Skip to main content

Blockchain-Based Self Sovereign Identity Systems: High-Level Processing and a Challenges-Based Comparative Analysis

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Systems for Sustainable Development (AI2SD 2022)

Abstract

Traditional identity management systems trust centralized certification authorities (CAs) to manage public keys and authenticate the mapping between users and their respective keys. This presents several security concerns as a CA is a single point of failure in the system. Besides, managing public keys by a centralized CA is becoming costly regarding the current growth in users and the distributed systems they use. Also, centralized identity management systems lack interoperability and present privacy concerns.

Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) systems aim to address these issues by providing decentralized identity ecosystems that facilitate the registration and exchange of identity attributes, and the propagation of trust between participating entities, without needing to rely on a central authority.

Blockchain technologies improve security in the SSI systems by allowing control of the storage and disclosure of credentials and identity information. They improve the integrity, confidentiality, and interoperability of users’ information.

This paper highlights the challenges that an Identity Management System (IdM) must overcome, and how blockchain-based IdMs leverage blockchain technology to meet these challenges. It also presents a comparative analysis of three SSI ecosystems based on the above-mentioned challenges. An SSI layered architecture model detailing the actors, objects, components, and processes is then proposed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 189.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 249.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Cameron, K.: The Laws of Identity (2005). https://www.identityblog.com/stories/2005/05/13/TheLawsOfIdentity.pdf

  2. The Sovrin Foundation: Sovrin™: A Protocol and Token for SelfSovereign Identity and Decentralized Trust (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Lipińska, A.: uPort Serto Ecosystems: Creating trusted data networks between businesses and individual (2019). https://medium.com/uport/uport-serto-ecosystems-creating-trusted-data-networks-between-businesses-and-individuals-ff21c9368d3b

  4. Ligham, V.: CVC Token Transfer and Identity.com Nonprofit (2021). https://www.civic.com/blog/cvc-token-transfer-and-identity-com-nonprofit/

  5. Terbu, O.: The Self-sovereign Identity Stack (2019). https://medium.com/decentralized-identity/the-self-sovereign-identity-stack-8a2cc95f2d45

  6. Trust over IP Foundation: the white paper Introducing the Trust over IP Foundation (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Sovrin Foundation: Taking the Sovrin Foundation to a Higher Level: Introducing SSI as a Universal Service (2020). https://sovrin.org/taking-the-sovrin-foundation-to-a-higher-level-introducing-ssi-as-a-universal-service/

  8. López, M.A.: IDB: SELF-SOVEREIGN IDENTITY The Future of Identity: Self-Sovereignity, Digital Wallets, and Blockchain (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Gisolfi, D.: Self-sovereign identity: Why blockchain? (2018). https://www.ibm.com/blogs/blockchain/2018/06/self-sovereign-identity-why-blockchain/

  10. Ferdous, M.S., Chowdhury, F., Alassafi, M.O.: IEEE Access (vol. 7) In Search of Self-Sovereign Identity Leveraging Blockchain Technology (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Liu, Y., et al.: Design-Pattern-as-a-Service for Blockchain-based Self-Sovereign Identity. In: IEEE Software Special Issue on Blockchain and Smart Contract Engineering (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  12. W3C Community Group (2020) Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) v1.0, Core architecture, data model, and representations. https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/

  13. Sabadello, M.: A Universal Resolver for self-sovereign identifiers (2017). https://medium.com/decentralized-identity/a-universal-resolver-for-self-sovereign-identifiers-48e6b4a5cc3c

  14. Sabadello, M.: The Universal Resolver Infrastructure (2020). https://medium.com/decentralized-identity/the-universal-resolver-infrastructure-395281d2b540

  15. W3C Community Group: Verifiable Credentials Data Model 1.0 (2019). https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/

  16. Sabadello, M., et al.: Introduction to DID Auth, White paper, Rebooting The Web of Trust VI (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Matsuzaki, T.: Walkthrough of Decentralized Identity (DID) Network (2019). https://tsmatz.wordpress.com/2019/12/24/decentralized-identifiers-did-tutorial/

  18. Roon, M.: DIF Identity Hubs (2019). identity-hub/explainer.md at master · decentralized-identity/identity-hub · GitHub

    Google Scholar 

  19. Kondova, G., Erbguth, J.: SAC’20, “Self-Sovereign Identity on Public Blockchains and the GDPR.pdf”

    Google Scholar 

  20. DID Registration. https://didproject.azurewebsites.net/docs/registration.html

  21. Lesavre, L., Varin, P., Mell, P., Davidson, M., Shook, J.: A Taxonomic Approach to Understanding Emerging Blockchain Identity Management Systems. Nist Cybersecurity White Paper (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Six Principles for Self-Sovereign Biometrics (2019). https://github.com/WebOfTrustInfo/rwot6-santabarbara/blob/master/draft-documents/Biometrics.md

  23. Foundation, S.: Write To The Sovrin Public Ledger! https://sovrin.org/issue-credentials/

  24. Civic Technologies: “Flexible Pricing that Scales”. https://www.civic.com/pricing/

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bahya Nassr Eddine .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Nassr Eddine, B., Ouaddah, A., Mezrioui, A. (2023). Blockchain-Based Self Sovereign Identity Systems: High-Level Processing and a Challenges-Based Comparative Analysis. In: Kacprzyk, J., Ezziyyani, M., Balas, V.E. (eds) International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Systems for Sustainable Development. AI2SD 2022. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 637. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26384-2_42

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics