HARNESS D3.1 Anticipatory Ethics of Self- Sovereign Identity-version 1

The report constitutes Deliverable 3.1 of Work Package 3 of the MSCA HARNESS project, which aims to anticipate the joint ethical, social, and economic implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data flows, with attention to the evolving regulatory frameworks and compliance mechanisms shaping these technologies in the European Union (EU). The deliverable is under Task 3.1, which aims at investigating the most appropriate anticipatory methods for exploring the future evolution of AI and data flows, and with reflecting on the benefits and limitations of such methods for this domain. The report sets out the rationale for adopting scenario building, which will be operationalised through a series of scenario building workshops planned for Autumn 2026, as the primary anticipatory method for the HARNESS project. The choice is motivated by the deep uncertainty and complexity characterising both the AI technologies under analysis, but also the regulatory landscape governing them, which together demand the exploration of a plurality of plausible futures. Scenario building is particularly well-suited to this purpose, enabling systematic reflection on the ethical, social, and economic plausible futures of AI and data flows in the EU. The report is structured in three parts. Section 1 provides a descriptive account of scenario building, covering relevant basic terminology, its history, and key strengths and limitations. Section 2 presents findings from a rapid literature review of relevant scenario studies, conducted to inform the design of the HARNESS workshops. Section 3 outlines the workshop design for Autumn 2026, specifying the parameters chosen and the reasoning behind them. The scope of this report is therefore wider than the Anticipatory Ethics of Self-Sovereign Identity, and a more precise title would have been Anticipatory Methods for Exploring the Impacts of AI and Data Flows.