Proof of Personhood: Biometrics, Social Trust and Dual Agent Systems

Working Group(s) IAM, Key Management & Privacy (IKP)
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Proof of Personhood: Biometrics, Social Trust and Dual Agent Systems

New Working Group Item - IAM, Key Management and Privacy WG

We’re excited to share a new working group item exploring proof of personhood verification in the age of AI agents.

The Challenge

How do we preserve human personhood when humans legitimately operate through AI agents? An AI agent acting on behalf of a human isn’t a sybil attack—it’s augmented human agency. Yet existing proof of personhood systems struggle with this reality.

What We’re Exploring

  • Biometric vs. Social Proof Systems: Evaluating the tensions between privacy, accessibility, security, and decentralization

  • Agent Duality: Verifying humans behind agents without compromising privacy or preventing legitimate delegation

  • Standards Development: Creating frameworks for evaluation, interoperability, and implementation

Contributing Organizations

World ID and agentprivacy are already contributing their expertise in biometric verification and privacy-preserving agent systems.

Cross-WG Collaboration Invited

This topic intersects with:

  • FASE (Financial and Social Economies) - sybil resistance in economic mechanisms

  • CYBER (Information Security and Threats) - security assessment and threat modeling

  • AI Agent Hack WG - agent coordination and delegation protocols

  • Legal & Regulatory - compliance frameworks

  • Governance - democratic participation mechanisms

Three-Pillar Approach

  1. Comprehensive Evaluation Framework - Multi-dimensional assessment criteria covering privacy, sybil resistance, accessibility, decentralization, user sovereignty, and agent accommodation

  2. Educational Resources - Guides, workshops, and comparison tools for diverse stakeholders

  3. Technical & Governance Standards - Identity verification, privacy, accessibility, and interoperability standards

Get Involved

We welcome contributions from anyone interested in advancing proof of personhood standards. Whether you’re building systems, researching approaches, or implementing governance mechanisms, your perspective matters.

Editor: Mitchell Travers
Contributors: World ID, agentprivacy, Soulbis

:page_facing_up: BGIN SR 0014_Proof of Personhood: Biometrics, Systems + Agent Duality as Personhood Preservation Mechanism - Google Docs

Join us in figuring this out.