Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FITNewly published whitepaper on Self-Sovereign Identities now also available in English
As a result of technological progress and digitization, issues of privacy and security in digital environments have moved to the forefront of contemporary discussions in our society. Against this background, the concept of Self-Sovereign Identities (SSI) aims to enable self-determined control of personal cross-domain data and information. In our whitepaper "Self-Sovereign Identity – Basics, Applications and Potentials of Portable Digital Identities", which is now also available in English, we present the conceptual and technological foundations of SSI. Based on four case studies we analyze the potential of the SSI concept, its implications, and the challenges that still have to be solved.
The recently published whitepaper "Self-Sovereign Identity – Fundamentals, Applications and Potentials of Portable Digital Identities" written by the Project Group Business and Information Systems Engineering of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT deals with the concept of self-sovereign digital identities (SSI) and presents the fundamentals and application areas of this technology. In the past centralized, user-oriented and federated identities have been proposed to meet the challenges of the digital transformation in everyday life.
"These approaches show weaknesses in terms of security and privacy, while the concept of SSI enables users to manage their digital identities independently and, thus, regain sovereignty over their data and privacy," says Prof. Dr. Jens Strüker, Project Group Business and Information Systems Engineering of Fraunhofer FIT and University of Bayreuth.
The focus is on potential applications offered by SSI in healthcare, e-commerce, the Internet of Things (IoT), and public institutions. For all four application areas, concrete suggestions are made on how SSI can be used to create added value for individuals, companies and other organizations.
The whitepaper that has now been published in English as well as German brings together essential information on identity management according to the SSI paradigm in a dense form in order to provide an English-speaking audience with a broad overview of the current state of research, the foundations, technological developments and practical potentials on this topic. Also, it provides a critical examination of the technology in terms of its administrative, socio-economic, legal and technological challenges.
Prof. Dr. Nils Urbach from the Project Group Business and Information Systems Engineering of Fraunhofer FIT and Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences adds, "The further development of cryptographic methods in combination with blockchain technology in recent years has allowed a new paradigm that could address major drawbacks of traditional digital identity management."
For more information visit: https://s.fhg.de/blockchain-lab-en
Contact details
If you have any questions, please contact Prof. Dr. Nils Urbach (nils.urbach@fit.fraunhofer.de) and Prof. Dr. Jens Strüker (jens.strueker@fit.fraunhofer.de).