Towards a trustful digital world: exploring self-sovereign identity\n ecosystems

Abstract

In the current global situation-burdened by, among others, a vast number of\npeople without formal identification, digital leap, the need for health\npassports and contact tracking applications-providing private and secure\ndigital identity for individuals, organizations and other entities is crucial.\nThe emerging self-sovereign identity (SSI) solutions rely on distributed ledger\ntechnologies and verifiable credentials and have the potential to enable\ntrustful digital interactions. In this human-centric paradigm, trust among\nactors can be established in a decentralized manner while the identity holders\nare able to own and control their confidential data. In this paper, we build on\nobservations gathered in a field study to identify the building blocks,\nantecedents and possible outcomes of SSI ecosystems. We also showcase\nopportunities for researchers and practitioners to investigate this phenomenon\nfrom a wide range of domains and theories, such as the digital innovation\necosystems, value co-creation, surveillance theory, or entrepreneurship\ntheories.\n