Digital Identity Wallet Project in Taiwan: Entering the Second Year

Denken Chen

TPAC 2025
Kobe, Japan & online
10–14 November 2025

This is a follow-up of previous talks:

Taiwan Digital Identity Wallet (W3C CCG) (slides, minutes)
Digital Wallet Project in Taiwan (TPAC 2024) (slides)

See details on the Notes below.

Digital Identity Wallet Project

Ministry of Digital Affairs (moda)

Established in 2022.
Early research on Decentralized Identifier (DID) and more (press)
Early proof of concept: tw-did

Audrey Tang served as the first minister of moda. Yennun Huang followed. Current minister is Yi-Jing Lin.

Details of tw-did can be found on this slide.

Opinions are on my own.

Digital Identity Wallet Project

2024 - 2027

Building with Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) (Identity & the Web).
Including system development, service design, regulatory alignment, and more.

This presentation is based on collaborative effort.

Four-year plan: Digital Innovation Key Infrastructure Project
Budget for the first phase:
- System development: 199,966,400 TWD ≈ 6.45 million USD (source)
- Service design and regulatory alignment: 21,000,000 TWD ≈ 0.68 million USD (source)
- Also including Independent Verification and Validation Service (source), Project Management Office (source), and Think Tank (source).

Fun facts:

The product name in zh-tw "數位憑證皮夾" actually means "digital credential wallet".
"Decentralized Identifier" was translated as "分散式識別符", actually means "Distributed Identifier".

International Efforts

Attended

W3C TPAC (2025, 2024, 2023)
Verifiable Credentials Workshop in Japan (2025, website), hosted by WCAP (Web Consortium Asia Pacific) and ETDA (Electronic Transactions Development Agency)
MOSIP (Modular Open Source Identity Platform) Connect: Philippines (2025)
SIDI (Sustainable and Interoperable Digital Identity) Hub: Tokyo Summit (2024)
California Department of Motor Vehicles: community hackathon (2024)

International Efforts

Hosted

Verifiable Credentials Workshop in Taiwan (2025, press, website)
Digital Identity Wallet International Forum (2025, press, website)
Digital Wallet International Forum (2024, press, website)

Taiwan Digital Identity Wallet (TWDIW) is...

NOT new eID
NOT serving for digital signature (similiar to qualified electronic signature)

Official website: wallet.gov.tw

Suspended new eID rollout in 2021 (source).

Similar to the rejected Swiss e-ID 1.0 (video on GC25). The Swiss e-ID 2.0 was approved on 9/28, with 50.39% Yes.

Apply to join the trust list as early as next year.

Mostly aligned with Architecture and Reference Framework of European Digital Identity.

Taiwan Digital Identity Wallet (TWDIW)

Adopted W3C Standards

Verifiable Credentials Data Model v1.1
Decentralized Identifiers v1.0

Public Money, Public Code

Basically, all software will be open source.
Third-party software for issuer, holder, verifier is possible (technically).

DID Method

did:key
NIST P-256 elliptic curve keys

TWDIW App

Use secure enclave/element on the mobile phone
Private key is non-exportable
No wallet agent or holder service

The TWDIW app works like "non-custodial wallet".

Selective Disclosure

Currently, IETF SD-JWT format from issuer

Zero-Knowledge Proof (early research)

Aim to generate the proof on the phone
POC from zkID team of Privacy Stewards of Ethereum, based on TWDIW's sandbox/testing environment: Circom validation of JWT ES256 tokens
Aligned with high-level requirements of EU Age Verification

For some technical details, see my note on zkp.

Trust List

Served with API, currently maintained by moda
Deployed on Arbitrum Sepolia Testnet
List of trusted issuers, verifiers, and possibly wallets

Trust Model

Trust begins with TWDIW official app and its trust list.

For some technical details, see my note on twdiw.

Latest news on 10/13: Bhutan Adopts Ethereum for National Identity: A New Chapter in Digital Sovereignty

Assurance Level of Verifiable Credentials

Aligning issuer assurance with verifier needs (early research)

ISO/IEC 29115	NIST SP 800-63	eIDAS Article 8
LoA 4	IAL 3	High
LoA 3	IAL 2	Substantial
LoA 2	IAL 1	Low
LoA 1

Join discusson on https://github.com/w3c/vc-confidence-method/issues/16

Some countries have adopted ISO mDL (ISO/IEC 18013-5). A possible approach is to support verification for both data models.

IETF SD-JWT can be challenging (and unnecessary) to use for further ZKP generation. See [MINUTES] CCG Atlantic Weekly 2025-10-14 and search for the keyword "SD jot".

Challenges (2/2)

Motivation or business model for issuer

Cost of serving revocation lists via polling
Real-time checking vs Phone-home issue

Who hosts the trust list?

Standards: OpenID Federation, W3C Verifiable Issuers and Verifiers, ...
Real-time checking vs Phone-home issue

For phone-home issue, refer to this post by Decentralized Identity Foundation and nophonehome.com.

For discussions on the phone-home issue in the OpenID Federation specification, refer to [MINUTES] CCG Incubation and Promotion 2025-08-06.

Try our sandbox/testing enviroment

Launched on 3/31 (press) and will remain available
Easy onboarding (live demo): https://demo.wallet.gov.tw
Send us your feedback: service@wallet.gov.tw

Questions?

International collaboration will help us move forward together!

Digital Identity Wallet Project in Taiwan: Entering the Second Year

Digital Identity Wallet Project

Ministry of Digital Affairs (moda)

Digital Identity Wallet Project

2024 - 2027

International Efforts

Attended

International Efforts

Hosted

Taiwan Digital Identity Wallet (TWDIW) is...

Rollout Phrase

Selected Pilot Scenarios

Open Source

Taiwan Digital Identity Wallet (TWDIW)

Adopted W3C Standards

Public Money, Public Code

DID Method

TWDIW App

Selective Disclosure

Zero-Knowledge Proof (early research)

Trust List

Trust Model

Assurance Level of Verifiable Credentials

Aligning issuer assurance with verifier needs (early research)

Challenges (1/2)

Challenges (2/2)

Motivation or business model for issuer

Who hosts the trust list?

Try our sandbox/testing enviroment

Questions?