The government guarantees issued official documents, and it effectively takes the role of the guarantor of the documents’ validity. However, traditional ID documents are not easy to use in a digital context, which brings us to acknowledge the importance of digital identity, which can fulfil the need for verifiable personal information while allowing users to bridge the gap between the online and the real world. The protection of digital identities has become a priority, and personal data needs to be secured, with each individual’s ability to store personal data in a safe to which only he or she has access.
Within the digital identity framework itself, there are three different roles that are in constant interaction; the holder, the issuer, and the verifier. The latter usually validates the credentials by verifying the data integrity, the issuer trust, the signature verification, and the validation. The holders can build up an online profile by collecting verifiable credentials from organizations they interact with, and trust, and decide what information to share and with whom they would like to share it.
Decentralized Identity or Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) defines a new method for identity management and authentication in a “Bring Your Own Identity” (BYOI) manner, which can be realized via the Unified Identity Protocol (UIP) as an implementation of digital identity on IOTA. Decentralized identity puts the Identity subject in full control over its own identity, and provides a solution for the increasing amount of database breaches, the lack of trust in any digital setting, and the privacy legislation that is increasingly becoming difficult to comply with, such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Being an open-source distributed ledger and cryptocurrency designed for the Internet of things, IOTA Identity allows controlled information flow and presents an opportunity for companies and organizations to embrace a new role in the ecosystem while being able to change their processes to comply with the new regulations in a cost-efficient and privacy-enabling manner. From voting to healthcare, owning all your information related to your digital identity can resolve the existing trust issues. One digital identity is becoming a reality with endless possibilities.
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