#413 - Standards, AI Agents, and the Digital Estate with Heather Flanagan

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