Self Sovereign Identities

Cumbrous documentation, undue involvement of intermediaries and frequent data hacks, are some of the major roadblocks that deprive millions of individuals from having an official identity in India. Having examined the security issues related to a centralized database, several digital identity models have been presented in light of data protection, decentralization, immutability, revocation, auditability, speed and users control over the personally identifiable information. In this book, a comprehensive overview of physical as well as digital identities has been made. Taking into account the central, federated and self-sovereign models of digital identity, the latter has been proposed for identification management leveraging blockchain technology. In the ensuing chapters, blockchain architecture and its key characteristics have been discussed in detail. Lastly, the working mechanism of blockchain enabled ID management, transactional procedures, irreversibility, persistency, applications and the challenges, which are likely to come in future, have been explained.