Verifiable Learning and Work Records (LWRs) and digital credentials promise a new era of mobility, recognition, and self-sovereignty. They are being rapidly deployed across education, workforce, and government systems as tools to improve hiring equity, skills recognition, and lifelong learning. But behind this promise lies a growing and under-examined reality: these technologies can also harm the very people they aim to empower.Based on the book
When Credentials Cause Harm, this session explores the risks and inequities embedded in the design, deployment, and governance of digital credentialing systems. Drawing on real-world case studies, international frameworks, and original research, we will walk attendees through the unintended consequences of LWRs, including surveillance, misrepresentation, exclusion, platform dependency, and the erosion of consent.
The session invites attendees to work through a series of critical questions:
1. Who decides what constitutes a valid skill?
2. What frameworks shape credentialing systems, and who gets left out?
3. Why do so many platforms prioritize vendor opportunity and market incentives over human needs?
4. And most importantly, how do we design alternative models of trust and recognition that truly center equity, justice, and care?
Participants will engage with:- A breakdown of how credentialing infrastructure is funded, governed, and built
- Case studies from refugee programs, reentry initiatives, and digital identity pilots
- Insights into credential frameworks and their cultural blind spots
- Examples of how nonprofits and public agencies are unintentionally complicit in harm
- Design principles driven by consent, equity, and participatory governance
This workshop invites educators, technologists, policymakers, researchers, and community practitioners to shift from viewing digital credentials as neutral tools to understanding them as socio-technical systems with real human stakes. It calls for new frameworks of accountability and consent: not just technical interoperability, but social interoperability grounded in justice and care.
Rationale and Aims: While there is growing enthusiasm around digital credentials, few forums critically examine the risks they pose, especially for people from marginalized communities. This workshop fills that gap by unpacking the systemic design issues, funding incentives, and governance failures that too often go unaddressed. This workshop is especially timely as countries, agencies, and tech vendors scale verifiable LWR systems with minimal public understanding or oversight.
It is intended for audiences who care about technological innovations that serve the public good and are willing to ask: not just 'can we build it?' but 'should we, and for/with whom?'
