Rethinking Digital Identity, Credentials, and Trust

The public conversation around digital identity often assumes that wallets are the solution — as if choosing the “right” wallet will somehow resolve issues of trust, governance, and security.

In reality, wallets are not identity systems. They are containers for credentials, and those credentials vary radically in assurance, accountability, and risk.

In this episode, Steve Atkins is joined by Dr. Neil Garner, Chief Strategy Officer at Dot Origin, former CEO of Proxama and Thyngs, and one of the earliest architects of mobile wallet infrastructure in Europe.

Drawing on two decades of experience across payments, retail platforms, loyalty systems, and digital engagement, Neil explains why:

• Payments, access cards, loyalty, travel documents, and digital ID cannot be treated as the same class of problem
• Derived identity solves very specific challenges — but introduces new governance questions
• OS wallets and sovereign wallets are not competitors, but components of different trust layers
• Infrastructure inertia, offline operation, and edge reliability are consistently underestimated
• Continental-scale initiatives like the EUDI Wallet face unavoidable trade-offs between ambition and operational reality

Rather than asking which wallet wins, this episode reframes the real question: Where does trust live, and who is accountable when digital identity systems fail?

This conversation marks the opening of a broader TQS series on European digital identity, leading into upcoming analysis of national pilots and a forthcoming whitepaper on the practical realities behind EUDI deployment.

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