The Trust Triangle as Defined in the Context of Self-Sovereign Identity
Understanding the Three-Way Relationship of Social and Business Practices on the Digital Web
In a recent IAMX Weekly article (PART II: IDENTITY MATTERS), we explored the significance of Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) as a game-changing technology in digital identity management. We saw how SSI is paving the way for a more secure, transparent user-friendly digital identity system and touched the importance of Verifiable Credentials.
This time we tackle the difficulty of establishing trust in human interactions on the digital grid. The SSI model by its very nature strives to transfer our real-world concepts of social and business practices into the digital world, while eroding cultural and economic friction, especially in an age where technology has become integrated into every facet of our life.
Trust and Money in Interactions
Let’s first define ‘trust’ and why it is of such significance. For one, trust helps people feel safe and comfortable. Without it, any social or business interaction is difficult because you can’t know with certainty if someone has bad intentions.
Thus, trust is a foundational element for any successful economic system. Without it, money could not be exchanged or borrowed between buyers, sellers, and financial institutions. Throughout centuries, trust has been a major factor in the success of different economic systems: from the gold standard to modern-day currencies, trust has been essential in all types of transactions.
It is the trust between people, institutions, and the prevailing economic system that allows money to exist and act as a medium of exchange. For example, without trust it would be difficult to differentiate between legitimate and counterfeit money, nor could money be used as a store of value or a proxy for labour and goods.
Trust in Transactions and Exchange of Value
In the real world, though, a genuinely trustless transactional system has its limitations as such a system that does not require trust as a prerequisite for success. This type of system is designed to be reliable and secure, allowing individuals and entities to confidently engage in transactions or interactions without having to worry about trustworthiness. The system is designed to be self-verifying and self-enforcing, meaning that it can be trusted without the need for a third-party intermediary.
Until recently, however, a trustless transactional system required a system of trade that is carried out directly in close physical proximity between two peers. While theoretically flawless, it is restricted in its capacity to facilitate transactions with people from around the world. For an economy to operate at a larger scale, the transactional system needs to be able to transfer money or value, authenticate and authorise secure exchanges regardless of distance.
Self-Sovereign Identity, including all its technical building blocks replicates the basic structure of trust, established by a model usually referred to as the “Trust Triangle”.
It requires Verifiable Credentials (VCs) that are issued by a trusted source, held by individuals, and verified by entities that need to validate an individual’s identity. Verifiable Credentials refer to any data set that a trusted authority (issuer) has verified to be true about a subject. This information allows the subject (holder) of the credential to prove to others (verifiers) that the claims are accurate.
These credentials can contain relationships, attributes, or entitlements associated with a given subject/holder. In order for the claims to be considered a valid credential, they must be verifiable in some way and the verifier must be able to find out who issued the credential and that it has not been falsified or tampered with.
The SSI Trust Triangle: Issuers, Holders (Customer), and Verifiers
As defined in the context of self-sovereign identity, the Trust Triangle is a model that transfers real-world concepts of social and business practices into the digital world. It does so by using a trust layer built on top of the blockchain and protocols that act as trustless intermediaries for the functions usually performed by individuals, businesses, and governments.
This triangle of trust is a three-way relationship between parties (issuers, holders, and verifiers), because it is fundamentally how human trust relationships are conveyed in social or business interactions. Working in tandem, these three entities form a secure and dependable digital transaction environment.
Issuers are the originators of credentials, such as government agencies, financial institutions, corporations, universities et cetera.
Holders (customers) request credentials from issuers and store them in their digital wallets and, when requested by verifiers, present proofs of claims from one or more credentials. The verifier will then check the validity of the issuer’s digital signature.
Verifiers can take many forms, including individuals, organisations, and devices, and they will seek assurance of legitimacy concerning the credentials. If the holder agrees to provide evidence, they will present a proof for the verifier to confirm.
In a Nutshell
The Trust Triangle is an essential model in Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) that replicates the basic structure of trust established by social and business practices in the real world. It consists of three parties (issuers, holders, and verifiers) working together to form a secure and dependable digital transaction environment. Issuers provide Verifiable Credentials (VCs) that are stored in digital wallets by holders, which are then verified by verifiers in order to ensure legitimacy. This triangle allows for a trustless transactional system that is reliable and secure, allowing individuals and entities to confidently engage in transactions or interactions.
About IAMX
IAMX is a token-based SSI and authentication protocol that empowers individuals with the means to own their identity. Adhering to the strictest of regulatory standards for identity protection, IAMX builds on the foundational principles of SSI to provide a robust and secure system where individuals are able to take control and manage their identity. Users of IAMX will realise significant time and cost savings through novel approaches to identity management and e-commerce transactions, like 1-click fulfillment, which are legally binding and maintain local regulatory compliance. With users in control of their identity data, time-consuming processes like KYC and KYB become near-instant, highly secure transactions.
IAMX builds upon the foundations of SSI, blockchain, and decentralised identifiers (DIDs), enabling individuals, organisations, or any entity to prove their identity independent of external parties or centralised authorities. This way, the authenticity of anything tied to an IAMX DID can be independently confirmed by the entity holding the DID.
IAMX is at the forefront of the Web3 revolution, bringing the world’s most secure, decentralised, and user-friendly SSI solution to the Internet. Adding the layer of identity and authentication to the Internet, with IAMX you can treat the Internet like you are always logged in. Pursuant to its mission and vision, IAMX is working to solve the problem of providing an identity to the billions of people who do not currently have a state-recognised, legal identity. Using a Biometric Identity Gateway, users with or without state-level identification can create their own identity for use online, one that relies on their unique physical attributes, including their face, iris, and fingerprints.
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