Connecting Physical Identity with Blockchain-Based Self-Sovereign Identity

Description:

• With increased adaptations of digital identities across governmental services, the shift toward Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) management is the next important improvement. However, largely the connection between physical identity and digital identity is still missing. The problem is not exclusive to SSI solutions, but the federated identity management approach also does not address the verification of digital representation of a physical identity (e.g., passport) [1].
• Most of the digital identity solutions are designed to allow citizens to store a digital version of their national identity card in an electronic format and (in many cases) do not provide value besides relieving from carrying a physical document and accessing some governmental services online. International initiatives on ePassport mainly aim to digitalise visas and entry stamps to make border crossing more efficient.
• Nevertheless, an identity holder is still not in possession of their own data, cannot access records of their identity card or passport chip and does not know who accessed their records and when. SSI solutions aim to give data ownership to the original owner, but there were limited attempts to integrate national ID with it.
• On the other hand, while there is extensive research done in developing digital identity systems, current isolated SSI solutions do not consider the connection between digital and physical identity [2]. This results in no available mechanism that allows the use of physical identity in the context of a digital system [2].

Problem:

• There are no mechanisms for connecting an SSI identity with physical identity.
• Current SSI platforms do not consider connection to a physical identity.

Goals:

• Investigate what are the current solutions (if any) in connecting physical identity to SSI.
• Analyse how existing SSI systems utilise physical identity (e.g., for governmental services).
• Design a mechanism that enables linking physical identity with SSI identity.
• Implement the solution.
• Evaluate based on security and privacy, decentralisation aspect, scalability, performance, costs, applicability to use cases other than governmental services.