#0030 proofofblind || Introduction To Self-Sovereign Identity

This original-content post is certified plagiarism-free^* by the Proof of Blind team (see below for what that means).

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Over the years, we have been subjected to a series of registration just to enjoy the services offered by an organization. For every organization, we intend to interact with, we are made to have a new registration for it. For example, we have to register and obtain a digital identity for a Gmail account, and we also do the same for a yahoo mail account. We carry out different registration for each website we want to interact with.

This makes it tedious for users whenever they want to interact with new websites.

As time went by, we saw an improved form of digital identity whereby third-party sites like Facebook are used to verify credentials. We are thus able to shortcut the rigorous registrations by signing up with the likes of Facebook and Gmail. Now, as much as this new method of digital identity reduces the burden of issuing/receiving a new digital identity for both the organization and the user, there are still some challenges faced with this system. The data released to a new organization by a third-party organization like Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc are sometimes more than what the organization needs and the entity whose identity is given out is not aware of the level of information made available to the new organization.

We have seen a recent upgrade whereby sign-ups using third-party issuers give the potential user the privilege to choose the list of data that will be made available to the new organization. This might be a good step towards self-sovereign identity issuing but it still has its cons. The third-party issuer is a centralized body that is prone to corruption and a possible hack. An entity's data can be released even without his knowledge or permission when a higher authority like the government demands it.

There is thus a need for decentralized data issuing where the individual controls the data released to the third-party verifier. This is where self-sovereign identity comes in.

What is Self-sovereign identity?

The blockchain offers a decentralized system for data storage and usage. Through the blockchain, individuals can own a decentralized digital identity through the services of a decentralized identity issuer. When there is a need for ID verification, the information released is between the ID holder and the verifying organization, the issuer organization is not aware of the data exchanged, their tool is only used as a medium of exchange.

Having said this, Self-sovereign identity can be said to be a form of digital identity owned and controlled by the individual. The individual has a personal digital identity wallet where his data are stored. He decides the type of data released to any organization that demands identity verification from him.

Self-sovereign identity is far better than the centralized digital identity that comes in form of physical IDs ( student's ID cards, national ID cards, etc) and digital IDs offered by the likes of Gmail and Facebook because of its decentralized nature. In addition to being a decentralized system of digital identity, the use of cryptography allows SSI to offer a secure identity transfer between Individuals, the identity issuing company and the verifier, with the ID owner having total control of what is made available to the verifier.

SSI is still new to many people but it has a lot of roles it will play in the digital world. The world is not just going digital, it is moving away from centralization to decentralization. SSI can help solve the NFT related issues especially when it comes to ownership. In near future, when websites adopt SSI usage, there will be a decline in online scams since every individual will have to verify his identity before performing certain actions online.

About this post

This post was submitted by an up-and-coming original-content creator to the Proof of Blind project, has been reviewed for plagiarism, and is certified plagiarism-free^*.

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^*What does certified plagiarism-free mean?

As a result of our plagiarism review, we are confident that this post represents original unpublished creative work.

We are backing that confidence with a 150% curation-reward guarantee.

If you vote for this post and it is found to have been plagiarized (prior to the close of the voting period), we will coordinate efforts to zero out all presumed author rewards. However, that also zeros out all curator rewards. To protect our curators, we will fully reimburse any would-be curation rewards that were zeroed as a result of the plagiarism enforcement, and we will add 50% to it.

This guarantee applies to any curation rewards that would have been worth at least $1 at the time the payout would have occurred. For example, if your upvote was worth $2 in HIVE and $2 in POB, but was zeroed out due to plagiarism-enforcement, then we would reimburse you $1.50 worth of HIVE and $1.50 worth of POB.

What is Proof of Blind and how does it work?

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• Content creators submit their original content (following the procedure detailed at the end of the "Request for Submissions" post).

• Submitted content is checked for plagiarism.

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