Insights
•
May 30, 2025
Each month, we sit down with a leading voice in the identity space to explore how emerging standards, technologies and partnerships are transforming the future of digital trust. This month, we spoke with Ankur Banerjee, CTO and Co-founder of Cheqd, and co-chair at the Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF).
In this wide-ranging conversation, Ankur dives into how decentralized identity standards, content authenticity and AI-powered agents are set to transform the way identity and trust function across the internet.
Ankur, can you tell us about your background and what led you into the digital identity space?
My journey into the identity space began around 2016, working across traditional systems — from fraud detection in banks to building centralized ID solutions like e-passport gates for governments. But everything shifted during the Syrian refugee crisis. As people crossed multiple borders, it became clear there was no secure, privacy-respecting way to track identity across jurisdictions. That gap sparked the creation of ID2020 — a pilot initiative led by Microsoft, Accenture and UNHCR, aimed at providing refugees with portable, private digital IDs on their phones. And I had the opportunity to be directly involved in that project.
“It was one of the first modern refugee crises that required something beyond a central database — and that’s where decentralized identity offered a real solution.”
That experience showed me how decentralized identity could empower individuals while protecting their privacy. Since then, I’ve focused my work on building identity systems that are user-controlled, portable and privacy-first. Now, almost a decade later, I’m the CTO and co-founder of Cheqd, and I’m actively involved in the Decentralized Identity Foundation — where I serve as a co-chair of the Technical Steering Committee and a member of the Steering Committee.
That experience showed me how decentralized identity could empower individuals while protecting their privacy. Since then, I’ve focused my work on building identity systems that are user-controlled, portable and privacy-first. Now, almost a decade later, I’m the CTO and co-founder of Cheqd, as well as a co-chair of the Technical Steering Committee, and a member of the Steering Committee at the Decentralized Identity Foundation.
Inside DIF: Building the foundations for a decentralized identity future
At DIF, you’re leading efforts to advance decentralized identity standards. For those unfamiliar, what exactly does DIF do — and why is its work so critical right now?
The Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF) describes itself as an engineering-focused standards organization that builds open-source foundations for a truly decentralized internet — one where people, not big tech platforms, control their own identity. It brings together a global community of companies and individual contributors to create the standards, specifications and software needed for decentralized identity systems to interoperate.
“DIF builds the roads, bridges, and traffic signs of decentralized identity — ensuring all pieces can interoperate and scale.”
Beyond core tech, DIF tackles industry-specific challenges, such as those in hospitality and international travel, getting all the right stakeholders at the table. It also plays a role in driving innovation, helping push the boundaries of what’s possible — from cryptography to new use cases.
DIF also launched DIF Labs, an incubator program which you co-chair. What kinds of builders and projects are coming through this incubator?
DIF Labs, launched in 2024, is designed to support people who are new to the decentralized identity and those who may not yet have access to the mentorship and guidance more seasoned contributors have. It is a 12-week incubator where projects get intense coaching — not just technical, but also business-focused — depending on the goals they set when applying.
The first cohort ran from November 2024 to February 2025 and included three diverse projects:
Linked Trust, helping NGOs in Latin America, Africa and Asia verify fieldwork and build networks of trust using decentralized ID.
A personhood credentials project tackling the challenge of proving you’re a real human online, which is getting harder with AI bots.
A project building a decentralized identity method on Bitcoin ordinals, focusing on deep technical innovation.
We’ve opened applications for the next cohort and are seeing the same diversity — from very technical teams seeking spec guidance, to early-stage product builders looking for help with market fit and fundraising.
For me personally, it’s about giving back and sharing the kind of support I had when I started.
Proving what’s real: Content credentials and provenance in the age of AI
DIF has also been involved in projects like Content Credentials, which aim to tackle issues of digital authenticity. What is this initiative about, and how does it empower creators to assert ownership over their content?
Digital Identity applies to people, companies but also content. Content Credentials is a joint effort between DIF and C2PA (Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity), with the goal to bring transparency and trust to digital content in an age of AI-generated media and deepfakes. As generative AI reshapes media creation, it’s harder to verify what’s real, what’s edited and what’s synthetic. Content Credentials address this by attaching a tamper-proof digital credential to content — images, videos, audio — that records its origins, edit history and whether AI tools were used. Rather than labeling content as “real” or “fake,” it simply shows how it was made and by whom.
DIF supports this effort through the Creator Assertions Working Group, which takes the initiative further by giving creators tools to:
Assert authorship over their original work
Request attribution when their content is reused
Opt out of inclusion in AI training datasets
Approve the use of their likeness in authorized AI-generated content
Therefore, Content Credentials help any type of creator retain control, get credit and protect their work — all while giving audiences the context they need to trust what they see.
From friction to value: Realizing the business benefits of decentralization
The value of decentralized identity extends well beyond content — it addresses real business challenges. From reducing fraud to cutting verification costs, its benefits are practical and immediate. Why should organizations care about decentralized identity now, rather than waiting for the market to mature further?
In my view, the strongest business case for decentralized identity is data portability. Right now, the way we share information is inefficient: you take pictures or scans of your credentials and email them around. It’s slow, manual and prone to errors. What decentralized identity offers is a digital version of credentials, something you can carry with you and share instantly. More importantly, whoever receives it can verify in milliseconds if the data has been tampered with or not. That kind of speed and integrity reduces operational costs and cuts out the need for humans to manually review documents.
This is even more critical now, in the age of generative AI, where anyone can produce incredibly realistic fake documents in seconds. So it’s not just about decentralization or identity — it’s about efficiency, security and future-proofing how we manage and trust information.
We’re also seeing growing interest in new identity verification methods — like eIDs or wallet integrations — particularly under regulatory frameworks like eIDAS in Europe. But many organizations haven’t made concrete moves yet. Why do you think that hesitation exists, and what might be the key triggers for broader adoption?
A few years ago, the challenge was really the technology itself. Now, it’s also about mindset and business models. One big blocker is figuring out how value gets exchanged. If a company issues or verifies a credential, do they get paid? In many cases, the user benefits by onboarding faster or with fewer steps, but the business is left asking: why should we invest first just to make it easier for someone to leave?
The other barrier is trust. With governments, it’s straightforward. In the private sector, who decides which credentials are trustworthy? That’s a business problem that shows up technically, and some companies are now solving it with decentralized trust registries.
At a broader level, companies have started to realize what happens when you cede too much control to big platforms. With regulations like GDPR and antitrust actions ramping up, big players like Apple and Google are beginning to engage, trying to disrupt themselves before regulators do. That shift might finally accelerate the momentum and move things forward.
Looking Ahead: Building the foundation for autonomous AI agents
With the foundations of decentralized identity taking hold, the focus is now shifting toward what’s next. Looking ahead, what’s your vision for where digital identity is going and the work you’re doing?
So my vision for the next three or four years is to see users move freely between online services with portable digital credentials — not just to access government services faster, but to navigate the internet with true flexibility and personalization. Imagine landing on a website and having it instantly tailored to your preferences because you’ve shared just the right credentials securely. That’s the level of portability and user control that I am hoping for.
