Source: CryptoNewsNet Original Title: The future of digital identity must be self-sovereign and decentralized | Opinion Original Link:

The Rubicon of Digital Citizenship

It’s hard to define the precise point at which humanity crossed the Rubicon to become digital citizens. (Was it broadband? Smartphones? AI?) All we know for certain is that we are, to all intents and purposes, more digital than we are physical. Our bodies are still flesh and blood, but our minds — where we create art, music, and verse — now reside in the cloud.

Digital Identity as Personhood

When we talk about digital identity, what we are effectively talking about is ourselves. In the 21st century, you are, to all intents and purposes, the product of the digital breadcrumbs you leave scattered across the web.

Give a man or woman a digital identity, and you give them the means to work, learn, and earn. Take that access away, and you effectively banish them from civilized society. Digital identity is now synonymous with personhood — access to work, learning, and society depends on digital IDs, making control over identity a core human issue, not just a technical one.

The Dangers of Centralization

Centralized identity systems are inherently dangerous because they concentrate sensitive data into single points of failure. Biometrics, credentials, financial information, and behavioral history are all piled high in central silos, creating massive incentives for illicit access.

As the disparate digital services we use become interconnected, we will reach a stage where one digital identity can do everything from signing into social media to booking a doctor’s appointment. This transformation will make our lives more convenient, but it will also make them more precarious. When all data flows through a single hub, attackers need only compromise one system to access everything.

All it takes is a sophisticated hacker or a malevolent government for this information to end up in the wrong hands. The outcome could be deplatforming, exclusion from core services, or financial theft. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Self-Sovereign Identity: The Solution

We have the technology to build a future in which our data doesn’t have to be piled high in central silos — because it never left our possession in the first place. Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) reverses the power dynamic by giving control back to the individual.

SSI combines distributed storage inherent to blockchain with cryptographic technology that allows data to be viewed only by authorized entities. Privacy implementations such as zero-knowledge proofs allow the validity of information to be verified without revealing its contents. You don’t need to broadcast your date of birth or passport scan over the internet to prove that you’re old enough to order alcohol, in other words.

Trust is maintained cryptographically, with the individual in control of their own access and permissions. The compromise of one credential issuer doesn’t compromise the identities of every user. This setup doesn’t just benefit users — it also means that governments, universities, and institutions can issue credentials without having to store them.

Why Adoption Lags Behind

If SSI is so compelling, why isn’t it implemented everywhere? The primary reason is that this requires radical change to the way businesses think about data and user access. Change is hard: it’s why the internet is still stuck with password verification, despite its weaknesses having been widely known for years.

The technology is ready, but the awareness of its capabilities and willingness to implement them is still not widespread. This will happen, but it will take time — it took more than a decade for blockchain technology to become widely understood and trusted. Given that SSI is an additional layer built upon this, it will require acclimatization from users and credential issuers alike.

The Inevitable Future

But make no mistake: decentralized identity is the inevitable future of digital ID. With every new database hack, the case for self-sovereign identity becomes stronger. The question is not whether we will transition to SSI, but when — and whether we’ll do it proactively or reactively.