Abstract

The Internet was built without a standard, explicit way of identifying people or organisations. So websites simply began offering their own local accounts with usernames and passwords, and this has been the predominant solution ever since.

But the Internet has expanded hugely, and people use more and more services daily. This silo-based approach, where users must maintain identities for every site they interact with, has become untenable. It is not just a usability disaster for individuals, it also creates a multitude of data honeypots for hackers—the breach of which compromises trust in all Internet services.

To solve this problem we have tried to connect different identity silos together in various federated models. However these have produced inadvertent side effects such as concentrating control around a small number of providers, increasing data leakage through inadvertent sharing, and raising privacy concerns, all while not actually giving the individual real control.

At the same time, there is a growing economic inefficiency when organisations all around the world have to collect, store and protect the same sort of personal data in their own silos. It is reaching a tipping point.

The next evolution of the Internet will be the creation of a common identity layer that allows people, organisations and things to have their own self-sovereign identity—a digital identity they own and control, and which cannot be taken away from them. Self-sovereign identity is the natural evolution of an ecosystem which has moved faster than its supporting capabilities.

This paper looks at that evolution, and how self-sovereign identity can not only trigger a new wave of innovation, but also provide everyone in the world with a way to establish a portable, secure and controllable identity which is intrinsically theirs.

Links

• Sovrin

Citation

Tobin, A., Reed, D., Windley, F.P.J., Foundation, S., 2017. The Inevitable Rise of Self-Sovereign Identity 24.