What is Self-Sovereign Identity and How Does it Benefit You?
As credential-based breaches become more frequent and individuals are increasingly concerned about their privacy and security, there is a need to develop a decentralized approach to identity and access management. Self-sovereign identity (SSI) was created to answer these concerns and to give individuals full control over their identities and how their personal data is used and shared.
What is Self-Sovereign Identity?
“Self-sovereign identity is a decentralized identity management model that allows users to have better control of their own digital identities without relying on a central registration authority,” said Ioannis Krontiris, Senior Researcher at Huawei’s European Research Institute.
“SSI helps us establish a user-centric identity model, where identity information flows through the user,” explained Krontiris. Users can store verifiable credentials in a digital “identity wallet” on their mobile phone and then manage how and under what conditions this information is shared with others. Individuals can selectively disclose specific attributes from their verifiable credentials —just enough to prove the properties required for service access. In other words, SSI respects identity and data privacy.
In SSI, an individual can generate and control an identifier (or many identifiers) and associate cryptographic keys with them. This creation and binding were done previously by a central authority. Now users can generate these identifiers based on a public and private key pair. The private keys are kept secret while the user can publish the public keys and other identifier metadata they wish to disclose on a verifiable data registry, such as distributed ledger technology (blockchain), distributed file systems, etc. Anyone accessing the ledger can algorithmically validate the controller–identifier binding.
The Benefits of Self-Sovereign Identities
The idea of decentralized identity management presents many advantages for individuals.
Control Data Privacy
Users have higher control over their own data; they have the power to choose which data to share and with whom to share it while having the ability to remove access to the data at any time. SSI implements privacy and compliance by design approach. Giving individuals control of their digital identities eliminates the risks of breaching privacy posed by identity providers. As a result, not only are their identities more protected, but also their data is more private since they can control who accesses it.
Improved Security
Many reports highlight that credentials are the top target for cybercriminals. They provide the keys to access our data kingdom. However, SSI eliminates the risk of storing credentials centrally. SSI uses a decentralized system, meaning personal identity information is not stored on a centralized server and therefore is much harder for a threat actor to hack. In addition, binding credentials with cryptography ensures that credentials are tamper-proof.
Avoid Reliance on Third-Party Identity Providers
Under a centralized identity provision and management approach, users rely on third-party providers for credential creation. Besides the security risks, this approach may represent more profound repercussions for individuals, as these providers may sell and monetize personal data. The Cambridge Analytica scandal was a good indication of how our data can be used against us to manipulate our decisions. With SSI, individuals have complete control of their credentials and who can access them, limiting such risks.
Identity Verification is More Efficient
Credentials can be verified anytime and anywhere, regardless of whether the issuer still exists and is online. For example, individuals can store their eIDs, driving licenses, university diplomas, etc., on their digital wallet and use them to selectively disclose some attributes to get secure access to online services, such as banking, government services and healthcare portals. SSI can also be used in disconnected and offline scenarios, for example, proving an individual’s age where ID verification is required, such as at bars.
How CIAM Enables Self-Sovereign Identities
The technology is already here for SSI to become the new standard in IAM. Anyone who has a smartphone will be able to benefit from SSI. And many organizations are already adopting SSI technologies and issuing ID verifications that users can add to their digital wallets.
CIAM materializes the concept of SSI. Using a CIAM solution, individuals can bring their own identities to register and authenticate across various settings and industries. First-party progressive profiling and authorization give customers complete control over which data to release to multiple stakeholders and organizations.
The scene is set to implement privacy and compliance by design. It’s time to empower customers to be in control of their own data.
Want to learn more about SSI? Subject matter expert, Ward Duchamps, demystifies the topic in this on-demand webinar.
