The use of self-sovereign identity in blockchain systems

Abstract

This book chapter provides an overview of self-sovereign identity (SSI) as a revolutionary approach to digital identity management. The chapter begins by tracing the evolution of digital identity management from centralized identity to SSI. The need for a safe, sustainable, and trustworthy digital identity in the virtual world is emphasized. SSI is differentiated from decentralized identity management, and the chapter examines SSI’s identity protocol and architecture, including verifiable credentials, decentralized identifiers, decentralized identity, and decentralized key management systems. The chapter outlines 20 extended principles upon which SSI systems should be based, including sovereignty, data access control, data storage control, decentralization, verifiability, recovery, cost-free, security, privacy, safeguard, flexibility, accessibility, availability, transparency, portability, interoperability, scalability, sustainability, and longevity. These principles provide a comprehensive framework for establishing SSI systems. The chapter further discusses the benefits and challenges of SSI systems. Benefits include data privacy in healthcare, efficient financial services, and staff identification systems. Challenges include lack of legal recognition, user acceptance, interoperability, and scalability. Additionally, the chapter explores the use cases of SSI systems, such as part lifecycle support, competency assurance, Know Your Customers, non-fungible tokens (NFT), authentication, authorization, and trust of IIoT users/devices. Finally, the chapter provides recommendations for implementing SSI systems in practice. The recommendations include implementing a user-centric design, ensuring open standards and interoperability, engaging stakeholders, developing trust frameworks, establishing governance and policy frameworks, providing education and awareness programs, and developing secure and sustainable systems.