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0/ “Self-Sovereign Identity: A Progress Report”…
1/ On this day two years ago I chose the term “Self-Sovereign Identity” as the name for a new manifesto of 10 foundational principles for digital identity. It was a rallying cry to start a movement toward human-rights focused decentralized identity.
2/ I was not the first to use the term. The earliest I know of was Devon Loffreto @NZN writing in Project VRM and later in his blog about "sovereign source authority" where he said that individuals “have an established Right to an ‘identity’”. moxytongue.com/2012/02/what-i…
3/ My manifesto included some history of the evolution of digital identity, from centralized forms, into federated identity, then to user-centric identity, and why that wasn’t enough—why we need Self-Sovereign Identity: lifewithalacrity.com/2016/04/the-pa…
4/ A more recent article by @RuffTimo explores the tradeoffs of these different identity architectures: siloed/traditional and third-party provider vs self-sovereign identity’s peer-to-peer approach: medium.com/evernym/the-th…
5/ Popular blockchain news page Coindesk promptly republished and featured my manifesto on their own site, adding the concept, term & principles to the larger blockchain community agenda. coindesk.com/path-self-sove…
6/ Coindesk then asked me to speak at their conference Consensus, where I focused on the "Perils & Promise of Identity on the Blockchain" (slides):
7/ Self-Sovereign Identity is both an ideology to reclaim human dignity and authority in the digital world and an emerging suite of technologies designed to enable that movement.
8/ Self-Sovereign Identity begins with the basic premise that you should control your own identity in interactions with organizations & other people. github.com/WebOfTrustInfo…
9/ Self-Sovereignty doesn’t mean that you are in complete control. But it does define the borders within which you can make decisions and outside of which you negotiate with others as peers, not as a petitioner.
10/ Today, digital identity is administered by centralized authorities such as governments, corporations & software platform providers. They have a vested interest in constraining people both on & offline because they desire to either control behavior or to make a profit from it.
11/ Self-Sovereign Identity is rooted in principles from the Enlightenment, as well as the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. un.org/en/universal-d…
12/ The first principle of Self-Sovereign identity is that as human beings we exist. Our personal existence is our most fundamental fact, and the control over our self is our most fundamental freedom, our “Unalienable Right". This should also be true in the digital world.
13/ As digital systems create representations of us, a free society demands that we be given a voice in deciding how those representations are created and used. Not because we own that data, but because individual human beings are the ONLY valid source for that moral authority.
14/ Human dignity demands that individuals be treated with respect no matter which system they interact with, face-to-face or online. Without that, we become nothing but data in the machine—entries in a ledger to be managed, problems to be solved, digital serfs. We are not.
15/ A real test of this concept & manifesto was the first United Nations Summit on Digital Identity, #ID2020. Some feared that diplomats would disapprove of the concept. Yet in the first hours I heard two UN officials & ambassadors use the term. id2020.org/news/2016/12/2…
16/ Later I heard the concept resonated, as many UN staffers are frustrated with sovereign-nations, due to the 1.563 million stateless people with no citizenship at all, both clashing with the rights offered to all by the Declaration of Human Rights. gsma.com/mobilefordevel…
17/ In Europe, the emergence of new EU law around personal privacy, known as GDPR, has helped with adoption of the concept, as many feel the current centralized identity architectures will not be able to handle the new regulation: linkedin.com/pulse/gdpr-ref…
18/ In the two years since the original 10 principles were published, a number of technologies supporting Self-Sovereign Identity have begun to be implemented, most notably a nascent standard for Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs): github.com/WebOfTrustInfo…
19/ The DID specification was incubated at #RebootingWebOfTrust Design Workshops, where over 30 white papers, specs, and prototypes have been collaboratively created over the course of 6 events. WebOfTrust.info
20/ The DID specification is now being nurtured into being submitted as a possible international standard through the W3C Credentials Community Group. w3c-ccg.github.io
21/ A number of other W3C Working Groups including W3C Verifiable Claims WG plan on using DIDs, and we will be sharing additional details toward formalizing a standard at TPAC in the fall. w3.org/2017/vc/WG/
22/ Over a dozen companies and organizations, using multiple blockchains (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Hyperledger, etc.), have committed to deploying DIDs, including IBM, Microsoft, Digital Bazaar, Consensys, Evernym, Learning Machine, British Columbia, and more: computerworld.com/article/326793…
23/ Articles on Self-Sovereign Identity have appeared in major publications such Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Technology Review, Business Week, and many more. Recent Facebook & Equifax events have continue to keep it in the news: forbes.com/sites/jasonblo…
24/ How can you support Self-Sovereign Identity? If you are a consumer or influencer, demand that the companies you deal with consider moving to decentralized architectures that support your human rights & dignity. coindesk.com/theres-alterna…
25/ If you are a blockchain advocate, remember that blockchain, combined with identity, is a two edged sword. The best is we can hold the powerful accountable for their actions. The worst is we weaponize identity against the powerless. coindesk.com/experts-talk-s…
26/ If you are a human-rights supporter, the lack of identity is trapping people in inescapable cycles of poverty. Thus the UN Sustainable Development Goal 16.9 requires that "By 2030, [we] provide legal identity for all, including birth registration". impakter.com/digital-identi…
27/ If you are a writer or communicator, familiarize yourself with the principles of Self-Sovereign Identity. Become part of the dialog to clarify & communicate them more effectively, and help people to understand & support this movement. github.com/WebOfTrustInfo…
28/ If you are a lawyer, take a look at the requirements that the EU's new GDPR regulations will be putting on your company. Ask if your existing identity systems and architectures will be able to address the problem, and if not, recommend research into Self-Sovereign Identity.
29/ If you are a policymaker, consider supporting bringing GDPR class privacy principles into your own jurisdiction. Take a look at British Columbia's experiments with Self-Sovereign Identity. continuumloop.com/bcgov-verifiab…
30/ If you are an identity provider, a “holder” of personal identifiers and data, whether corporate or government, investigate switching to architectures where you instead offer verifiable credentials against the authenticated identifiers of others:
31/ If you are a executive, consider joining one of the many pilot deployments of DIDs to investigate these new Self-Sovereign Identity architectures, and support that development by funding open source initiatives. medium.com/uport/uport-ye…
32/ If you are a developer, consider participating in one of the open source Self-Sovereign Identity projects, join the W3C Credentials CG w3c-ccg.github.com to help drive forward the standard & participate in events like #RebootingWebOfTrust WebOfTrust.info ៚
1-32/ Many thanks to the communities and individuals that inspired and helped make Self-Sovereign Identity become a movement: #IIW, #RebootingWebOfTrust, #ID2020, W3C Credentials CG, #DIF, @JoeAndrieu, @Appelcline, @ManuSporny, @DrummondReed, @windley and too many others to list!
