Below is an image taken from Sovrin where there is a resource about Self-Sovereign Identity. In this post I'll break down the important aspects I see as trying to implement these principles and also shine a bit of light on some of the problems we have with SSI.
There are 12 principles of SSI that are broken down into 3 categories:
- Agency
- Every human being has the right to to study, work, vote, receive health care, without bias
- Autonomy
- Every human being has the the right to freedom of choice, free of coercion
- Integrity
- Every human being has the right to be protected, and preserve integrity
These are pretty awesome guiding principles but they are also broken down further. Visit the article listed earlier to get the full definition from Sovrin and spend a few mins looking and understanding the image shared here. After that the rest of the article will peel back a bit of what these principles mean.
Looking at the above image, I believe "Agency" and "Integrity" to be easy wins. "Agency" encompasses a philosophy we can adopt and try to enforce with hard rules governing our chain of trust by seeing eye to eye the next person in our chain is who we say they are. "Integrity", we have strong means to using cryptographic keys to validate identity in some systems which allows for Integrity if done right. This really only leaves "Autonomy" to solve and it's a doozey.
I think "Autonomy" is the difficult challenge to solve in this problem, it will require technology and concerted effort for those in the movement to ensure it doesn't fizzle out. Let's break down Autonomy to see what sort of issues we need to solve with technology:
- Participation
- This will be about getting the word out and making whatever system/app/process is developed needs to be democratic in nature. No single authority can blacklist or stop people from joining. It's a consensus that will be needed to ensure fair play.
- Decentralization
- There should be no single point of failure. If a node or myself is taken offline, then the system should flourish without intervention.
- Interoperability
- If other systems adopt the same principles and protocol, then we should be able to share identities across these systems. This means if you're unhappy with your decentralized identity network, you can move your data to another one.
- Portability
- Hand in hand with interoperability. Having a strict protocol to exchange identities is required to ensure the other 3 principles of "Autonomy" are handled.
This is merely scratching the surface, there are people in this decentralized identity space for years without much movement as it's a tough nut to crack.
A decentralized self-sovereign currency has been around for the better part of 2 decades with Bitcoin and other crypto currencies. But applying principles around personhood without financial incentive does not create the same trust level. People can take down decentralized identity if nothing other than to watch the world burn. So my research and understandings will help try to solve this problem with some consensus method that allows for proper SSI.
Isaac