When Credentials Cause Harm
Description
Verifiable digital records of learning and work and digital credentials promise to unlock opportunity, until they don't. When record and credential systems fail, they can trap workers in rigid pathways, exclude learners from advancement, and turn trust into a commodity that some can afford and others cannot.
When Credentials Cause Harm exposes how emerging verifiable record and digital credentialing systems perpetuate inequity in learning and work contexts, even as they're marketed as tools of empowerment. More importantly, it charts a path forward: showing how verifiable digital records and credentials can expand freedom when designed with equity and human rights at the center.
For anyone building, implementing, or affected by digital record and credentialing systems, this book reveals what's at stake and how to build systems that truly serve people.
Book 1 in the When We Cause Harm Series
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Content
Acknowledgment
Preface
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Paradox of Promise and Peril
Chapter 1: The History of Record Keeping, Credentialing, and Storage
Chapter 2: Credential Frameworks: Global Standards or Local Strictures?
Chapter 3: Issuing Learning and Work Records as Verifiable Digital Credentials
Chapter 4: Data Privacy and Consent
Chapter 5: The Invisible Biases in Digital Records and Credentials
Chapter 6: Surveillance, Tracking, and Control
Chapter 7: Vendor Lock-In and Platform Dependence
Chapter 8: When Credentialing Incentives Undermine Public Access
Chapter 9: Usability, Design, and Digital Exclusion
Chapter 10: Credentials that Misrepresent and Tokensize Human Experience
Chapter 11: Fragile Governance and Revocation Risks
Chapter 12: From Design to Harm: Case Studies
Chapter 13: Prioritizing Trust, Equity, and Liberation
Chapter 14: Who is Credentialing the Credentialers? Trust, Oversight, and Conflicts of Interest
Closing Remarks: As We Build it, Who Really Benefits?
Appendices
Author Details
