How blockchain helping to secure personal identification security? How people can control their data? Explained.
Introduction
Every day, we carry wallets full of cards. However, only a select few, like government IDs and credit cards, are widely accepted. Our society has established global norms for how we present and verify the credentials these physical cards represent.
As an individual, you identify yourself with your name, address age, profession, and more. You see that identity in many forms on your driver's license, social security card, birth certificate, work or school badges, insurance cards. These are called identity instruments. Now think of all the ways you identify yourself with all your different IDs multiplied by all your daily online and offline interactions. Questions arise, such as:
- How much of your personally identifiable information do you control?
- How much of it is out there being used without your consent?
- How much of it is stored in locations you don't know about?
As you think about where your identity is and who has access to it. Hackers are constantly prowling honey pots to exploit personal information aggregated into centralized systems of records. Identity theft and data breaches are major threats that compromised who we are, because identity is the fundamental asset of how we interact with each other, and having our identity compromised or stolen creates a tremendous setback for ourselves.
So let's rethink how identity solutions transform the way we interact with the world ID issuing secure payments Universal patient records know your customer and more are all use cases of digital identity that can be embedded in modernized transactions, so what are the two major drivers for change.
- We all want control over our identity and who we share it with through secure relationships, removing any identity mediators.
- Businesses want to optimize process workflows and decrease costs while remaining relevant in a digital economy.
These same businesses also want to innovate on their core strategy. Instead of having to invest in an identity strategy, strengthening identity models can offload some of those challenges. Which can then be reinvested in building core business value for clients, a result of moving control points for identity to the edges of the network, giving more control to people organizations and connected devices where trust cannot be compromised. Blockchain technology speeds up decentralized identity models by providing a web of trust as people. Organizations and connected devices establish and share their own identity created by them and verified by relationships.
But there's no real equivalent for digital credentials. But why?
- There's no standard mechanism for issuing digital cards. To issue universally acceptable digital cards or credentials, we need digital identifiers that individuals can own independently of any entity, organization, or institution.
Currently, we use email addresses and phone numbers as identifiers to access websites and apps. But our access to these identifiers, and our personal information, is at the mercy of service providers who can revoke them.
- There are no universally accepted standards for expressing, exchanging, and verifying digital credentials across organizational boundaries.
This is all about to change by Blockchain. A fresh form of digital identity, based on emerging standards such as Verifiable Credentials and Decentralized Identifiers, can enable such digital credentials to work everywhere, be more trustworthy, and respect privacy.
How Blockchain will work to change this?.
For example, suppose a person with a new digital wallet empowers to own and control credentials. Since it's not tied to any one organization, authoritative sources can confidently issue standard-based credentials to that person. When that person presents these credentials, websites and apps can check that they're valid, for example, by confirming with a University that the person is a student there and then grant access accordingly. While this process may be easier is it trustworthy?
How do we know it's trustworthy?
Using Blockchain, decentralized identifiers leverage proven cryptographic systems. When a person presents his credentials, his digital wallet generates a unique identifier and signs it using a private key secured by a biometric proof or pin that only that person knows. The uniquely paired public key is published to a distributed ledger. That person can present his digital student ID card to a bookstore, and before granting a discount, the bookstore can confirm that the university issued the card to that person.
This experience mimics what people do today. They can digitally present and authenticate a set of verifiable credentials just as they would present a physical card. And then can revoke them with a single click, just as people would return a card to their wallet. Best of all, these digital cards are private. This puts the person in sole control of his digital identity. The person decides for it. Verifiable Credentials will make it easier to stay in control and help unlock a more trustworthy internet that respects privacy for all of us!