Designing Digital Guardianship for Modern Identity Systems

In the move toward more inclusive and privacy-respecting digital government services, guardianship (when one person is legally authorized to act on behalf of another) is a core, but often overlooked, component.

Today, guardianship processes are fragmented across probate court, family court, and agency-level determinations, with no clear mechanism for digital verifications. Without clarity, agencies risk legal challenges if they inadvertently allow the wrong person to act on behalf of a dependent.

Rather than treating guardianship as an abstract capability, we believe states should identify a non-exhaustive list of key use cases they want to enable. For example, a parent accessing school records on behalf of a minor, a guardian applying for healthcare or social services on behalf of a dependent senior adult, or a foster parent temporarily authorized to pick a child up. Each of these may require a different level of assurance, auditability, and inter-agency coordination.

Why Legal Infrastructure Falls Short

Several legal and regulatory barriers may affect the implementation of a state digital identity. At the state level, existing statutes were drafted for physical credentials and may not clearly authorize digital equivalents in all contexts. Without explicit recognition of state digital identity as a legally valid proof of identity, agencies may be constrained in adopting digital credentials for remote service delivery.

This legal ambiguity creates friction for both agencies and residents, limiting the full potential of digital identity solutions.

Mapping Authority: Who Can Issue What, and When

Guardianship in digital identity is a complex and, as yet, unsolved problem. A guardianship solution should accept decisions from the entities legally empowered to make them, represent those decisions in credentials rather than recreating them, and keep endorsements current as circumstances change.

The first step is to enumerate today’s pathways to establishing guardianship and to identify which entities are authorized to issue evidence. This mapping enables cohesive implementation and prevents confusion about who can issue what.

In parallel, a program should also clarify which agencies authorize which actions and what evidence each verifier needs. Where authorities differ, the state can allow agencies to issue guardianship credentials that reflect their scope while still unifying common steps to reduce friction.

A Taxonomy for Real-World Guardianship Scenarios

We believe that states should define a clear guardianship credential taxonomy.

There are multiple ways to define guardianship depending on legal and operational context, such as parental authority, foster care, medical consent, or financial guardianship. This will naturally lead to multiple guardianship credential types, tailored to definitions, use cases, and issuing agencies.

Design for Flexibility and Change

Digital delivery introduces several challenges that the program should address up front. Endorsements need to change cleanly at the age of majority or when a court modifies an order, including a clear transfer of control to the individual. Reissuance and backstops should be specified for lost devices or keys and calibrated to the chosen technical models. 

The design should remain flexible enough to accommodate emerging topics, including AI agent-based interactions, without locking in assumptions that are likely to shift.

Support Human Judgment and Prevent Abuse

The overall system for guardianship should maximize the ability for appropriate and contextualized exercise of human judgement by responsible individuals. All of these systems, even protected with cryptography, security measures, and fraud detection, will still be faulty. They should be designed to prioritize humans and their wellbeing, even with failures and fraud present.

A state digital identity framework should require that as much credential validity information as is appropriate and necessary to be made available to the relying party, and that clear indicators of the credential’s current status are available to holders.

It is equally important to prevent abuse of the system. A state must ensure that guardianship credentials cannot be issued or accumulated in ways that could enable fraud, such as one person holding dozens of guardian endorsements to unlawfully access benefits or facilitate trafficking.

The Future of Digital Guardianship

Guardianship in digital identity is not a future problem, it’s a present-day requirement. A successful state digital identity framework must support these relationships with clarity, flexibility, and privacy at its core.

SpruceID helps states design systems that reduce the risk of fraud without sacrificing individual autonomy. Contact us to learn more.

About SpruceID: SpruceID is building a future where users control their identity and data across all digital interactions.