What is an SSI digital wallet?
We use Internet on a daily basis, we register in new websites and provide our credentials to prove our identity and the ownership of the content of whatever we own on these websites.
we sometimes forget how important data is and how it can be used in a bad way leaving huge consequences, for example what happened in the US elections back in 2016.
Having your data collected in one place and potentially breached is risky and that’s where SSI and decentralized scheme can come handy.
Firstly we need to understand what SSI is, SSI is an abbreviation of Self-Sovereign Identity and it’s an approach to digital identity that gives individuals control of their digital identities .i.e how we prove who we claim we are in the digital world.
As conceptualised and standardised by the W3C, the Verifiable Credentials protocol is one of the three pillars of Self-Sovereign Identity, together with the Decentralized Identifiers protocol and Distributed Ledger Technology (or Blockchain).
How does identity work in the physical world?
The physical credentials we use in our daily lives like people hold identification, credit cards, membership passes in wallets (credentials). These are presented to relying parties (proof) which can process the credentials using the typical methods such as looking, scanning barcodes and checking with blue lights, and there is always the possibility of them being forged and even revoked maybe.
How does identity work in the digital world?
in the digital world it’s represented by three main actors Issues, holder and verifier. The issuer can publish the credential on the blockchain and the holder will be able to receive the credentials and store them on the wallet and present them when needed to be verified by the verifier.
The are two different levels for preserving the privacy:
1. Selective Disclosure: in selective disclosure you can generate proofs from a few attributes from a credential. E.g If you have to prove your age from a Driver’s License and if you are not comfortable with sharing the address that comes in the driver’s license credential, you can prove your age by skipping the address from the credential.
2. Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP): in ZKP you can prove the attribute from a credential without actually revealing the value. From the above example of the Driver’s license, you can prove that you are above 18 without revealing your date of birth.
Decentralized Identifiers
DIDs are a type of identifier that enables a verifiable, decentralized digital identity. They are based on the Self-sovereign identity paradigm. A DID identifies any subject (e.g., a person, organization, thing, data model, abstract entity, etc.) that the controller of the DID decides that it identifies.
It allows for the creation of unique, private and secure peer-to-peer connections between two parties.
Conclusion
While applying principles of Self-Sovereign Identity would be a welcome departure from the current globally siloed, paper-based approach to identity management, it is certainly not a silver bullet, it is essential to establish governance framework for its operation and much work lies ahead of us still.
From a lawful and administrative viewpoint, for instance, a lot remains opaque and undefined.
Self-Sovereign Identity may solve the problem of the 1 billion people around the world who do not have an identifying document plus all those vulnerable people who suffer from identity related problems. But for that to happen, SSI must not be solely mobile app-based. It should be available on web browsers and feature phones alike as a large portion of these vulnerable people do not have money to purchase a smartphone nor do they have stable internet connection. Self-Sovereign Identity relying uniquely on smartphone apps constitutes a UX problem that we, the SSI community, need to pay close attention to.
