What is a Decentralized Identity?

Decentralized Identity is the ability of an individual or person to gain ownership of their digital information through a unique identifier that they manage and own.The unique identifier leverages decentralized ledger technology to take into account all of the information of a particular individual. Individuals can store a multitude of information on their identifiers ranging from citizenship information, healthcare information, and personal records to name a few. Individuals can verify their digital information through external parties to authenticate their identity.

7 characteristics

• Security
• Control
• Consent - provide with consent
• Portability - Should be able to interact with others
• Persistence - Cannot be taken away from the user
• Resilient - to censorship
• Minimalistic in terms of data expose - can limit data being shared

How users can utilize DIDs

• Download a mobile app that could manage DIDs.
• Proof of ID is verified by verifiers.
• Then attached to citizens SSID
• Other entities can attach layers of information to the citizens
• Aggregate and manage our own data

Verifiers and the importance of interoperability

An external verifier can be a legacy institution who typically manages the information of the individual. The role of these verifiers is to make sure that the information stored for the individual is accurate and acceptable.

Once authenticated and verified, the digital information stored and kept by the individual can now be accepted by other individuals or institutions to be utilized as information tied to the owner. This eliminates the prevailing issue of falsification of information and makes it faster to conduct transactions that require an amount of KYC (Know Your Customer)

It is important to note that, for the decentralized identity concept would need an ecosystem acceptance for it to thrive in today’s society. This means that, it needs to be widely accepted by several organizations, institutions, and individuals in order for it to work. Interoperability follows user adoption. Once several entities accept this mode of sharing digital information, the decentralized identity web can grow and expand.

Management of Decentralized IDs

Since the Decentralized Identity is managed primarily by the individual, the burden of storing, managing, and securing their information is bound to the individual. Since they own and hold the unique identifier, the management of their private keys and information must be kept secure.

This presents an opportunity for third-party custodians.Custodians can manage and secure Decentralized Identities for individuals and organizations who would require assistance in keeping their DID and allowing access to such information based on consent. However, the security of private keys would still be managed by the owners.

Decentralized Identity in the world

Next let’s take a look at the current landscape of Decentralized Identities. South Korea is spearheading a Decentralized Identity Movement - Identity management for the country - promises a treasure trove of use cases beneficial for the country. Launched last year, Seoul’s DID.

“B-pass” - integrated identity and verification map for Busan developed by a private company. Integrated with a variety of public services such as healthcare, public transportation, and even libraries. Access to unmanned convenience stores. Users can also report crime reports with built in rewards systems

Busan is a blockchain regulation free zone, to be utilized as a test bed for blockchain technologies. 6 other zones have also been established by Korea. Expect heavy adoption from Korea in the next few years or even months.

Four challenges:

1: User adoption and knowledge:

• Managing their self sovereign identity
• Have a physical wallet similar to a hardware wallet, to keep the DIDs
• Have a third-party safe keep keys
• Elect 3-4 claim issuers, potentially family members, to also have custody of their DID keys

2: Ecosystem implementation:

• Government and the private sector has to champion the roll out of DIDs
• A political influence can jumpstart the implementation
• Academics and scientists will have a hard time spearheading

3: User participation and Interoperability:

• Identity provider that is outsourced for the KYC process of commercial platforms to have a login in similar to “Facebook Login” but with your DID

4: Go-to-market strategy that doesn't involve the government (focus on the commercial sector):

• KYC identity hub
• Verification/Authentication companies
• QR code as a means of providing access and data/information to be shared with individual/institution inclusive of a digital signature of the verifier/authenticator