Self Sovereign ID to Replace Paper Documents and Plastic ID

Think of Self Sovereign Identity as having the power to distribute your personal data at will without the need for paper documentation.

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Blockchain is slowly but surely getting adapted to different kinds of industries around the world. With this change, blockchain technology will also disrupt the way we share, protect, and use our identity. Enter the Self Sovereign Identity.

Self Sovereign Identity

Think of Self Sovereign Identity as having the power to distribute your personal data at will without the need for paper documentation. Here’s an example of how Self Sovereign Identity will work in terms of healthcare:

If you’re around 20s to late 30s, also known as the working group, you may have experienced applying for a healthcare insurance. It is the standard operating procedure of the insurance company to ask for your medical history and other medical data they need in order to process your application. But what if you change your health care insurance to a new one? You need to go through the process of medical data gathering again. With Self Sovereign Identity, you don’t need to resubmit the necessary documents, answer a whole pile of questionnaires, as you can give them access to your medical data in the blockchain.

Read More: ID2020 is a Digital Identity System Built on the Blockchain

How will it work?

There three important concepts in Identity.

  • Claims – This your personal data such as your name, birthday, address, etc. You’re claiming to be xxx name, with the birthday on xxx and living at xxx.
  • Proof – Your standard ID card, passport, diploma.
  • Attestation – This is when a third party validates your Claims and Proof, just like how schools validate your diploma or your claim that you graduated from them.

Self Sovereign Identity also has the same three important concepts without the need of paper documents. Here’s how:

  • Claims – By using the text function of your mobile device, you can type in your name, birthday, address, etc.
  • Proof – Since the Self Sovereign Identity technology is not yet active, the only way you can get proof is by scanning or taking a photograph of your documents. This will change once attestations can digitally sign your proofs.
  • Attestation – Attestations are also included in your *Self Sovereign Identity wallet. They are machine readable and are valid within certain time windows. A good example is your passport. It is valid for a couple of years before you renew.

Self Sovereign Identity Wallet

This wallet will store your personal data, saved on your phone, and backed up somewhere. This is like the equivalent of where you store your important paper documents. You will then have to create your own self-generated identification number derived from a public key and your own private key that will act as your digital signature. This pair of keys (public and private) are from pure randomness and some math to make sure that there are no duplicate keys.

This Identity Wallet will store your digital personal information that you can share.

Thoughts

With this new kind of Self Sovereign Identity, we don’t need to carry around envelopes and folders whenever we go job hunting or even apply for a bank loan. Our wallets will not be as bulky as before because our Identity wallet can now include information such as “licenses to drive cars” and “over 18”. It is also nice that we don’t need to give out personal data just to prove that we are over 18 as this new technology will just say <Over18>TRUE</Over18> than the usual flashing of birthday that some of us are guilty in using it as passwords.

Source: bitsonblock

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