Digital identity in Web2
Identity is the collection of information that distinguishes an individual within a multitude, the informative essence that can be attributed to them, contributing to defining their uniqueness. Identity is an abstract concept, but in everyday life, it becomes something extremely concrete.
The fact that I have brown eyes, am one meter seventy-one tall, was born in Rome, love taking photos, and reading science fiction books are a few pieces of information that set me apart from the multitude of people for whom these conditions do not apply. The negative space created between me and others becomes wider as more conditions are added.
Throughout the millennia, human identity has never ventured beyond the realm of the real until humans projected themselves into a virtual reality called the internet. All of us have found ourselves part of the digital revolution of the internet, becoming increasingly intertwined with the progressive and pervasive evolution of technological possibilities. Eventually, the virtual has replaced the physical in many aspects of our daily lives.
Lost in the ocean of the World Wide Web, we have moved from one digital island to another, leaving our digital footprints along the way. In a world that has become increasingly digital, human identity has transformed into a collection of all these digital traces. But this collection has never truly come together, primarily for two reasons:
- Identity is not truly ours, but it belongs to the platforms we use, especially social media.
- It is tragically fragmented among all these different virtual destinations.
The reasons are primarily technological and inherent in the centralised model of Web2, where data resides on the servers of those who control the platforms, often dominated by Big Tech giants, and follows their specific rules.
This means that our profiles, in other words, our personal accounts, exist in separate silos and, as a result, tell a different story about who we are and what we have done each time:
- Spotify knows your musical preferences for the daily commute.
- Amazon knows you like to sing Bob Marley in the shower.
- On Subito, you are a camera accessory enthusiast.
- Etsy knows your collector side – or maybe that of your partner.
The Pirandellian tragedy of Vitangelo Moscarda returns to the scene: we are many small pieces of an incompatible puzzle, incapable of telling a unified story, lost in a multitude of credentials, disoriented by yet another login, and drowning in the sea of password fatigue.
But that’s not all.
In the world of Web2, the fragmented individual also becomes a passive subject. In the last two decades, the internet has suddenly become accessible to all, but at the cost of surrendering control to those who facilitated this accessibility.
In this system, trust becomes an essential requirement: we must trust that those who safeguard our fragments of identity do so in our absolute interest. But when third parties are willing to pay for this information, the balance of incentives is disrupted, and scandals – such as Cambridge Analytica – result from the flawed dynamics of a system built poorly from the start.
But is there a happier exit? Yes, and it’s called decentralized identity. In this article, we will explain its fundamental elements and understand how blockchain has all the necessary components to become the technological infrastructure of the future internet.
Decentralised identity
Decentralised identity is an abstract concept that is based on the idea that a person’s data should be removed from the control of a central intermediary. More broadly, the common thread connecting the fabric of Web3, or the future internet, is decentralization, both in data custody and usage.
The goal is to reconcile all the digital traces of a user, which converge to create a unique and valid user profile across the entire domain of the digital experience, returned to the absolute, and therefore decentralized, control of the entity that generated and lived that experience.
Blockchain as an enabling technology
This is the idea, but practical implementation requires the right technology, particularly that the data should not be stored on a company’s or government entity’s server but rather secured on a distributed database, with blockchain being the most common implementation.
Anything written on the blockchain inherits the conditions of security. In a sense, it’s like engraving something on a block of marble, or any material that is difficult to alter. In the case of blockchain, the reasonable immutability and validity of information are ensured not by physical properties but by complex systems that combine encryption with economic incentives.
This ensures that once information is written on the blockchain, it becomes, in fact, the source of truth and will always be returned as originally written, unaltered. This is because on the blockchain, information is managed by a protocol that is completely trustless – there is no single custodian of information who could decide to modify or censor it at will.
This absolute source of truth is an essential prerequisite for creating a decentralized identity system.
The Identifier: The Glue of Digital Identity
Once established on the blockchain, the secure place to store data, it is necessary to create the actual virtual entity. The necessary ingredient is the identifier, an element that allows the disambiguation of the data tangle and reconnects them in a map of distinct entities, the “inhabitants” of the resulting virtual world.
The identifier can be represented by a code – an alphanumeric sequence of numbers or a text string – more or less readable and interpretable. The important thing is that it is capable of uniquely isolating a virtual entity within the ecosystem in which it exists.
In the case of Ethereum, the account serves this purpose. Each Ethereum account can be seen as a box containing the set of digital assets that describe the entity: each asset is an attribute, similar to the descriptors mentioned earlier (clear eyes, passion for photography, and so on).
By using the address associated with an account, it is possible to point to all the attributes of the account, stored in a standardized version. This means that they can be used not only on the specific application where they were originally generated but also on any other application that recognizes the standard.
This standardization is crucial because it would allow one to assert their attributes across the entire universe of compatible applications, somewhat similar to what is already happening today with Google and Facebook single sign-on systems, making any internet service just a click away.
However, there is a small but significant difference: in this case, we are not required to surrender our data to any intermediaries. Every digital asset belongs to the owner of the account, under the direct control of the one who holds the private key.
Control is the decisive difference compared to old digital identity systems, where identifiers are issued and managed by central entities, manipulable and arbitrarily usable by government entities, telecommunications operators, or social media platforms.
In a public key infrastructure like Ethereum’s,identity becomes self-sovereign.
Self-sovereign Identity
In Web3, we return to being sovereign over our data. Every digital asset can be “unlocked” exclusively with our consent. Consider the significance of this statement. It becomes possible to finally possess a virtual alter ego, a version that bears witness to our online experiences, to what we have done, received, and achieved.
Over time, our alter ego accumulates a real reputation, which can be spent as desired in all the different worlds of Web3. The digital islands unite to form continents, and we can explore them extensively with our intact and finally reconciled reputation.
More concretely, in the case of individuals, self-sovereign identity (SSI) allows the selective use of personal information, as each piece is represented by a different digital certificate.
Each certificate represents an attribute of the self-sovereign identity: a driver’s license, attendance at an event, ticket purchase, passing an exam, and so on.
Each of these attributes comes from an original attestation of truth. For example, it is the Ministry of Transport, through the motor vehicle offices, that attested to your driving eligibility. Thanks to the blockchain, it is possible to “crystallize” this statement of eligibility with cryptographic mechanisms that continue to testify to its authenticity over time – this is the concept of Verifiable Credential.
Thinking on a larger scale, it is possible to envision the creation of reputation systems, where digital identity forms organically through online browsing behaviors. This is achieved through the accumulation of digital assets – be they soul-bound tokens, NFTs, or other standards – capable of recording a stream of events, such as the history of songs we listen to, the things we purchase, the films we love, and all the other digital traces. This time, these traces are no longer exposed to the risks of centralized custody.
These pieces of information would be reorganized within digital wallets and become readily usable assets, for use in the future with the exclusive consent of the entity that owns the decentralized identifier.
The circle of decentralization is thus closed: this is the internet of the future, the Web3 that is so often discussed.
Possible Scenarios
Let’s imagine future scenarios: what would happen if blockchain became the new foundation of the internet? Consider some examples:
- Data monetization would no longer be a dream: in the future world, platforms like YouTube or Spotify could request data from users. These platforms would transform into consumers of our data, marking an epochal shift in the original power dynamics.
- The issue of data portability would be eliminated because data would no longer need to be moved; it would continue to exist on a single blockchain as the universal source of truth. In the future, protocols could be developed to use the same identifier on different blockchain ecosystems, expanding the universe accessible to our avatars.
- Access to public services would become increasingly immediate, as they would all be potentially accessible through a single interface, such as a desktop or mobile application. Governments would discover new ways of interacting with citizens, rewarding certain behaviors over others or cryptographically attesting to the right to receive a subsidy. In general, every interaction with public administration would become much simpler.
While waiting for the technology to mature to meet this vision on the blockchain, it is essential to use our imagination to explore use cases and understand which applications can already be tested in practice.
Market and Data
_old_Become an author
Wallet
