:15
my passion lies, rather than in the side of like trying to
10:19
trying to make lots of money for myself.
10:22
I really, really enjoy the community and, and working with
10:24
these nonprofits. So that that brings me to Part
10:27
3, which is right now I do work exclusively with nonprofits in
10:30
the industry. You've already mentioned the
10:31
Open ID Foundation. I work also with a a number of
10:37
nonprofits on the policy side, sort of taking the work that
10:40
what was OIX, the open identity exchange, their work on trust
10:44
frameworks. I'm kind of pursuing that work
10:47
now. I'm working with an organization
10:49
called City Hub to try to establish how at the policy
10:54
layer we can create digital identity interoperability across
10:59
mostly government ID systems. That work brings me to places
11:02
like ID for Africa and, and, and works and work with NGOs and
11:09
things like that. Recently finished up some work
11:12
with the United Nations Digital Public Infrastructure
11:15
Safeguarding project. That was a lot of fun.
11:18
And then the third leg of that is I love working with the
11:22
professional community building capability in this field.
11:26
That leads me to work with the Digital Identity Advancement
11:29
Foundation, who I know you support.
11:31
And that's sometimes where we've been standing in the same
11:34
circles as you've interviewed many of our winners of the Kim
11:37
Cameron and Victoria Bertochi Award.
11:40
And then obviously ID Pro, where I'm now the executive director.
11:44
Very, very happy to be working with that organization and
11:47
creating a talent pipeline throughout this industry so that
11:51
it can sustain itself into the future.
11:55
That's a lot of hats and you know, for people who aren't
11:57
aware, right, this podcast is the official podcast Friday pro
12:01
and we're we're very happy to support it.
12:03
Jim and I have been members for years.
12:05
I think I served on a couple of committees.
12:07
I think I still do one on the nom.
12:09
The nom com is what we call it. So nominations for being on the
12:13
board? And those nominations will be
12:15
opening up very soon. Yes, so you know, PSA for people
12:20
who are interested in, you know contributing back to ID pro or
12:23
becoming part of the community, you know at a greater extent
12:25
like Elizabeth has there will be I'm not sure how many seats are
12:30
open, but extend, you know your interest out to people and you
12:35
know let's see if we can get some good folks to to fill some
12:36
board seats or us. I'm, I'm look, you've done a
12:39
lot, right when it comes to sort of all this stuff you've worked
12:43
on, you've been in the room when these policies are being written
12:48
or they're being exchanged or these standards and things like
12:50
that. I mean, how do you even get
12:53
started in some of that? Is it just being willing to like
12:55
be in the room and kind of show up and listen?
12:57
Is it volunteer? Like how if I'm with someone out
13:00
there, it's like, wow, Elizabeth, that sounds awesome.
13:02
Like I want to be Elizabeth when I grow up.
13:04
How do I how do I put my foot forward and get my hat to the
13:07
ring to take part in some of those activities?
13:09
Yeah. So my approach has always been
13:12
if I see a development like a space that I want to develop
13:16
into, I don't assume that I can walk into a job there.
13:19
I, I volunteer to do something to help that community with
13:23
something that I can help with. So in the case of the game
13:25
paper, that I that I, I led the editorial committee of that
13:30
paper. So I turned the brilliant
13:33
thoughts of 155 people into something coherent and in
13:36
English because there were many languages as well involved.
13:41
So I volunteered to do that. That was a very large volunteer
13:45
endeavour and it led me to build relationships and it led me to
13:50
build knowledge. And I volunteered a couple of
13:53
other times after that and started giving back to the
13:56
community in whatever ways that I I could.
13:58
And that, that eventually led to very small paid work and that
14:01
eventually led to, you know, being able to do it as my full
14:06
time, as my full time job. But I am still volunteering on
14:09
the side the UN work that I mentioned, that was a strictly
14:12
volunteer endeavor. It was part of an Advisory
14:14
Board. And we, you know, I was the
14:16
rapporteur for that as well. I, I tend to volunteer for
14:19
writing gigs. It seems like that's where I add
14:21
value to the, to the tech community.
14:25
And and that's, yeah, that that's, that's very much my
14:29
approach and it has been for throughout my career.
14:33
So the UN has some kind of cachet to it's like, oh, you
14:36
know, you work with the UN. Like how did you get involved
14:38
with UN specifically? Is it somebody you knew?
14:39
Was it like a, a posting somewhere?
14:42
It's like, hey, we need this help.
14:43
Like how did that? Work.
14:43
So the digital public infrastructure, so that it's
14:46
called the Universal framework for digital public
14:49
infrastructure. Sorry, no, it's called the
14:52
Universal framework for safeguarding Digital Public
14:56
Infrastructure. Lots of words, maybe you can
14:59
edit that out. It is government, so we forgive
15:01
it. That's how it.
15:02
Works so many, so many words, but it is all about safeguarding
15:06
DPI, which is a term that's maybe not bandied about quite so
15:11
much with your podcast listeners, depending on who your
15:13
audiences are. But it is very much a term that
15:16
is growing in the identity community, in the development
15:21
space, in the developing world with government ID systems.
15:25
So that followed, I got involved in that after I had built
15:30
relationships with organizations who had been involved in City
15:33
Hub. That's the interoperability work
15:35
that I was mentioning earlier. So like we had the World Bank in
15:41
the room for many of those sessions, many government, like
15:44
the, the ministers of digital identity in different
15:47
governments around the world. And I really care.
15:51
I, this is what I care about. I, I wrote in 2023 a paper
15:55
called Human Centric digital identity for governments, which
15:59
analyze the different architectural patterns out
16:01
there, the different risks and trade-offs of different types of
16:04
identity systems and like how to begin the thought process of
16:08
which architectural pattern you're going to implement in
16:11
your own country. So this is sort of a development
16:14
area that I wanted to opt into and work towards and manifest
16:18
for myself. And so when I saw that they were
16:20
looking for new members of the cohort that was designing these
16:24
safeguards and helping to operationalize what was a very,
16:30
you know, it starts off at the principles level.
16:32
And then it's like, how do you define tools that help you make
16:34
those principles work in practice?
16:36
That's what that community of people was doing.
16:38
So I just applied. I sent in my resume, I sent in
16:42
some essays critiquing the framework as it existed today.
16:46
And thankfully they selected me and I was a member of the cohort
16:49
and invited to be the writer on the cohort.
16:53
That's brave. Congratulations.
16:54
Thank you. That's a that's a very cool way
16:56
to approach it. Thank you.
16:57
So, you know, I think that the moral of the story there is,
17:00
like, reach out. Reach out.
17:02
Yeah, you know, meet people. Yeah, that's that's certainly
17:05
the second time in my career that I have seen an opportunity
17:09
and just said, you know, tell with it.
17:13
I'm going to write the essay and see if I and see if I win, and I
17:15
do so like. I like how you self censor there
17:18
for a second I was thinking of a different word, but yeah, I.
17:20
Wasn't. Sure what age restriction
17:23
category you want this podcast to be in so you will keep it
17:26
guide. Me.
17:27
Just for now, I guess. So that's like one swear word
17:30
allowed, OK. We've we so trivia is we've had
17:33
one swear word that I can remember in our 400 and I think
17:37
it's 400 and 18th episode that we've done and it's been years
17:41
since that person since that, since we've had that and I and
17:45
it's totally fine. Like I don't care, you know,
17:47
people use language, whatever it is, but I do think it's kind of
17:50
a a little trivia thing for someone out there.
17:53
I want to ask you about ID Pro because you're the executive
17:55
director for it. You know, give give us the
17:59
commercial. If somebody is listening to this
18:00
podcast and you're not a member of ID pro, what the heck are you
18:04
doing? Get out there, become part of
18:06
the community, you know? But that's just me.
18:09
Let's hear it directly from you, Elizabeth.
18:10
Why should people join ID Pro? What is it?
18:13
Well, everybody out there, businesses, individuals,
18:16
institutions, governments, everybody is dependent on
18:20
identity systems to solve some of the most critical problems
18:24
out there. How you empower people to thrive
18:27
in an increasingly online and digital economy.
18:31
How you recognize who's authentic, which devices are
18:35
authentic, which agents are authentic and give them
18:38
appropriate access. How do you protect against
18:41
rising rates of fraud, theft, cybercrime?
18:46
These are big problems and they and this area is moving
18:49
incredibly quickly. ID Pro is offering a global
18:54
professional community to ensure that that those professionals
18:58
working in this space and solving those problems are
19:03
recognized for the great work that they're doing, that they're
19:06
connected to one another and can form relationships,
19:10
collaborations, mentorships, and that they're well equipped to
19:15
advance, you know, safe digital services in their organizations.
19:20
And we do that in a few key ways for the the people themselves.
19:26
We're fostering A multidisciplinary community that
19:30
serves people at all levels, whether they're entry level,
19:33
whether they've been in in this space for a long time or whether
19:38
or, or somewhere in between. We're serving the businesses who
19:42
are our sponsors and who frankly just benefit from the work that
19:46
we do. We serve them by helping to
19:49
cultivate a pipeline of talented, equipped, well
19:51
connected people. And we offer continuing
19:55
education resources and we're constantly reflecting on what's
19:58
new, what's happening in the world of non human or gentic
20:02
identity, for example, what do people need to know now?
20:05
And we put and we publish that as our, our body of knowledge.
20:09
And obviously that feeds into our our Sid Pro, the
20:12
certification program that we offer.
20:15
A long time ago, I was part of the Sid Pro committee committee
20:18
to create questions. I I don't know if it's still on
20:20
there, but I got one question on to the test.
20:22
And so I felt like that. Was good enough?
20:24
What question? What question was it?
20:26
I don't remember, it was like the first version like five
20:29
years ago, whatever it was, but I was so happy to get like one
20:33
on the test, like all right, like I did it and that's
20:35
something. Again, I had never done anything
20:37
like that before. And so I was like, sure, I'll
20:39
throw my hat in the ring and try to help out here where I can.
20:41
I learned a lot through the process.
20:44
But yeah, there's, there's a lot going on this the the CID Pro,
20:47
CID Pro certification I'm seeing get more traction and so people
20:51
can check that out. The community is definitely, I
20:54
think one of the strongest parts of ID Pro and that is typically,
20:58
for me at least, reflected in the Slack community that's been
21:01
built up. I know we just went through like
21:04
a Slack migration. So maybe this is a little bit of
21:06
a public service announcement for people who are still on the
21:08
old Slack to get moved over to the new Slack.
21:12
But can you talk a little bit about like what the Slack means,
21:15
you know, for the community at large?
21:17
I mean, there are so many questions that people put there,
21:21
whatever someone is grappling with, I mean the ones and you
21:25
see the community jump to their aid, right?
21:28
So, you know, it could be quiet for a few days, but if somebody
21:31
comes in and says help my organization needs me to write a
21:37
like multi year road map, helping us to achieve I am
21:42
maturity. Where do I begin?
21:44
What do I do? Or here's what I'm thinking,
21:48
what does what do you think? That was a that was a topic that
21:53
recently came up, by the way, on our slack instance and it's led
21:57
to a whole separate channel where we're discussing this and
22:00
trying to create materials that will help organizations with
22:03
that exact problem. But when a question is thrown
22:07
out there, you get some of the industry's leading voices, the
22:10
people who are on stage at identifiers talking about these
22:13
subjects, the people who have written books on how to
22:16
implement a lot too, or IGA or whatever.
22:19
These people are interacting with you, giving you the benefit
22:23
of their years of experience and thought leadership.
22:26
And you see that happening every day.
22:29
I don't know if you have you ever asked a question that
22:31
helped you in your day job on the on the ID Pro Slack?
22:34
Yeah. I have some, you know, not
22:36
everybody knows everything. And no matter how long you've
22:39
been in this game, there is always some part that you can,
22:42
you know, get smarter, educate on.
22:44
And yeah, I've used it. I mostly lurk and either answer
22:48
questions or just kind of see like where people are, are at,
22:50
from like headspace. But I've asked questions and I,
22:52
I, I won't say I'm shocked. I was thrilled that within like
22:56
the span of like 4 hours, there was like a bunch of really good
23:00
answers. It's like, oh, OK, cool, thanks.
23:03
And it wasn't like a situation where I was like waiting days,
23:06
weeks to get an answer from something.
23:08
Yeah, I've had the same situation.
23:11
I mean the same experience. I think that's a common thread
23:16
is that it's a community and it manifests itself virtually
23:21
anyway through the Slack channel.
23:23
Yeah. And you get to know people
23:25
through the Slack and then you get to know them in person at
23:28
conferences, you know, if you're able to attend them.
23:30
So, you know, it's a good lead in for, you know, I guess taking
23:34
a virtual relationship and have it be somewhat more comfortable
23:38
when you finally meet someone in the real world if you decide to
23:41
do that. We're trying.
23:42
One of the things I was talking to one of our sponsors about
23:46
last week was how do we help people meet each other locally?
23:49
Like there's, there's the identity beer meetups that
23:54
happen like in there's definitely a strong one in
23:57
Seattle. There's some strong ones in
23:58
Germany, But how do we help people find one another and
24:01
create more of those local meetups?
24:03
We just kicked one off in New York.
24:05
I say we identity or is an independent but but closely
24:10
associated initiative, let's say.
24:14
And I I definitely want the ID Pro channel that's or Workspace
24:18
to be 1 where we help people meet each other not just at
24:21
conferences but locally too. And I'll probably be kicking off
24:25
some virtual meetups. Try trialing that out in the
24:28
coming weeks. I'm glad you brought up the
24:31
identity Bureau, I think it's a great way for people to meet in
24:34
person. And it's an alcohol fueled event
24:38
right? So it's not like people getting
24:41
drunk, if you don't drink you'll be perfectly comfortable and the
24:46
people who do drink usually have like 1 beer.
24:50
Yeah, They just talk, talk identity, you know, in a
24:53
comfortable social setting where, Yeah, no need for a
24:56
sponsor to cater a meal or anything like that.
24:58
It's just get together in a friendly space and talk, talk to
25:02
people who do the same things you do or, you know, a a
25:06
slightly different variant on what happens in this industry
25:09
can meet some really cool people there.
25:12
They get all those perspectives and you know, it's, it's fun.
25:14
I, I'm one of those people who doesn't really drink.
25:16
And so I think some people might get turned off by the name
25:19
identity beer because they just assume.
25:20
But I can assure you that there are people there who also do not
25:24
drink and still partake and have a good time and meet folks and
25:27
stuff like. That so.
25:28
I think we'll have one in Bruin while we're out there.
25:30
There's probably one for Identiverse that's coming up.
25:32
So I would definitely, if you haven't checked it out, the
25:35
website is Identity dot Beer and Aspen Bago usually does a pretty
25:39
good job of like keeping that updated with like all the goings
25:41
on and stuff like that. But this idea of local meetups,
25:45
local people kind of getting together I think is great.
25:49
I live in a relatively small market, Asheville, NC, up in the
25:52
mountains. I'm sure there's some identity
25:54
people here and I just haven't gone to the effort of like
25:56
trying to like create something here, but there is definitely
25:59
strengthen. Talking to the 2 about this is
26:01
in North Carolina. I don't know how close he is to
26:03
Asheville, NC, but I feel like you guys.
26:08
That's all right. I'll travel.
26:09
I'm going to, I'm going to find a way to connect to the North
26:11
Carolinians. There you go.
26:13
It would be like the identity or Carolina somewhere like
26:16
Charlotte or something that I know Charlotte has good
26:18
concentration of. Folks, I want to ask you, here's
26:22
what I'm going to do. I'm going to throw a softball
26:25
down the middle for you because you've got some news potentially
26:28
to announce you don't have it everything figured out quite
26:30
yet. But let me just say this, my
26:33
understanding is that the ID Pro Board has voted on something and
26:38
approve something. Can you share what that is?
26:42
I can, the ID Pro board has approved a discount code for
26:48
identity at the center listeners on their first time membership
26:51
to ID Pro. I need to figure out a way to
26:54
operationalize this because we don't do this, we only do this
26:58
for identity at the center list. So I hope that in the next
27:04
couple of days I will be able to share with you the process and
27:07
then you'll be able to share it in the show notes or as an
27:09
addendum. But we will we will be offering
27:12
a discount code for for your listeners here.
27:15
That is super cool. You know, it's definitely
27:17
something that the best, the only discount code, you know,
27:20
whatever that looks like, right? That is super cool.
27:23
So, you know, fewer reasons why people should not be part of
27:26
Identipro or IID Pro. The yeah, the announcement, you
27:30
know, Elizabeth, you and I were like talking about like, all
27:32
right, well, do we have your information or are we going to
27:33
be able to shoot it? It's like, all right, here's how
27:34
kind of we'll we'll do it. So if we have a audio visual
27:38
component, it's going to go here.
27:40
It's AI. Jeff, jumping in here for just a
27:43
moment, we mentioned in this episode that Identity at the
27:45
Center is the official podcast of ID Pro, but we didn't have
27:49
all the discount details locked down at the time of recording,
27:52
so I wanted to make sure you had them.
27:53
If you're not yet an ID Pro member, new members can get $25
27:57
off their first year of membership.
27:59
Just head to idpro.org/IDAC to sign up and claim that offer.
28:07
ID Pro is doing incredible work to professionalize and elevate
28:12
the Identity community, and we're proud to be part of that
28:14
mission. Again, the link for
28:16
thisofferis@idpro.org/IDAC or you can click the ID Pro banner
28:23
on our website at idacpodcast.com.
28:26
Now back to the conversation. That's super exciting.
28:29
You know that the clock is ticking.
28:31
This show goes live in a couple weeks.
28:32
So theoretically things should be ready by the time people
28:35
listen to this. But as I think people in I am
28:38
know, operationalizing something is usually the most difficult
28:42
part of taking the idea, architecting it and building it.
28:47
And it's like, oh, what do you mean?
28:48
OK, now we have to actually support it and get in place.
28:50
So we'll ask for some grace if it's not quite ready yet.
28:52
But we we think we're in a good spot.
28:54
Yes, I'll get it operational. Jim, you've been chomping at the
29:00
bit here. I'll hand it over to you.
29:02
I know that you've got some questions you probably want.
29:04
To ask also actually just sitting in mall because I'm so
29:06
happy about this. Actually, I know we do have some
29:10
form of show notes and I saw insert discount code here like
29:16
that's so cool, Elizabeth, thank you from the bottom of my heart
29:20
for, you know, first for making Identity at the Center, the ID
29:25
Pro official podcast or continuing that.
29:28
I got to give a shout out to Heather for kind of being the
29:31
initiator of that, but also just the support of this form of
29:36
media as we think we kind of contribute to the community as
29:41
well. You know, Jeff, you raised the
29:45
name esimbago. I remember I the first body of
29:49
knowledge article that I read on ID Pro's website.
29:54
And by the way, that was a long time ago.
29:58
I, I love the body, not I love the Slack channel, but kind of
30:03
my go, I always go back to the body of knowledge because that's
30:06
available to everyone. You don't even need to be a
30:08
member. So even if you're not a member,
30:11
go out to ID pros website. Check out the body of knowledge.
30:14
There's just a ton of, you know, intro or overview of what are
30:18
all these things that you're hearing about in an identity.
30:20
So if your company won't support you joining or you know, you
30:24
don't have the money for it, go out to ID pros website.
30:27
This body of knowledge is a great resource, Elizabeth.
30:32
I wanted to know, like I know you've contributed to the body
30:35
of knowledge. What is kind of the an article
30:38
that you would want to kind of mention or maybe it's come a
30:42
bunch of times in your conversations?
30:45
Well, I have to give you a slight correction there.
30:48
I mean, I, I, I've edited articles in the body of
30:51
Knowledge, but I am not a named author in the body of Knowledge
30:54
itself just yet. I've written other papers for
30:57
other organizations and the one that I called out earlier was
31:01
about human centric digital identity.
31:05
And I think the one that there are two body of knowledge
31:08
articles that relate really closely to my body of work and
31:13
those are the two that we have on ethics in identity systems.
31:17
They're written, both of them are in a, in the, I think I want
31:23
to say 20/23/2020 like a 2023 issue of the Body of Knowledge,
31:29
one by Mike Kyser about ethics in digital identity and identity
31:38
driven algorithms, I believe is close to the title of that one.
31:43
And then one by Hank Marsman on a sort of broader view of ethics
31:48
as it relates to digital identity For I, I, I should also
31:52
say I love all of our contributors and all of our
31:55
articles in the Body of knowledge.
31:57
But those two are probably the ones that I personally cite most
32:00
in the work that I do with the human centric identity or the
32:05
UNDPI framework or things like that.
32:07
So those are the ones I would shout out to.
32:11
OK, you shout out to them to be an idea like what is in a body
32:16
of knowledge article about ethics and identity security.
32:20
It's just identity systems, not just limited to the topic of
32:23
security, but so in let's take a step back and talk about ethics
32:32
in general. Hank does a good job of
32:36
exploring the different approaches to ethics in in
32:41
practice. He he lays out some of the
32:43
philosophical underpinnings, whereas Mike does.
32:47
And then he so Hank also explores some of the varied
32:50
approaches that you might take to ground that and use it
32:53
actually organizationally. And then Mike puts forward a
32:56
framework for thinking about things in your own organization.
33:00
But I would also probably recommend just taking a step
33:03
back and talking about what does ethics even mean in general, not
33:07
just in the context of identity, but what does it, what does it
33:10
mean? And it's, it's not super black
33:12
and white. There's no one definition of
33:16
what is ethical and what isn't. But what I usually call back to
33:22
when talking about this subject is that technology itself is
33:29
always expressing a set of values, right?
33:34
Whether that is an intentional set of values or an
33:37
unintentional set of values, what happens as a result of
33:41
technology is that there are values being expressed.
33:45
And it is. And ethics is really the
33:47
practice of identifying what values you intend this
33:53
technology to express, what risks of harm are inherent in
33:58
the system, and then balancing and mitigating those trade-offs.
34:04
Is that to ethereal? No, no, I think that's good.
34:08
I mean, I think a lot of times it's easy to at first glance
34:12
think ethics is easy, right? It's stealing is bad, true.
34:19
You know, usually. But then you think, OK, well,
34:23
what if your family is starving and you sold a loaf of bread?
34:26
Is it bad still and are those types of issues?
34:32
I mean, I know that that's still kind of more black and white,
34:35
right? But there's got to be some
34:37
conundrums in the identity space as well.
34:41
There are always conundrums. If anybody thinks ethics is
34:46
easy, there are some great simple tools that you can use to
34:51
really challenge yourself on how consistent you are morally and
34:54
ethically the the trolley problem is.
34:59
Have you ever are you familiar with the trolley problem?
35:02
Either of you? One of he's nodding.
35:03
One of he's not. Yeah, the train tracks and
35:06
choosing, right? Do you save one life or a bunch
35:08
of lives? Yeah.
35:09
Do you save one life but intervene to save that one?
35:12
Or do you intervene to save a bunch of lives, but you know,
35:16
losing one person in the process?
35:18
It's the classic superhero dilemma, right?
35:20
Every single superhero when he has the same thing, it's like
35:22
the the special interest person, right?
35:25
Whether it's boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, father,
35:28
parent, right over it is or do you save all the people in the
35:30
bus, right? Exactly.
35:33
And this, this problem has a lot of different corollaries, right?
35:37
People have been coming up with OK, well, if you would do that,
35:40
then what's the next step? Now you're pushing a man onto
35:42
the track. Now you're now there's, there's,
35:47
there's all sorts of next steps and, and I, I don't remember
35:50
them all off by hearts, but I, I strongly recommend going and
35:55
like testing your moral and ethical consistency and, and
35:58
just, yeah, we can, we can probably provide a link in the,
36:02
in the show notes and Hank, Hank, I think references the
36:06
trolley problem and, and, and that in his paper.
36:09
But no, it's not easy. I remember Nishant Kashek once
36:15
told a story on a panel that we did of walking around a vendor
36:19
floor and seeing a sign that said 100% ethically compliant,
36:25
which is kind of ridiculous, right?
36:28
Because what is that? What does that mean?
36:30
Compliant or conformant to? To what?
36:33
To who's set of value. The table Access reviews that's.
36:36
What I think of I mean it it completely depends which set of
36:40
values you've you've ident. Like it could be that, you know,
36:43
this is a, a tool for conducting surveillance, you know, and that
36:52
that is security is valuable in, in some sense.
36:54
So it's, it's compliant with a set of values, But but which,
36:58
which value? Because there's no one who's
37:00
giving you a list of ethics and saying, here's how you comply.
37:05
It's a process. It is not a a single answer.
37:10
It seems to me that sometimes big tech gets in trouble,
37:14
especially around privacy. So it's like, OK, yeah, private
37:18
data. And then law enforcement asks
37:20
them to turn over private data. Now the company may have an
37:25
ethical concerned with doing that.
37:28
And I think if they don't have a framework for how they're going
37:33
to deal with those kind of things and apply it
37:35
consistently. I mean, this is, I'm kind of
37:38
spitballing here, but it seems like these are the areas where
37:42
ethics becomes a real life dilemma.
37:45
And I wonder, do companies kind of think those things through or
37:49
do they just make sure that they have the right advisement at the
37:53
right time of experts like yourself who really think about
37:57
these kind of things? Yeah, I mean, that's that's a
38:00
really good example of where privacy comes into tension with
38:08
safety or or counter fraud and that that happens again and
38:12
again. You know, I was just Listeners
38:16
may have watched an episode of Daily Show with Jon Stewart
38:18
recently where Cindy Cohen, the executive director of the
38:22
Electronic Frontiers Foundation was on.
38:24
And she was they they had a debate between the two of them
38:27
about, you know, should tech platforms like Meta, who was
38:32
recently held liable for harms to children, should they be held
38:37
liable for that? Or is that a form of censorship?
38:41
And they had a debate between themselves and they were both
38:43
prioritizing different sets of values.
38:45
And I think that that's a, a classic example of where there
38:47
are two, two sets of goods that we could be chasing and two sets
38:53
of harms that we could be chasing.
38:54
And we have to understand what the trade off is and go through
38:56
the process of understanding where, where do we need to
38:59
regulate this so that at a societal level, we're, we're
39:04
minimizing harm. Where do we need to allow
39:06
companies to be making these ethical choices themselves and
39:09
weighing it up? And and then once, once we're
39:13
all doing it and making those ethical decisions ourselves,
39:16
what are the frameworks that we're using in the tools that
39:18
we're crafting to enable practitioners to actually have
39:23
those thought processes as they're building products?
39:25
It's it's not easy. Me personally, sometimes I get
39:30
into thinking about these issues.
39:32
I'm like, well, glad I don't have to decide on that one.
39:35
I'm going to head out to dinner now and think about something
39:38
else. But for the people out there who
39:41
are like, Oh my gosh, this, this is me right here.
39:46
Where do they, where do they start?
39:47
I mean, is it These body of knowledge articles can really
39:51
kick things off for them. I would love to see more
39:53
conversation about those articles in the ID Pro Slack.
39:57
So like I said, Hank listed some tools that are really useful, I
40:01
think. I think they both did, actually.
40:03
So there's a thing called the ethical canvas.
40:07
There's an approach that he describes and links to in the
40:12
paper about called. Guidance ethics, the guidance
40:16
ethics approach. And then Mike, as I mentioned,
40:19
he proposed a whole framework in there that that really
40:22
articulated I think four or five values like human well-being,
40:27
accountability, transparency, think privacy was in there.
40:31
Like he, he created a list and, and recommended a framework for
40:36
managing ethics in an, in an organization and specific to
40:40
digital identity technology. I don't know if that is going to
40:43
be like the be all and end all framework, but it's certainly
40:46
the beginning of a conversation. And I'd love to see identity
40:49
practitioners talking more about this in, in, in our community
40:54
and elsewhere. Because you know, identity when
40:57
you, when I think about it in my work, like at the at the UN and
41:02
and other places, identity is, it's sitting at the heart of how
41:07
people's rights are manifested, right.
41:09
How do you ensure that you get an education?
41:13
It does start with a foundational ID document.
41:16
How do you get access to healthcare?
41:17
There's going to be an identity check somewhere.
41:21
All of those rights in the either whether you want to think
41:24
about the Bill of Rights or whether you want to think about
41:26
the about international law. They, many of them depend upon
41:31
having access to an identity and an identity system that has been
41:34
provisioned and permission and and you can authenticate.
41:39
It's so important to these fundamental aspects to our
41:45
society. Identity is at the center.
41:48
Identity is totally at the center.
41:52
Very prescient, you guys. I'm going to have links in our
41:54
show notes for for these articles that you're mentioning
41:57
and you can find them on ID pro.org in the body of knowledge
42:00
section. But I'll have direct links to
42:01
those. I want to ask you around some of
42:05
these trade-offs maybe that people have to make because you
42:08
talk about having more conversation around ethics and
42:11
it can be a difficult conversation because there is
42:15
political ramifications, there's Geo ramifications, there's
42:18
personal ramifications when we start talking about this, right,
42:21
Everybody has a different moral compass and how they approach
42:25
ethics. A business's moral compass is
42:28
probably not the same and and may evolve or adapt or change
42:33
over time anyway. So having productive, fruitful,
42:37
respectful conversations or ethics can be difficult.
42:41
I'm curious if you've got any tips on like how to like start
42:44
that conversation. I think so.
42:53
I am never one to say that you can have a completely neutral or
42:58
unbiased take on things, but I think by being transparent and
43:02
at least bringing that stuff to the surface in as unemotional a
43:07
way as as one can, even though humans are made out of like
43:10
we're we're chemical beings, right?
43:13
Like emotions happen. So you can never be completely
43:17
emotionless in in these conversations.
43:19
It's impossible. But yeah, surfacing this stuff
43:22
in as in as neutral a way as possible is is ideal.
43:30
And that that means you do need to have a kind of a process, a
43:33
framework, A toolkit for doing so.
43:35
I think the the ethics canvas is a good place to start or Mike's
43:39
framework. But it means like exploring your
43:42
product or the end to end journey of using it in the
43:46
context of a few key questions like who is being who is at risk
43:51
of exclusion in this product, if it is fully dependent on a
43:55
device or the ability to this is an example that comes out of
44:00
Hank's paper, actually, the ability to use a swipe function
44:03
on a phone or if you're using a biometrics tool that you know,
44:08
has been trained on a certain demographic, like who, who is at
44:12
risk of exclusion here. We've seen that those tools
44:14
unintentionally have, you know, excluded folks with a darker
44:19
complexion at times. And that's a, a story that I, I
44:21
heard even in I was at most of connect in January and the
44:28
director general of the identity system in Uganda told a story of
44:32
how they implemented, they implemented an ID system and it
44:35
just hadn't been tested on their own community.
44:39
And people with darker complexions like the director
44:41
general herself were unable to get through the biometric checks
44:45
simply because the tuning was was off and they had to continue
44:48
to do more checks. So if they hadn't been through
44:50
that process, they wouldn't have uncovered that they were going
44:54
to be excluding a very large percentage of their population.
44:59
So highlighting the risks methodically and in ways that
45:05
are not necessarily value judgments, but that clearly
45:11
articulate the values that might be intention, and then having
45:15
those conversations is critically important.
45:20
So there's trade-offs that have to be made here, right?
45:22
Nothing is going to be like 100% redirection.
45:26
So how do you navigate those types of trade-offs?
45:28
And, and I want to make one comment too, before you answer
45:31
that question is because one of the things that I think could be
45:33
really powerful in a conversation is being able to
45:36
change your viewpoint. If you come in with a, you know,
45:40
an idea, a thought, a notion, whatever it may be, it's OK to
45:45
change your mind about something.
45:46
I do it all the time. If there's new facts, new
45:49
information, change my mind. That's fine, right?
45:52
But presented in a way that it is structured and not an attack.
45:56
Just for me personally, that works best.
45:58
But I think if more people were open to changing their minds and
46:01
not being on a burning bridge and having to feel like they
46:04
have to hang on to it for your life, you know that that is that
46:07
also goes a long way from a discussion standpoint.
46:09
Yeah. I mean, we're getting really
46:10
deep into like the soft skills territories here.
46:13
But you know, I long time ago, like I used to write about
46:18
inclusivity and the value of inclusivity.
46:20
And for me, inclusivity inside an organization and inclusivity
46:27
as a value is super important, especially in connection to like
46:34
the value also of, of critical thinking.
46:36
So inclusivity to make sure that you have a diverse range of
46:40
perspectives, A diverse range of thought and coupled with the
46:44
value of critical thinking and being able to have tough
46:48
conversations where different perspectives, different beliefs
46:52
are navigated. Like not not just creating
46:59
conflict for conflict's sake, but but surfacing productive
47:03
conflict and being able to, you know, manage through that.
47:07
That is where organizations are going to be achieving the the
47:09
strongest results because the worst decisions are the ones
47:13
where everybody just kind of agrees.
47:17
Like you don't want group think that's that's that's where
47:21
terrible things can happen. Yeah, that's where terrible
47:26
things can happen if no one is challenging the status quo,
47:28
challenging the leader. So we're we're very much in the
47:32
territory of, of soft skills here, but these conversations
47:36
really do depend on having inclusivity of thought,
47:40
inclusivity of perspective, diverse perspectives and and a
47:44
willingness to to navigate critical sorry, excuse me
47:50
conflict and welcome it. Maybe maybe I need to Do I need
47:58
to re say that? No, no, no, definitely not.
48:03
One thing I was going to say is like, I really love what Jeff
48:06
said about you've got to go into things with an open mind because
48:11
you think about it, if two people are having a debate about
48:14
something, it's table stakes, right?
48:18
If I'm, we have an equal chance of convincing the other party
48:23
that they should think like we think, right?
48:27
And you can't expect that from somebody unless they're willing
48:30
to also say, hey, if you've got, if you make a better case,
48:35
you're going to change my mind. Now, I think sometimes there
48:38
could be the imbalance of, OK, you are a lawyer and we're
48:43
talking about the way things should be and you're really good
48:45
at making arguments and stuff. And I'm not as good.
48:49
So, but put that aside. I think Jeff's point was great
48:54
as far as this topic of ethics, going back to it, what I've been
48:59
sitting here thinking about is I think the classic debate, and I
49:06
think it applies to identity because I, I really feel like
49:09
the battleground is between privacy and the right to privacy
49:15
and the right to safety, right? What's where does the value
49:20
belong? Is it my right to privacy or is
49:23
it your right to safety? Now, should I be able to get
49:28
onto an airplane without being checked?
49:31
I think we've all as a society accepted the fact that we're
49:35
going to allow ourselves to be scanned.
49:38
We're going to show in that a government ID.
49:41
And that's because we value the safety of getting on an airplane
49:45
and, you know that you're not carrying a weapon or a bomb or
49:49
something like that. But then there are other areas
49:53
where it's like, OK, well, should private companies be able
49:58
to just inspect our phone logs? Because maybe they provide some
50:03
privacy service where they're going to say, hey, we're going
50:06
to identify people who are potentially calling their drug
50:10
dealer, and then we're going to turn that over to the police.
50:13
So that's the value that we provide.
50:14
And I think it's the society. You said like, no, we don't, we
50:18
don't want those kind of things to happen, right?
50:21
And whether you think we should or not, I think that, you know,
50:25
the, there's probably a large percentage of people who say
50:28
that's where privacy wins, right?
50:29
We don't want private companies going through phone logs and and
50:33
doing those kind of like analytics and figuring out what
50:37
they think they can figure out. Yeah, I think there's definitely
50:41
there's, there's often a tension between privacy and safety and
50:46
public safety or safety against like identity theft, fraud,
50:55
children's safety is what I mentioned earlier.
50:56
There's, there's often a tension there.
50:58
But I but two things. Number one, it's you're right to
51:03
say it's probably context dependent in a lot of cases and
51:06
we should figure out which spaces require regulation or
51:10
legislation to at least help. And then the second point is
51:15
like, aren't we close to having that be a false choice?
51:22
Don't we have technologies in a lot of contexts where we could
51:26
actually keep children safe and also keep our privacy intact?
51:33
Things like 0 knowledge proofs, pass keys, selective disclosure
51:39
don't. In some contexts, I think that
51:41
this could be a false choice, and if we're writing regulation
51:45
and legislation correctly, maybe we are not taking privacy away
51:51
in service to child protection, for example, There are probably
51:56
ways of threading the needle such that it's not such a
51:59
binary, although not in, not in, not in all cases.
52:04
I think, I think there are certain touch points when you're
52:07
talking about something like child safety.
52:08
It's like child safety wins. I don't want to hear anything
52:11
else. And so that I think that is a
52:15
lot of times where it comes back to.
52:16
But I mean, I was thinking of a scenario where it's like, well,
52:20
hey, should you have the right to know where, you know, former
52:25
felons or former like even like go beyond felony like former
52:29
murderers and other people live in your neighborhood, Like, oh,
52:36
you know, if, if they're going to have a hard time living
52:39
anywhere then. That's true.
52:42
And we have systems like that today, right?
52:44
But, but should we do these? These are all really valuable
52:47
conversations. One of the, one of the panels I
52:50
sat on at Identity Week, USAA few weeks ago, not weeks, excuse
52:54
me, years ago, was it was about ethics.
52:59
And it was, it was, it was very strange because I had just come
53:03
from IIW and those have very different communities and very
53:06
different perspectives on display.
53:08
But one of the things that was said on this panel was that each
53:12
police force could be making its own decisions about ethics in
53:18
the context of biometric technology and its use in
53:22
policing. I'm not so sure that I'm cool
53:26
with every police force having a completely different framework
53:29
defined at that local level, right?
53:32
Like, do we not want to create state level or a national level
53:39
ethical frameworks for how we use some of the most powerful
53:43
technologies for identifying and tracking people?
53:48
Yeah, I, I don't want to get too political with it, but what I
53:51
think you're hitting on is it is the question.
53:54
It is, do we have a consistent approach to something?
53:59
And when we have variations is when we typically run to the
54:02
most problems. Because if it's not consistently
54:04
enforced, then it becomes, well, why can why can Jim do that and
54:08
Jeff can't? Because the rules weren't
54:10
consistently enforced or we didn't even agree on what the
54:13
rules were before or whatever. The ethics of the, you know, the
54:15
moral decisions that we're making on it.
54:17
And I think this extends into the identity world, right?
54:19
Most of the things that we've been talking about are not
54:22
technology problems. They are people in process
54:25
things, which highlights just how encompassing identity is.
54:29
It is not just technology. We absolutely have the things
54:32
that we can do to say, hey, I need to get into this bar, but
54:35
in the USI need to demonstrate that I'm 21 years old.
54:38
The way we have all done it for all time, as far as I'm aware
54:42
of, is we show them our full driver's license or some other
54:46
ID that has not only our birth date on it, which now the person
54:50
checking it has to do math to say, OK, is this person 21 or
54:53
older, but it also has a whole bunch of other pieces of
54:55
information that the person does not need to know.
54:59
And so that's just we've accepted it as a society, at
55:02
least in the US, this is how we're going to do it.
55:04
It's not a technology problem. There are absolute ways to do
55:06
it, but it becomes a problem when this thing cost more money
55:10
to do it in a way that's more secure.
55:12
So now we're making trade-offs between budget and risk and
55:16
privacy. And these are real ethical
55:18
decisions and discussions that need to take place for identity
55:22
systems. I think people think ethics and
55:24
they think probably like, you know, big moral decisions of
55:27
like, you know, which train track do I do?
55:29
I put the train onto right. Is it, do you, do you push the
55:33
Batman? That's that's one of the levels.
55:35
Do you? It'll slow the train.
55:37
Theoretically, the physicist and scientist in me, that which I am
55:40
neither of those will tell me, well, that'll slow the train
55:42
down faster and prevent less carnage, you know, down the
55:45
road. Morbid, but I don't know why I
55:47
went there. But there are so many different
55:50
ways to answer these questions. And that's why I think having
55:52
the discussion, it will be uncomfortable.
55:56
It is by design going to be an uncomfortable decision or
55:59
discussion. But we have to be able to have
56:01
these discussions and come at it from an approach to say, hey,
56:04
here's why I'm thinking, here's my viewpoint.
56:07
Here's what you're thinking, Here's your viewpoint.
56:09
Let's try to figure this out together.
56:11
And sometimes, you know, one, one person or one group might
56:15
storm off One Direction. OK, let's come back and let's
56:17
have a conversation, right. And and these are not easy
56:19
things, but that's that is the nature of some of these
56:23
decisions that are being made in the real world.
56:25
Yeah. How do we look?
56:27
It's happening all over the world, right?
56:29
For be able to either vote or to do a certain activity or
56:33
whatever it may be, right? I think everyone was probably
56:36
familiar with COVID several years ago showing your vaccine
56:39
status, like, OK, like what is going on here?
56:41
And there wasn't a consistency around it.
56:43
We saw that play on real time. Again, I don't want to make it
56:46
super political, but I think this is another area where
56:48
people have to be willing to have the conversation.
56:52
Obviously be respectful, but also be open to changing your
56:55
mind. You can be wrong, and that is
56:58
OK. Yeah.
56:59
It is OK to get smarter. It is OK to change viewpoints,
57:02
especially when you're faced with facts and things that we
57:05
try to agree on as a as a society. 2 + 2 is 4.
57:08
Somebody out there listening is like, no, it's not, Jeff, you're
57:10
crazy. It's like OK.
57:12
Tell me why I'm wrong. Yeah, so I, I, I guess I don't
57:17
want to get too much of my soapbox.
57:18
And I know we're probably going to run a little bit longer
57:20
today, but I think this is such a fascinating and interesting
57:23
topic that people for whatever reason, tend to shy away from.
57:28
They're not willing to have that conversation.
57:29
Here we are doing it in front of millions of people around the
57:32
world on the, you know, world famous Identity Center podcast.
57:35
Look, we're just three people having a conversation.
57:38
I won't say I'm an expert on anything.
57:39
All I'm going to do is share my viewpoint on it, change my mind,
57:42
present me with information. And I'm happy to take that into
57:44
account and create a new equation and come up with
57:47
potentially a different, you know, viewpoint on it.
57:50
So I I just wish more people would approach it from that
57:52
perspective. Me too all.
57:56
Right, I I guess I win. So there you go, Jim.
58:01
What do you think? I, I think you're right on, man.
58:04
And you know, I did want to just point something out because I'm
58:08
sitting here having a moment. I'm like, you know, we go into
58:13
preparation for episodes and I, I thought this would be the case
58:17
with Elizabeth because she's a deep thinker.
58:21
We come up with like, what do we have 6 questions?
58:24
Well, I think we have to question 3.
58:26
And then we just dove into this topic and we're pretty much out
58:29
of time. I mean, we're almost an hour
58:32
and, but these are the best episodes because we just dive
58:37
in. We let it go.
58:40
So we have the next three question next time you come on
58:42
Elizabeth. We've already got the first
58:44
three questions right now. Well, I'm going to take one of
58:49
those now because I do want to have Elizabeth talk real quickly
58:51
about we're going to see you at EIC.
58:53
So I'm looking forward to seeing you there.
58:55
You're going to give a talk there.
58:55
You're also going to be a talk Identiverse.
58:57
We'll see you there as well and hopefully be standing in the
58:59
same circles again. Tell us a little bit about EIC
59:02
and Identiverse and kind of what you're how you're approaching
59:04
both of those and and maybe give it just a high level teaser of
59:06
what you're going to be talking about.
59:08
Yeah. So at EIC, I have a keynote that
59:12
I'm looking forward to. It's going to be exploring some
59:16
of these themes and in the context of some of the
59:19
geopolitical changes that we have.
59:21
It's called identity for a changing United States.
59:25
My talk at Identiverse is also on a similar subject.
59:30
It's called Lies, Damn Lies and privacy.
59:32
And it's going to be looking at similar topics, but particularly
59:37
in the context of, of privacy and the the tensions therein
59:41
and, and ways in which we give up our privacy and ways in which
59:45
we could be protecting it or rethinking what it means.
59:49
Tension and privacy? No way.
59:51
Not at all. Well, like Jim said, we're kind
59:55
of at an hour already, but I want to, I still want to end on
59:58
a lighter note because we got kind of heavy here for a little
1:00:00
bit and I think that's fine, right?
1:00:01
We need to have those conversations.
1:00:02
But you and I were talking as we were getting kind of prepped up
1:00:06
for the show and for the many questions we never got to.
1:00:08
We just kind of dove into things you had talked about.
1:00:12
Well, I kind of said like you, you do a lot of things for fun,
1:00:14
right? And I said kind of like your
1:00:15
hobby is collecting hobbies. But the one that I I honed in on
1:00:19
was improv comedy. And then he also told me he had
1:00:22
like an improv tragedy story. And you're like, I have to ask
1:00:27
you like, what is improv tragedy story mean?
1:00:30
And tell me. Tell me what this is about.
1:00:32
So I have this Co founder colleague.
1:00:35
He is a tech bro slash VC type and I can't imagine he had ever
1:00:42
done stand up comedy or improv. And I don't think he he
1:00:45
certainly never claimed to. We were in New York City, which
1:00:49
is a place where you can always reliably find fantastic comedy.
1:00:55
And he was going through some stuff like he had, he had some
1:00:57
bad stuff going on in his life. And I thought, I'm going to
1:01:01
bring him to comedy. I'm going to be a good friend to
1:01:03
him. I'm going to bring him out to
1:01:04
the comedy show. So I found one and it was called
1:01:06
something like Deep Dark Moments.
1:01:09
Or something. And my assumption as an
1:01:11
improviser was that there was going to be a typical structure
1:01:17
would be someone coming up telling a story and then 5 or 6
1:01:21
people coming and re enacting it and turning it into a
1:01:23
delightful, joyful, hilarious comedy show.
1:01:27
But what we actually encountered as we sat down him depressed
1:01:30
tech bro. What we had encountered was a
1:01:35
chair. Dark lights and people coming up
1:01:38
1 by 1 to just tell really sad stories.
1:01:42
Really sad stories about death, lost love.
1:01:46
And that was the improv show that was going to happen, people
1:01:48
sharing their woe. From the audience coming up and
1:01:52
saying I'm sad, here's why I'm sad.
1:01:55
So did. Your friend get up there or just
1:01:57
kind of like, Oh my. Gosh, he did not.
1:01:59
He said. He turned to me at the end and
1:02:01
said I said I'm so sorry. And he said, thankfully,
1:02:05
Elizabeth, you'll find I have a deep appreciation for the arts.
1:02:11
Well, there's some. There's what?
1:02:12
You know, misery loves company. Maybe there's some of that that
1:02:15
could have gone wrong there. Well, sometimes you hear other
1:02:18
people's like, horrible stories and you're like, OK, I guess I
1:02:20
don't have that bad. Yeah, yeah.
1:02:28
That's the that's the optimistic way to look at it.
1:02:31
Yeah. Which is a strange position,
1:02:33
Jim, for you to be in. Like usually you're the you're
1:02:34
the pessimist one on the show. I know, but I what can I say?
1:02:39
You can change. No, well, I have, it's just
1:02:42
we're talking about hobbies. I was going to complain.
1:02:46
Hobbies are so damn expensive. And I think it's because when
1:02:51
you work like we all work and probably most of our listeners
1:02:55
work, you have like this much time to enjoy your hobby.
1:02:58
So it's like, oh, I have to have the best wine or I'm going to
1:03:02
golf. I have to have the best clubs.
1:03:04
So everything becomes more expensive.
1:03:07
If you're retired, you go around to the thrift store and try to
1:03:10
find a bargain set of clubs and you get a tee time when it's the
1:03:15
least expensive. But probably my biggest hobby
1:03:20
right now is traveling and I will talk about you.
1:03:27
My improv hobby has turned into an income stream for me because
1:03:31
I am now a regular in the murder mystery dinner theater scene and
1:03:35
so I get paid to do improv and I get tips I made.
1:03:41
I made $60.00 in tips the other night.
1:03:44
Hey, you could get a what tank of gas now?
1:03:47
I'm not sure how much you're taking.
1:03:48
I'm an easy. Person but I usually buy like
1:03:50
2/3 of a breakfast for my family.
1:03:55
Well, hey, look, you know this podcast, right?
1:03:57
This, this has become my hobby for the last almost seven years.
1:04:00
And talk about expensive, expensive hobby.
1:04:02
But yeah, I mean, I, I like the improv stuff because I, I love
1:04:07
stand up comedy and I love sort of that vibe and scene.
1:04:10
I am not brave enough to get up there.
1:04:12
I don't think I'm funny enough to be a stand up comedian or
1:04:15
even an improv person. But Elizabeth, you mentioned try
1:04:19
to do this in Berlin. I'm in.
1:04:22
If you want to try something and and I told you like I'm the kind
1:04:25
of person that you have to like drag me along and then I'll have
1:04:28
a good time. But I won't go do it by myself.
1:04:30
OK, if that makes sense. Well, we're going to go to a
1:04:32
show in Berlin and then if there's a jam that that's.
1:04:38
A what? A jam, An improv jam.
1:04:39
That's where people from the audience can participate.
1:04:42
You don't have to. I won't force you, but I think
1:04:44
you should do a level one class at some point.
1:04:47
OK, I have so I have been on stage.
1:04:49
I did tell a story of my restaurant days and I look, this
1:04:53
is, look, we're going to go along here by a couple minutes.
1:04:55
But I did tell a story of my restaurant days, you know, being
1:05:00
a server at AI would say large U.S.
1:05:03
National food chain and a particular item that I served
1:05:08
and kind of told a story about that on stage in San Francisco
1:05:11
at an RSA conference, I want to say a couple years ago, many
1:05:14
years ago at this point. And so, you know, it was, it was
1:05:19
interesting to get up there and to talk about it and kind of
1:05:23
share the story. It's a, for me, it's a funny
1:05:25
story, but it you kind of have to be in the food service
1:05:27
business to kind of get it to some degree.
1:05:30
And so there's a lot of that sort of like inside humor that I
1:05:33
tend to gravitate towards you. Does that make sense?
1:05:35
Yeah. Makes a lot of sense.
1:05:38
I bet there's. My improv experiences I used to
1:05:41
do a lot of crank calling when I was a kid all.
1:05:46
Right. What was your call like?
1:05:48
You know, is your refrigerator running?
1:05:49
Like, what are we? Talking about no, no, we would.
1:05:53
It's like very random, but there was one that I think is a great
1:05:56
story. So there was a pizza place in my
1:06:00
college called Sugar Bowl. And when they would show up at
1:06:05
the dorm room, at the dorm hall, they would call you and say
1:06:08
Sugar Bowl in the lobby and then they'd hang up on you.
1:06:12
And so I called one of the guys who was in a room down the hall,
1:06:17
Sugar Bowl in the lobby, hung up on them, waited a few more
1:06:21
minutes, Call him back. I'm like Sugar Bowl in the
1:06:24
lobby. He's like, I didn't order Sugar
1:06:26
Bowl. I hung up, waited about a minute
1:06:29
or two and that bag, nose door, the Sugar Bowl, Sugar Bowl, and
1:06:35
I'm saying we're all standing there like cracking up.
1:06:38
It's kind of fun. This reminds me of a scene from
1:06:41
Super Troopers where it's the the guy gets pulled over in the
1:06:43
very beginning is he's pulled over.
1:06:44
He can't pull over any further. He's pulled over.
1:06:48
So I feel like this would be a good.
1:06:51
So there's a the way that a lot of improv shows work is someone
1:06:54
comes up and does a monologue and tells a story from their
1:06:57
life like this one, and then that leads to people reenacting
1:07:01
it and taking it in all sorts of different directions.
1:07:04
And I feel like Sugar Bowl in the lobby could be incredible
1:07:09
fodder for. Yeah.
1:07:10
Great fodder. For now, I know what Jim's
1:07:12
password is. It's clearly Sugar Bowl in the
1:07:14
lobby and Jim's got to change his password.
1:07:17
How to rotate that password man? All right, let's go ahead and
1:07:21
wrap this up. Elizabeth.
1:07:22
We went long, but I'm fine with it.
1:07:24
I thought it was a fascinating conversation.
1:07:26
We laughed. We we cried.
1:07:28
We commiserated. We.
1:07:30
I'm not sure what else we did. We.
1:07:32
We. Rambled.
1:07:32
I rambled. We pondered, yeah, we rambled
1:07:35
all kinds of different stuff, but it was a fun conversation.
1:07:39
Let's see what else plugs. Let's talk about your LinkedIn
1:07:42
connection information being in our show notes so people can
1:07:45
reach out to you with questions. Hopefully we'll have discount
1:07:49
information for ID Pro for new members joining in.
1:07:52
If you're already a member probably doesn't apply to you,
1:07:54
but let's get the word out. Let's get some new members and
1:07:56
and get them a discount to to join on their first year.
1:08:00
Find us on LinkedIn as well. Jim and I were always looking
1:08:02
for comments and feedback on how things are going out there and
1:08:07
what else. Discount codes for the
1:08:08
conferences are also on our homepage idscpodcast.com.
1:08:12
Like and subscribe post in the Slack channel for ID Pro and
1:08:18
yeah, we'll leave it there for this week.
1:08:20
Elizabeth, thank you so much for joining us.
1:08:22
Jim, change your password and we'll leave it there for this
1:08:25
week. Thanks everyone for watching and
1:08:27
or listening and we'll talk with you all the next one.
1:08:31
You've been listening to Identity at the Center.
1:08:35
We hope you've enjoyed the show. Make sure to like, rate and
1:08:39
review, and we'll be back soon. But in the meantime, hit the
1:08:42
website at Identity at the Center dot.
1:08:45
Com. See you next time on Identity at
1:08:50
the Center.