Self-sovereign identity refers to a system of identity management where individuals have sole ownership and control over their personal data and identity information, and can share that information with others on their own terms. This is in contrast to traditional systems where centralized entities, such as commercial entities and governmental agencies, control and manage identity information.
Self-sovereign identity is the human-focused application of Decentralized Identity, a technology that can also be used to represent individuals, organizations, or things.
Self-sovereign identity is becoming increasingly popular because it gives individuals more control over their personal data and how it is used. It allows people to share their identity information only when they want to, and with whom they want to, rather than having their information controlled and potentially misused by centralized entities.
It eliminates the need for a central authority or middlemen, which can reduce costs and improve efficiency. This can be especially beneficial in the context of digital transactions, where self-sovereign identity can facilitate secure and efficient exchanges of value. In the future, self-sovereign identity will enable interoperability with different systems and platforms, which can be useful for creating a more seamless and connected digital experience.
Decentralized identity solutions could make data portable and ownable for consumers. It may help institutions that face expanding regulations about how they can accept, handle, and store customer data.
These regulations can make it difficult to do business across borders. One goal of self-sovereign ID is to make data portable—to give people their data so they can carry it from country to country without violating any regulations.
The Trust Over IP Foundation aims to create a “trust layer” for the Internet. In a sense, every peer in the network would function as an example of a standard set of protocols, similar to how every device on the Internet operates using the TCP/IP stack. This concept, which includes both technology and governance, consists of two sides and four layers, illustrated below. The lower two layers are dedicated to meeting the technical demands of digital trust, while the upper two layers focus on fulfilling the human requirements.
ToIP ensures trust in digital transactions by providing a way to establish the identity, privacy, and security of participants in the digital world. It’s a framework that can be used to verify the identity of participants in a digital transaction, ensuring that the participants are who they claim to be.
By providing mechanisms for protecting sensitive information, such as personal data, during digital transactions, it could prevent unauthorized access and protect the privacy of individuals. With ToIP, users could expect a more seamless and secure experience when conducting digital transactions, building trust and making it easier for users to participate in the digital economy.
Decentralized identity management offers improved privacy, security, and control over personal information and your online identity, while reducing reliance on centralized entities and increasing interoperability across different systems and platforms. But how can we start to use this technology? A couple production-ready tools in the identity space are Polygon ID and Hyperledger Aries.
Polygon ID is a platform for decentralized identities using zero knowledge proofs. It’s built on the iden3 protocol, which is an open source project using some common building blocks shared with Polygon’s zk rollup solutions. The iden3 protocol allows the issuers registry to be implemented in Solidity smart contracts and is compatible with any EVM based blockchains, including Ethereum, Polygon and others.
Polygon ID offers on-chain verification and permissionless attestation. It’s backed by zero knowledge proofs and pluggable on the Kaleido platform. Polygon ID brings zk-backed privacy to the table, which is unique to the market.
Hyperledger Aries is an open source project under the Hyperledger umbrella that provides a toolkit for building decentralized identity applications. It provides a set of libraries, protocols, and standards for creating and using DIDs, verifiable credentials, and other decentralized identity technologies.
The main goal of Hyperledger Aries is to enable secure, interoperable, and privacy-preserving data exchange between individuals, organizations, and devices in various industries and use cases. It does this by implementing a decentralized communication protocol called the Aries protocol, which allows multiple parties to establish a secure and private communication channel and exchange verifiable credentials.
Hyperledger Aries can be used as a building block for various use cases that require decentralized identity, such as self-sovereign identity, decentralized finance, supply chain management, healthcare, and more. It is designed to be modular, flexible, and customizable, allowing developers to choose the components that best suit their needs and integrate them into their existing systems.
Other blockchain identity solutions include Veramo, Serto, Ceramic Network, Identity Index (IDX), Ion, and Sovrin Network. At Kaleido, we'll continue to study these emerging communities and look to support the leading identity tools.
SSI enhances data privacy and security by using cryptographic techniques, allowing users to prove their identity through verifiable credentials without revealing underlying personal information.
This approach minimizes data exposure and ensures that personal information is not stored on centralized servers, reducing the risk of data breaches.
Adopting SSI involves understanding the underlying blockchain technology, selecting appropriate SSI frameworks (such as Hyperledger Aries), and integrating them with existing digital identity systems.
Organizations need to develop or adopt digital wallet technologies for users to manage their identities and credentials securely. A partner like Kaleido helps here, as our our platform makes pluggable all the components needed to build next-gen identity solutions.
SSI frameworks like Trust Over IP (ToIP), Polygon ID, and Hyperledger Aries are designed with a strong focus on user consent and data minimization principles, which are core to regulations like the GDPR.
These frameworks allow for secure, verifiable exchanges of information without transferring control of the data to external parties.
By enabling users to share only the necessary information for verification purposes, they inherently support the GDPR's requirements for data protection, privacy, and user control over personal data, facilitating a more transparent and user-centric approach to data management and compliance.
Decentralized Identity is an emerging technology, so tools used to build self-sovereign identity into applications are maturing too. That makes it important to choose both an identity solution and an underlying platform that allow you to build for the future. A platform like Kaleido, built to be scalable, empower interoperability, and make customizing user experiences easy, will give you the freedom to integrate identity solutions with new and legacy systems.
The future of decentralized identity is incredibly promising, as more and more organizations and individuals recognize the benefits of self-sovereign identity systems. If you want to read more about how this tech might one day impact our life and work, check out this blog on uses cases for decentralized ID.
Speak to one of our experts about how to use decentralized ID in your app.
Contact UsSpeak to one of our experts about how to use decentralized ID in your app.
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Speak to one of our experts about how to use decentralized ID in your app.
Contact UsSpeak to one of our experts about how to use decentralized ID in your app.
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