Tykn as a Founding Steward of The Sovrin Network
As I am writing this, there are currently over 230 million invisible children in the world today. These children, whether it be through a series of unfortunate events or merely because of where they were born, have not been able to obtain the entry ticket to a normal life: their legal identity.
With Tykn, we want to facilitate the registration of the vulnerable masses, including refugees and invisible children, so that they can live without the fear of losing their identity, and live a life of normalcy and dignity like the rest us. To make this happen, we leverage the Sovrin Network to build the necessary tools to assist those people who are not in the fold of the current centralised identity systems. I am delighted to introduce you to our relationship with Sovrin today.
There are a lot of concerns, frankly, when it comes to sharing of personal and private information on the internet. A lot of people, especially in economically underdeveloped countries, are wary of making transactions on the internet because of a severe lack of trust; trust which can be built if information sharing is done at an individual’s own will, and only to the parties that one wants to share the data with. This is possible if the entire framework of transactions is made to be secure and confidence-inspiring. Any one individual must have the absolute ownership of his or her own information and who can use what information of theirs. This is the basic principle of a self-sovereign identity, where every person and organisation has their own true, incorruptible and global individual digital identity which no one can take away.
To achieve exactly this, the Sovrin Foundation was established. Its singular aim — to create a framework for a truly secure, permanent, easily accessible, shareable and incorruptible digital identity for individuals and organisations. The Sovrin Foundation is a global, not-for-profit organisation which believes that each and every person and organisation has the right to a self-sovereign identity, and by using the very same technology which threatens it, it aims to bring about a paradigm shift in the way people’s information is handled. To facilitate this, the Sovrin Foundation has established the Sovrin Network, which is built on a public-permissioned distributed ledger called Hyperledger Indy, with at its heart the Plenum Protocol (an implementation of the Redundant Byzantine Fault Tolerance [RBFT] consensus algorithm as proposed by Aublin, Mokhtar & Quéma).
For the less tech-savvy readers, let me explain some of the terminology here: firstly, a distributed ledger could be seen as a single book of record-keeping that is held simultaneously by all participants on a network. You could see it as a form of Google Docs where every participant in the network can record data, but nothing can be deleted, and everyone can cross-check to see if what you wrote is actually valid (of course, there is a lot more to it, but this simple analogy will suffice for now). Since every participant in the network has a copy of the ledger, this enables data security by making it impervious to hacking and/or misappropriation of data that has been once recorded on it. Nowadays, it has become synonymous with what is called “Blockchain”, which was the first distributed ledger of its kind, and the underlying technology behind Bitcoin, as well as many other cryptocurrencies.
One would also want to know what ‘public permissioned’ actually means. “Public” simply means that it is for everyone to use. “Permissioned” requires a little understanding, though. For recording information on the distributed ledger, there are several participants/computers within the network. These computers run what is called a “node” and they ensure that the transactions are to be recorded only after all the nodes arrive at a consensus that the transaction has actually taken place. Therefore, a “permissioned” ledger is one where these nodes require governance; in this case, by the Board of Trustees of the Sovrin Network, which is comprised of Trust Anchors that have met the Trust Anchor Qualifications and have agreed to the Trust Anchor Obligations as defined by the Sovrin Trust Framework.
The Sovrin Network is thus built on a public distributed ledger, permissioned by the Trust Anchors within the Sovrin Trust Framework. The institutions operating the nodes the Board of Trustees governs are called ‘Stewards’. These are reputable, trusted organisations that actually operate the nodes of the distributed ledger, which are the validator nodes. With this distributed ledger technology, Tykn aims to achieve decentralisation of identity storage by leveraging the Sovrin Network and give people complete control over the use of their personal information.
More and more reputable organisations, governments and other such trusted entities will become Stewards of the network once it gains ground. It is therefore a matter of great pride for Tykn to be a part of the Sovrin Network as an actual Founding Steward, since this is a strong vote of confidence for our work.
With our title as Founding Steward comes the fact that we run our own validator node, thereby allowing us to both read and write information on the Sovrin Network. This allows us to build the necessary tools to ensure the safety of the identity of the people who need it the most. We believe that the decentralised identity will ensure that no one is denied access to their basic rights and that people can be assured of the security of their identity.
It is also important to know that the Sovrin Network is just a means to connect the users of information. Like you go to your browser and use hundreds of websites. Similarly, you will be able to use the network and verify your identity in hundreds of different places while sharing only what you want. Other third-party organisations will help develop applications and will actually provide the necessary resources to these users to help them transfer personal information and transact thereafter, if need be.
Sovrin also makes sure that no two users can have any idea about exactly what information a person has shared with each of them. In a centralised database, this is relatively easy to achieve. This is called correlation of information. As you can see, Sovrin makes sure that only what you want to be shared is shared; nothing more, nothing less (effected by the use of “zero-knowledge proofs”). This makes leveraging the Sovrin Network most appealing and suitable to us with regards to the issue of private data sharing.
In essence, Tykn will facilitate in the transfer from the current centralised storage of personal information to a decentralised one, using the Sovrin Network. We want to make this transfer as smooth and seamless as possible, using our privilege as a Founding Steward, and by operating a validator node to make the best possible use of the Sovrin Network for vulnerable masses and the world in general. Being made a Founding Steward is a vote of confidence from the Sovrin Foundation for Tykn, and it shall be the constant endeavour of Tykn to ensure the security of the personal data of the people according to the rules and in compliance with set standards.
