What is SSI & Why is it Necessary?

At IAMX our mission is to protect the human right of every individual to hold, control, and own their personal identity. This is made possible by a technology called Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI).

🧐 WHAT IS SSI?

In short, a Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) is an identity that you own. With SSI, you are the sole holder of your identity and all the information within it. You hold it in a digital wallet, and you get to decide who can see your identity and how much of the information within your identity they get to see.

🔮 WHY IS SSI IMPORTANT?

To understand the importance of SSI, it’s helpful to be reminded of the challenges of physical IDs and non-SSI digital IDs.

🧗‍♂️ 🆔 Physical IDs

Most of us are accustomed to using and holding physical IDs such as our drivers license, our passport, or our Student ID. We feel safe knowing that these IDs are in our physical wallet or purse, and we can simply pull them out of our pocket whenever they’re needed. So, why should we move to the SSI model?

The problem with physical IDs is that they can easily be defrauded, leading to identity theft, and giving bad actors access to protected rights or services. Additionally, physical IDs can be lost, leading to the hassle of contacting the centralized agency or issuer of the ID (during the hours they are open) to request a new one. This can be costly and take days. Finally, physical IDs are not private, meaning that when you use a physical ID somewhere, the company or verifier of your ID now has access to all the information within that credential. Many times, this includes information they do not need.

🆔 Non-SSI Digital IDs

Non-SSI digital IDs include the act of registering with an online service with a username, email, and password (and providing any other information that the service may require) or when you use a third-party login service like Google or Facebook to login. Logging in or authenticating with a service using Facebook or Google, is certainly more convenient than establishing a unique username and password for each website or service you may visit. However, there are challenges and problems with Non-SSI Digital IDs.

The problem with current digital identification credentials is the consumer’s need to register and sign up with different login credentials for every new website, app, or online service. This is not only redundant and time consuming but managing multiple passwords can be difficult and obviously using the same password across dozens of websites can pose security risks. Password manager services can minimize this problem, but those services require monthly fees that many in developing nations can’t afford. Additionally, with non-SSI digital IDs, consumers have no control over what data is being shared and with whom. Once you’ve registered for an account on a website, the company that controls that site now has your identity information and may sell it to marketers, resulting in unwanted spam. Finally, with these IDs, your personal data is stored on the issuer’s servers, which can be targets of hackers. Your data is out of your control and potentially at risk, which can be exploited at your own peril.

🤷‍♀️ HOW IS SSI THE SOLUTION TO THESE PROBLEMS?

SSI credentials are 100% private and completely under your control. This is because SSI relies upon blockchain technology, which establishes a peer-to-peer channel between ID issuer, the ID owner, and the ID verifier. This relationship puts security as a top priority because when personal data and credentials are exchanged, not even the SSI system provider can see this data. Also, because these transactions occur on the blockchain, the credentials are tamper-proof by unscrupulous third parties or hackers. In fact, because personal data is not stored on centralized servers, hackers have zero access to mass amounts of accounts or credentials. In other words, if hackers wished to steal the identities of several million people, they’d have to successfully hack those millions of consumers individually rather than hack one server where millions of accounts may reside. Finally, SSI can eliminate the need for multiple passwords. Knowing your wallet password is all you need.

👀 WHAT IS IAMX’S UNIQUE APPROACH TO SSI?

IAMX takes the technology of SSI and improves upon it by providing tokenized, financial incentives for users. For example, by using SSI companies will save significant money on server fees, data processing costs, and fraud prevention. Companies partnering with IAMX will pass savings onto consumers through price discounts as an incentive for the user to use IAMXs SSI 1-Click authentication option when authenticating. This revenue model will attract more consumers to the company’s website and products, creating a win-win situation for both the issuer and the consumer.

IAMX provides the most secure SSI solution by being compliant with the world’s most strict standards. IAMX is also certified by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which is an international organization committed to improving the web.

Finally, in addition to providing this SSI service and marketplace, IAMX is working to solve the problem of providing an identity to the billions of people who do not currently have a state-recognized, legal identity. IAMX is creating physical biometric identity gateway terminals. These terminals will be placed in locations around the world where the need is greatest and will allow users to:

• Create a biometric ID (face, iris, and fingerprint)
• Create a new wallet
• Modify an existing wallet
• Edit an identity, including uploading certificates and licenses to their IAMX ID wallet

IAMX is partnering with several large telecommunications companies who can act as verifiers of individual consumer identities, which enables IAMX’s terminals to create these identities and basically hands IAMX millions of established users, maximizing adoption of the SSI service.

✍️ CONCLUSION

This is a brief and high-level overview of SSI, why it’s necessary, and how IAMX improves upon the technology to create a significant movement and disruption in the Web3 movement. We will publish additional articles in the coming weeks and months that will serve as “deep-dive” coverage of these topics. In the meantime, please join our community or follow our socials. We encourage you to reach out with questions as we pioneer this identity revolution together.

About IAMX

IAMX is a token-based self-sovereign identity (SSI) and authentication system, enabling 1Click-Fulfillment transactions that are legally binding on the state/national level.

Our vision is to empower everyone on Earth to realize their human right to have an identity and our mission is to protect the human right of every individual to hold, control, and own their personal identity.

The Problem We are Solving

In Developing Nations 1.4 billion people have no state-recognized identity. Additionally, half of all women in low-income nations do not have an identity. Further, 237 million children under five years old, have no birth certificate. Without a legally acknowledged identity, a person cannot own assets, maintain a bank account, or participate in online consumer transactions. Without an identity, a person has no access to e-commerce or financial services. In short, without an identity, a person cannot lift themselves out of poverty.

In Developed Nations the average consumer spends 400 days of their life completing forms online. Most of these forms are redundant, asking for the same information about our identities (such as the KYC process) over and over. This leads to a massive waste of time and loss of ownership and security as the individual consumer spreads their personally identifying information across thousands of websites or services during their lifetime.

Solution

Imagine if each individual consumer enjoyed full ownership of their identity and they could use that identity seamlessly and effortlessly across all websites, web services, and mobile apps that require account creation, logins, or authentication. IAMX provides this identity service free to all consumers through biometric identity and pre-authenticated verifiable credential set containers trusted by the verifier, owned and controlled by the holder.

IAMX is the first-ever SSI solution to financially incentivize and reward the consumer each time they use their identity online.

IAMX
Website │ Twitter │ Telegram │ Discord │ Linkedin │ Youtube │ Reddit