Chain Bazaar Make it easier for the blockchain to land

Chain Bazaar Make it easier for the blockchain to land

Picture丨From the Internet

Picture丨From the Internet

Picture丨From the Internet

The digitization of society drives the digitization of identity. From health information to professional certification, the demand for identity information and credential verification is growing in all sectors of society, whether in volume, variety or value. Historically, identity information has been monitored and verified by third parties, either government or the private sector. However, shaky trust and the development of new technologies have called business organization in identity and access management into question.

As the volume of personal data, the frequency of digital interactions and security risks continue to increase, paper-based identification is less and less suitable for the digital world. It's unclear how emerging technologies will reshape identity.

Identity and access management (IAM) technologies play an important role in identifying, authenticating, and authorizing who has access to a service or system in an organization's management of events. There are many use cases in everyday life where access can be for anything from customers logging into software to developers configuring hardware, from citizens using government services to various forms of user verification, authentication and attestation.

Identity attributes are tags attached to an identity: employment, nationality, affiliation with a service provider, access to government entitlements, and demographics. These tags are not just numbers, but a testament to who we are.

At its core, it processes transactions, authenticates, and interacts in a decentralized manner without the need for a central authority to record and verify. This ability to sequentially record and retrieve stored data has been called a fundamental breakthrough in data preservation, with applications far beyond the realm of Crypto.

first level title

10 Use Cases Where Blockchain Technology Can Improve IAM

We briefly outline some of the initiatives that could improve IAM by leveraging or being inspired by blockchain technology. include:

1. Multi-party verification

Multi-party verification involves replacing an identity verification services company as a central authority with a set of entities owned by a joint venture or consortium and governed by a network. This is the broadest vision for applying blockchain technology to IAM systems to improve efficiency, although the complexity of coordination between parties makes such applications currently limited in scale.

2. Verifiable credentials

According to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), “Verifiable credentials represent claims made by the issuer in a public and privacy-respecting manner.” They are an important part of authentication, and blockchain technology provides the role of a “digital watermark.” Just as blockchain-based NFTs enable artists to digitally watermark their original media, similar functionality could be used to verify identity credentials. That is, instead of storing personally identifiable information on the blockchain, companies should store verifiable hashes.

3. Distribution attributes

In a public blockchain architecture or a hybrid architecture based on open source, access is unrestricted, and users have the potential to search and access data globally without the need for a central directory. This transparency may threaten privacy, but with greater privacy protections, the distributed nature of easier access to data may improve financial inclusion at this stage and help those who cannot prove their identity to obtain concessions.

4. Accessible properties

Through smart contracts based on code logic and blockchain algorithms, data can be encrypted and decrypted when needed. To avoid storing personally identifiable information (PII) or personal raw data on the blockchain, we only need to store the hash signature of the identity attribute on the ledger, and users can know their identity attributes from their devices.

5. Attribute source

How do we know the origin and accuracy of identity attributes? After all, an identity attribute is only reliable if we have sufficient trust in its source. Just as shared ledgers improve the transparency and efficiency of food traceability throughout the supply chain, shared ledgers may provide transparency in the time stamp of the source of the identity attribute.

The same functionality is useful for critical lifecycle management, especially for synchronizing visible lifecycle metadata. It is being considered by the academic community as it can assist in verifying and attesting to the authenticity of qualifications and employment credentials.

6. Data minimization

What data does a service provider actually need to know in order to authenticate someone? We can configure various functions on the blockchain, such as smart contracts, zero-knowledge proofs, selective disclosure, etc., which can minimize the data or identity attributes required for verification, and the data and attributes that do not need to be disclosed.

7. Audit Trail

In many enterprises, creating interaction logs is not only based on operational security, but also a regulatory requirement. Blockchain technology may not be necessary when recording audit information, such as registered users, user logins, user requests for permissions, or user deactivations, but it is useful for synchronizing between parties, maintaining log integrity, and reducing the risk of tampering or fraud. Possibilities are very useful.

8. Compliance verification

Another use case identical to a shared audit trail is compliance verification, as auditors can be permission-based stakeholders in a shared ledger network. Many corporate identity use cases also require compliance verification, such as Know Your Customer (KYC) in financial services.

Blockchain technology will not eliminate IAM's reliance on a central authority such as a government agency, but it can provide greater efficiency for individuals and banks. One bank can access and verify that the other bank has done KYC due diligence and verified the identity of the customer, all at a reduced cost to the bank.

9. Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI)

Although the concept of full autonomy and transferring control of all attributes back to the end user predates blockchain and IAM, blockchain technology has inspired some innovative designs to achieve greater autonomy over personal data. Consistency algorithms specifically designed for the reliability of identity attributes are included. Despite the possibility of SSI, some high-risk use cases, such as healthcare or financial services, may require an external agency to verify identity.

10. Decentralized Identity Authentication (DID)

A DID is an identity verification that is fully controlled by the identity owner, independent of a central authority or provider. DID is a component of SSI designed to be controlled by the user and cannot be reassigned and changed. This means they contain public key documents, authentication protocols and verifiability through cryptographic signatures.

• These use cases provide convenience in healthcare. Lack of communication between hospitals, insurance companies, caregivers, clinics, and pharmacies hinders efficiency, savings, and access to care for users. One of the core challenges of this problem is authentication. Enabling blockchain technology can achieve the following functions:

• Increase visibility for all stakeholders in the medical certification process through a single source of data;

• Track and certify practitioners' credentials and licenses throughout their career lifecycle;

• Verify the authenticity of health records and synchronize granted access;

• Support greater information privacy through private keys, data minimization, verifiable credentials, greater patient control, etc.;

• Improve regulatory compliance through encoded smart contracts and real-time visibility;

Reduce the significant cost, complexity and time associated with validating credentials by reducing data silos and duplication.

The Current State of Blockchain and IAM

The above use cases describe the benefits that blockchain technology brings to IAM, but ignore an important reality: identities are complex and personal, and increasingly have more biometric characteristics. is unprecedented.

While IAM connects multiple domains, systems, technologies and service providers, encoding identity information onto a blockchain is not just a technical endeavor. Questions about the accessibility of data are important: what should be stored, who vouches for it, how it is maintained, and who decides about accessibility. These questions combine philosophical, economic, cultural and legal considerations. While the technology is still changing, it has the potential to shift the point of identity control from a centralized but disconnected central hub to a decentralized but interconnected web of trust.

-END-