I recently came across the concept of Decentralized Digital Identity and read a few articles online which were too technical. So, I’m writing this blog that is easy to read with minimal effort. So sit back, relax, and keep reading.
Our internet identity is broken. Don’t worry. We can still shop from Amazon and browse social media, but the issue is we have to give away our personal information to use it. And only recently, we started to unlock the true potential of the internet with decentralization.
What Is Decentralization?
According to cryptodefinitions.com
Decentralized is a term used to describe a system that is not owned or controlled by a single entity, such as a government, bank, or company. Instead, the product or service is run and maintained using the computing power contributed by a global network of participants.
Now, let’s see how the blockchain is used to bring digital identity into reality.
What Is Decentralized Digital Identity?
An informal definition is,
Decentralized Digital Identity is an emerging self-owned identity management concept that allows users to generate, manage and control their identity without depending on any third party service or identity provider.
Let me give you an example. You visit different websites and provide a username and password to log in, which means you have different identities with each website. But if you set up your Dentantralized Digital Identity, your identity stays the same across the websites. And let’s say you visit a website and log in using Google.
In this case, Google manages your identity, but if you set up your identity in the blockchain, you can manage your identity yourself.
Before going slightly deep, let’s see what’s the issue with the current system.
The current problem with Centralized Identity Management is that it is owned and maintained by a single issuer. They are used to get access to certain services provided by the issuer. Still, they cannot be used with other service providers.
An example of Centralized Identity is logging in to websites like Facebook. If Facebook decides to terminate your account, your identity is gone.
Some E-commerce and social media platforms share our data with online businesses without our knowledge, so our identity is at the mercy of these centralized providers.
How Decentralized Digital Identity Works.
Let’s say you have a decentralized identity wallet application on your phone. You use the application to generate an identity. Now, you can provide these identity credentials to different websites. These websites validate your identity credentials and give you the necessary access.
It is trustworthy because the identity wallet application uses cryptographic systems. Once the identity is created, the wallet application generates cryptographic private and public keys. The application then submits the public key to the blockchain, which generates a unique identifier against your wallet.
The biometric data or a pin that only you know will secure the private key. The private key remains with your device/identity wallet and is used during the authentication.
One main advantage is once your identity is presented, you can revoke it at any point with just a single click.
Final Words
With decentralized identity, there is no user name and password but rather cryptographic keys to log in to a website, and you only share the data relevant to a specific service. While the decentralized identity is an excellent concept, in theory, there is a low level of adaptation.
Most users are still unaware of this, and governments are trying to figure out how to deploy the decentralized identity at scale.
Overall, decentralized identity is a big paradigm shift in the web. It can open the door to many other things you could do with blockchain once we solve the current digital identity issues.
So, now a question for you. What do you think about the decentralized identity, and are you gonna use it when it’s there?
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Also published here