Chain Bazaar Make it easier for the blockchain to land
Chain Bazaar Make it easier for the blockchain to land
Picture丨From the Internet
Picture丨From the Internet
Picture丨From the Internet
The right to privacy means that a person has the right to keep personal privacy and confidentiality for everything related to personal life. In addition, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides for the right to privacy (Article 12). For this reason, some companies have begun to pay attention to this field. For example, Apple once put forward the slogan, The data generated on the iPhone will stay on the iPhone.
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What is a digital identity?
According to the Spanish Royal Academy (RAE), identity is a set of characteristics of a person or a group that characterize the persons relationship to others. If we add the digital attribute to this definition, it becomes the set of characteristics that identify us in the digital world.
So digital identities can be our first and last names, but also our personal email addresses, professional email addresses, or even our bank accounts. In other words, digital identity is all the data or digital attributes we use to interact with web programs such as websites and apps.
Our characteristics, images, preferences and habits are also part of the attributes that identify us and set us apart from others in the real world. People will naturally assume that in the digital world, there is also a self.
In this case, our habits and behaviors when we shop for trousers in an online store, or even when we surf the Internet, reflect our aesthetic taste in fashion.
However, many companies are currently embroiled in litigation scandals related to data breaches and theft, data trafficking and political inference. In high-profile cases such as Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, the two entities are accused of using more than 50 million Facebook profiles without the consent of the owners for psychometric profiling. These materials were at the heart of much of the political campaign planning abroad at the time.
Ultimately as users, once we make our data available in the digital world, we effectively lose control of it.
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Digital Identity Legislation
However, the actual situation is not so worrying. There are regulations that protect the processing of our personal data and the free movement of such data within a common European frame of reference, such as the General Data Protection Act. Under this provision, as citizens, we can compel companies to delete our personal data from their systems.
However, things are not so simple. In order to exercise this right, as a user you have to remember to which company you provided your personal data, which is quite a complex task. Everything, or almost everything, in this world is digital, and we unconsciously interact with Internet companies multiple times a day.
In many cases where digital personal data is handled, the General Data Protection Act is now beginning to be overwhelmed. As a result, work and legislation on sovereign digital identities has already begun.
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What is a self-sovereign digital identity?
The main goal of this new concept of digital identity is that people can once again be the owners of their own data. This identity will consist of a set of characteristics that identify an individual, known as a verifiable credential.
Verifiable credentials, in addition to representing information, make data impossible to tamper with because they are digitally signed by the issuing entity.
Credentials with raw data never leave the so-called wallet or user wallet by installing a simple App on the smartphone. And that gets back to the goal of giving people back control over their data, users potentially creating, owning and controlling access to that kind of data.
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The road to a new identity model
(https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/european-digital-identity_en )
Recently, the European Commission announced plans to create a European digital identity, allowing any European citizen to use any attribute of their identity in any member state. As a simple example, that digital identity might include their financial details so they can buy a house in a country other than their country of residence.
This concept is conceived as a collection of compatible personal credentials that are interoperable between different public administrations, which is very close to the concept of sovereign digital identity discussed above.
The benefits of a sovereign digital identity include:
1. Everyone who holds a national identity card from an EU member state has the right to have a recognized digital identity anywhere in the EU.
2. This is an easy and safe way to control how much information you want to distribute with the services that require information sharing.
3. It works through mobile apps and digital wallets on other devices for: online and offline proof of identity; storage and exchange of information provided by governments such as name, surname, date of birth, nationality, etc.; storage and exchange by trusted information provided by private sources; use of such information to confirm the right to reside, work or study in a Member State.
As far as Spain is concerned, we are the pioneers and leaders in establishing mechanisms and solutions in this new identity model.
In January of this year, inspired by the AlstriaID model, after the publication of the Spanish standard PNE 71307-1 in the Spanish National Gazette (Boletín Oficial del Estado), the first global standard on decentralized digital identity in the blockchain was established in Spain Approval.
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Blockchain as a component of digital identity
However, with sovereign digital identities built on blockchain technology, user data is never stored in any way. In this case, the data stored is traceable, which allows us to determine whether a persons data is still valid, but always keeping their privacy. In other words, thanks to blockchain technology, we can verify that a credential has neither been revoked nor changed and therefore remains valid.
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Potential Applications of Sovereign Digital Identity
We must not forget the commercial promise of sovereign digital identity. This new approach to managing identities will open up opportunities for new patterns and use cases. Some of these use cases might be the following, although the range of possibilities would be huge.
Electronic medical records: Currently in Spain all management of medical records is carried out by the public health system of the patients place of residence. When we leave the community and have to use other medical services, our records dont travel with us. So using a digital identity model to carry our medical information in an interoperable way could be a viable solution to this situation.
Simplified registration process (boarding): Many times, we stop registering on certain sites because of the amount of data to fill in the form. Therefore, another possible use case for a sovereign digital identity is as input data in forms. Furthermore, since blockchains can track credentials, we will be able to solve the current problem of exercising the right to delete or amend our personal data without knowing which companies we have provided our data to.
Wallet: Wallet is an app that serves as a credential container. We still need to do a lot of work on the wallet. Weve talked many times about how complex it is to manage public and private keys for a blockchain platform.
One of the limitations of blockchain technology is that it can be used by people who are not familiar with it or those with special needs. If we were to ask an elderly user to download a bitcoin wallet and use bitcoin as a form of payment when he goes to the supermarket, that would be unimaginable.
That is why we should not associate it with the world of cryptocurrencies and their wallets. Thanks to these technologies, our future may have mobile apps that, for example, allow us to use our identities to interact with public administrations in a very simple way, which is currently a little more complicated.
In short, it is our challenge to create wallets or apps that simplify interacting with this identity model so that it can be incorporated into everyday life. The technology is feasible and mature. It just needs to be available and transparent to the user.
The concept of Sovereign Digital Identity is the best solution to all of our limitations today and the only way that will allow us to regain ownership of our personal data, thereby restoring the need for personal privacy that we have always craved.
So, it is only a matter of time before we start using blockchain technology to simplify and facilitate our use of digital identities in our daily lives.
