Self-Sovereign Identities

SSI Is a New Kind of Digital Identity Management

SSI organizes organizations’ master data into a single point of truth and allows fast and cost-effective onboarding

Self-sovereign identities are a new and promising approach to digital identity management, helping to organize user master data and to onboard users into your processes.

SSI redefines identity management. SSI can be expected to fundamentally change existing structures.

SSI Is the Latest Evolution of Digital Identities

Role model: Analog identities

The world of analog identity information consists primarily of plastic cards in credit card format: ID card, credit card, driver’s license, health insurance card, club membership card, etc.

If a credential is required when signing up for a service, such as creating a bank account, we can show (a photo of) a plastic card. The service can check whether a credential is authentic based on the security features of the card. Basically, the service will trust the issuer of the cards. Interaction with the issuer is not required. In a similar way, these processes are supposed to be fully digital in the future and run automated in the background during a service registration.

Isolated identities

Each service on the Internet collects and manages user data and proof of identity itself.

Isolated identities entail a great deal of work for both users and service providers. The same data must be entered or uploaded over and over again.

Access data for dozens of accounts must be memorized. Often the same password is used, which leads to security problems.

Users have to maintain their data in dozens of accounts. This is time-consuming and error-prone. Data in some accounts will be out of date or incorrect.

Federated identities

Federated identities are offered by identity providers such as Google or Twitter on the Internet. Identity providers are both issuers and holders of the identity. Users can use an identity with third party providers for single sign-on given the consent of the identity provider.

The federated identities model builds on the permission of the identity provider to use an identity. In principle, the permission can be withdrawn at any time. Or in the event of an error or hack, the data can be compromised or lost. This would result in the loss of access to all services for which the identity was used during registration.

Users have a very high dependency on the identity provider in this model. Identity providers learn about all interactions with services in which the identity is used and can exploit this data for their own purposes.

For serious KYC, in which the authenticity of an identity must be ensured, federated identities of social media are not sufficient.

Self-sovereign identities

Self-sovereign identities (SSIs) work along the lines of analog identities, transferring how they work to the digital. Thus, SSI combines the advantages of single sign-on with the principle of user control and respect for privacy.

With SSI, plastic cards are replaced with digital, signed Verifiable Credentials.

The three roles in the SSI model are:

1. Holder: the holder of an identity. Verifiable Credentials are held in a private digital wallet, e.g., on a cell phone.
2. Issuer: a trusted issuer of Verifiable Credentials. To ensure general comprehensibility in different domains and contexts, Verifiable Credentials follow certain structures that are stored as schemas in a public “Verifiable Data Registry”.
3. Verifier: for example, a service provider that requests verifiable credentials from its customers. For this purpose, the holder presents a Verifiable Credential issued by an issuer at the push of a button. The verifier can automatically check the credential against the signature.

Principles of SSI

According to Allen, self-sovereign identities are characterized by:

1. An independent digital identity
2. Complete user control
3. Consent of the users when using the identity
4. Users can access all aspects of their identity
5. Transparency of the SSI system through open source, usable by all
6. Portability of an identity between applications
7. Interoperability between many application areas
8. Minimization: As little data as possible is disclosed in each case
9. Protection of user rights
10. Longevity of identities – usability should be maintained, but identity can be deleted if needed

Advantages of SSI

Self-sovereign identities offer the following advantages for their users and especially for companies:

The efficiency of business processes can be significantly increased by using SSI. In particular, the onboarding of customers in lengthy registration processes is extremely simplified. Inhouse “know-your-customer” infrastructure can be largely eliminated. Instead, customers can register with one click, similar to social sign-on.

With SSI, users and customers can be quickly identified. Required proofs of their identity are transmitted digitally signed.

By making onboarding easier, companies can focus on their core processes.

The way Self-Sovereign Identities are used is similar to social sign-in, e.g. logging in with your Google account at a third party provider. This ease of use is combined with a high level of user control and privacy.

The user is at the center of Self-Sovereign Identities. Commercial exploitation of identity information by social profile providers is no longer required for users to experience the simplicity of single sign-on. Users have control over their data and can use identity information in any application and at different levels of granularity.