Our identity is being more computerized, with more of our paper credentials being converted to digital versions. These digital credentials are used every day to work, learn, play, socialize, shop, and consume services both online and offline. It’s so handy and expected to have these facets of life at our fingertips these days. More than half of the world’s economy is digitally based or influenced.1 Digital data becomes fluid and integrated across services. Individually, we may not always be able to control it.

Digital identity is about to undergo a huge transition that will make it more safe, private, and portable. Because the internet was not designed with identity in mind, businesses have developed unique connections with each of us. The proliferation of these distinct accounts, each of which is housed in a central database controlled by a different company, has raised the possibility of security and privacy breaches. These dangers are not mitigated by just digitizing a business process or a physical ID. We require an identification system that unifies our identities, which are owned by individuals, and makes digital identities transferable in a trustworthy and safe manner.

Consider a plastic driver’s license as an example. Digitizing a driving license, for example, substitutes a physical card with a digital card that can be stored in your smartphone wallet. A digital license makes it easy to share your license with stores and service providers to confirm your age, but it also makes it easier for firms to access all of the information written on your IDs, such as your birthday and gender, which opens the door to monitoring and privacy issues. When done correctly, however, it may enhance privacy and security. Instead of simply digitizing your driver’s license and transferring all of the information printed on it to an image on your phone, a decentralized approach in which you own the identity and can prove the information was verified allows you to share the information from your driver’s license that you need and revoke it when necessary.

Let’s look at some of the contrasts between credential digitalization and decentralization.

Security and your digital identity

Digitizing an identity merely creates a digital version of an asset; nevertheless, this does not indicate that it has the same level of assurance as the original file or document. While it may have been digitized and provided by an official source, the verifier may generate a digital copy and keep it without your permission. Apps frequently rely on credential attributes, which are equally vulnerable to data breaches. We’ve relied on authentication mechanisms like usernames and passwords to prove the individual is who they claim they are. When a person’s account gets hacked, they must rely on the firm to retrieve their account and personal information that is legitimately theirs. You may authenticate a person’s true ownership of a real-world identity with decentralization by checking their digitally signed credentials. Individuals may save their identifying data in a safe, encrypted wallet and simply manage access to it. A decentralized identity might eliminate the need for usernames and passwords, focusing instead on alternative means of verification to give the necessary degree of assurance.

Privacy and data protection

With the rise of technology, privacy issues have become more prominent. People are becoming more aware of the number of data organizations collect and profit from, prompting some to use VPNs or share false information to reduce the value of the data collected from them.2 Data protection laws, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), aim to give users more control over how they see and manage their data, but they don’t completely solve the problem. Rather than making copies of your identification data, organizations might get permission from you to obtain the information you need and verify it digitally without storing it. Zero-knowledge proofs, where one party may show to another party that a particular assertion is true or untrue, such as verifying your age or citizenship, are among the new standardized ideas being created. This keeps the amount of data shared to a minimum. It can help enterprises manage personally identifiable information (PII) by giving users total choice over what they share and empowering them to be stewards of their data. Selective disclosure and data minimization are important needs for decentralizing identification, according to us.

Portability and visibility

Before you could keep documents on the cloud, you had to share copies of papers via email. It made numerous copies of the same document, making it difficult to keep track of changes and determine which was the most current. People can save the original piece of identification data on their device as a credential, cryptographically signed with their private key, and share the record with any organization thanks to decentralization. The company may then use a basic ledger check to confirm that it comes from a reliable source. The user gets visibility into how the data was utilized and how long the organization has access to it. The adoption of open standards specifications, such as the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) verified credentials, makes it simple for people and businesses to acquire and display credentials across platforms and services. It enables people to form mutually beneficial partnerships with organizations.

Next Steps

While converting credentials to digital form isn’t new, decentralizing identity is. It allows people to verify their credentials once and then use them as evidence of attestation wherever. Users have more power now that the nexus of control has shifted to them. They can choose what they want to share and for how long, and they can keep their data safe in their digital wallet.

Although decentralization standards are still being developed and tested, it is not too early to begin investigating use cases. Consider how decentralization can assist your company with things like efficiently onboarding workers and contractors, providing extra confidence when allowing access to high-value apps, or retrieving an account. We see a decentralized identification system as a critical component to enable trust and security in the future, given the momentum around decentralization of the internet, currency, assets, and more.

Here at CourseMonster, we know how hard it may be to find the right time and funds for training. We provide effective training programs that enable you to select the training option that best meets the demands of your company.

For more information, please get in touch with one of our course advisers today or contact us at training@coursemonster.com