The World Wide Web Consortium has published a new Working Draft of Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) v1.1, an update that tightens the way DID documents express cryptographic keys and verification methods a change with practical consequences for digital wallets and machine-to-machine identity.
DIDs are designed to function as persistent identifiers that can be resolved by any party without a central issuing authority. In practice, a DID document tells a verifier what public keys or verification methods to use when checking signatures or authorizations for a given identifier. The v1.1 draft focuses on clarifying those expressions so different implementations can interpret the same DID document in a consistent way.
That consistency matters as wallet ecosystems scale. Credential formats such as W3C Verifiable Credentials and ISO mobile driving licence profiles increasingly rely on a common set of identity plumbing to ensure a verifier can trust that a credential presentation was authorized by the right controller. If DID documents represent cryptographic material inconsistently, wallet interoperability turns into a series of edge cases and vendor-specific assumptions.
The draft also lands amid growing attention to agentic systems. As more services experiment with autonomous software agents, a recurring requirement is the ability to prove identity and authorization without a human in the loop. DIDs and DID-based key material provide one way to represent that control relationship at a protocol level, which is why the drafts focus on verification methods is being watched beyond the traditional SSI community.
The DID work sits alongside other W3C identity initiatives, including the Digital Credentials API, which aims to bring credential presentation flows closer to browsers and operating systems. Together, these efforts point to an identity layer where credentials can be issued and presented across devices and services with less bespoke integration.
Working Drafts are not final standards, and the DID v1.1 document may change before it advances further along the W3C track. Still, the publication signals continued momentum on specifications that many wallet implementers treat as foundational.
Sources: W3C
By the Mobile ID World Editorial Team
