The SSI Sweep: World Economic Forum's take on digital identity

January 31, 2020
vol. 24

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Hot off the press

Become a member of the Sovrin Foundation: In celebration of Data Privacy Day, the Sovrin Foundation launched a new membership program for individuals and organizations that want to support efforts of the Foundation and self-sovereign identity.
Blockstack PBC successfully completes Milestone 2 for network growth: "Milestone 2 was defined as the Blockstack network succeeding in registering one million Verified Users, where a “Verified User” is defined as a user account on the Blockstack network with at least one form of Acceptable Attestation indicating that the user account is owned by a human and not owned and operated by a computer program or bot.”
Medici Ventures and Vibranium ID back global digital identity network: Medici Ventures and Vibranium ID are the newest Stewards of the Sovrin Network.
Electronic Frontier Foundation: Top apps invade user privacy by collecting and sharing personal data, new report finds: "The NCC report shows that a huge surveillance industry has built up around us. Instead, we need a user-oriented tech ecosystem that does not treat user data like a free resource to be exploited."
Microsoft CEO: Data privacy must be thought of as a human right: "It’s not just ‘privacy’ and ‘oh, I give away my data’. I should be able to control in a much more finer-grained way how my data is being used to create utility for me and the world and the causes I care about."

Deep dives

Reimagining digital identity: A strategic imperative: "This paper showcases innovative approaches to digital identity that are unlocking new business value for companies while empowering customers with control of their data and protection of their personal freedoms. It highlights the risks of not getting identity right, and the need for collaboration across companies and industries to realize new value. It offers models and considerations for executives to rethink how to approach digital identity in their businesses." —World Economic Forum
Guidance for decentralized identity and verifiable claims: "Decentralized identity will disrupt identity management by enabling privacy-enhanced verifiable identity data exchange over the internet. Security and risk management technical professionals should identify relevant use cases and prepare for applicable adoption scenarios." —Gartner

Must reads

It's time to redefine how data is governed, controlled and shared. Here's how: "Global standards for data rights and obligations could be embedded in the very fabric of the internet through rules and protocols around data exchange....The Sovrin Foundation, a private-sector, international non-profit, is currently taking a first step in examining the merits of this approach. It is developing a system to allow individuals to manage their digital IDs online through open-source, self-sovereign identity." —World Economic Forum
Everest Group releases enterprise blockchain readiness report, explores 12 platforms including Ardor & Multichain: "Such moves feed into the general narrative, with forecasts suggesting that global blockchain tech revenues will surge in the coming decade. Indeed, the market is predicted to exceed $23.3 billion in size by 2023." —Coinspeaker
What's ahead for digital identity in 2020?: "Whereas identity data, to date, has been centralized, with data sovereignty being in the hands of the issuing authority, typically a government, self-sovereign was all about putting the user in charge of their data." —CSO

Hear it from the experts

Businesses must work together to protect users’ digital identities: "Meanwhile, collaborative efforts show how trusted digital identity systems can lead to increased user confidence. For example, collaborative, bank-led digital identities could help reduce the $60 million spent on customer verification globally each year. In the health care industry, seamless and secure sharing of medical information between organizations can save 50% of US GDP. And with the gig economy expected to grow to $335 billion in revenue by 2025, digital identity can enable trust in the legitimacy and credentials of workers, especially on gig and sharing economy platforms." —World Economic Forum
How the global refugee crisis is also about identity: "Self-sovereign identity uses 'zero-knowledge proofs', cryptographically securing everyone's data. No personal identifiable data stored on databases. Individuals can prove that they are who they claim they are without revealing their personal identifiable data." —Mariana Dahan, Founder and CEO, World Identity Network
Gartner predicts for the future of privacy 2020: "By 2023, 65% of the world’s population will have its personal information covered under modern privacy regulations, up from 10% today." —Gartner
Women in blockchain tech at ETH Lagos: Ese Mentie: "On the uPort platform, you own the rights to the data that makes up your identity, and you can share and revoke access to that data at will. Rethinking identification structures could have many positive implications for the African continent, as an estimated 500 million people have no official identification." —Ese Mentie, Director of Quality Assurance, uPort
Just Go Grind Podcast: Brittany Laughlin, Blockstack: "Blockstack is built for developers to easily build on top of blockchains. So with the Blockstack technology, if you are a developer and you know Javascript, in as little as an hour you can learn how to build an application on Blockstack." —Brittany Laughlin, Investor Relations at Blockstack PBC and Founding Partner of Lattice Ventures
First pillar of an SSI network: Governance: "Governance is critical to universal interoperability in an identity metasystem because all participants must be able to make their own decisions about who and what to trust. Governance gives assurances by providing process and accountability." —Phil Windley, Chair of the Board of Trustees, Sovrin Foundation

Upcoming event

Blockchain Summit Latam
Panama City, Florida | March 12-13

Blockchain Summit Latam is a conference that seeks to unite companies, entrepreneurs, institutions, and regulators around the development of blockchain technology in Latin America. One of SSI Incubator's graduated startups, Xertify, will be attending the conference represented by Sebastián Farfán, Co-founder & COO. If you would like to meet up with the Xertify team while there, feel free to reach out to Sebastián on Twitter.

A call for mentors and sponsors

There are multiple opportunities to participate in the SSI Incubator including:

Volunteer as a business/technical mentor to guide a SSI-based startup through its early development stages. The 12-week incubator is designed to get the incubator participants ready to present for the SSI Demo Day—the culminating event where they will showcase their SSI solution to a room full of investors. The SSI Incubator is looking for mentors who will share their expertise with the world's most-promising emerging early-stage SSI companies.
Become an SSI Incubator sponsor. The SSI Incubator hosts a number of digital identity events in San Francisco. By becoming a sponsor of the SSI Incubator, you will be recognized as an advocate for SSI adoption and innovation among industry leaders.

Please contact info@ssiincubator.com to volunteer as a SSI Incubator mentor or sponsor.