An overview of research and standards development to support decentralised identity.

1. 1
Returning to Online Privacy
Dr. David Hyland-Wood
david.wood@consensys.net
Sydney, Canberra
Grant Noble
grant.noble@consensys.net
Melbourne

2. What do we mean by Credential?
2

3. What do we mean by Identity?
3
● Security
● Liberty
● Data
● Relationship
● Capability

4. What do we mean by Identity?
4
● Security - Is this physical body the person you think it is?
● Liberty - Is this how I want to be known?
● Data - Is this data about a particular entity?
● Relationship - How is this person related to others?
● Capability - What can this person actually do?

5. W3C Verifiable Credentials
5
The mission of the W3C Verifiable Credentials Working
Group:
Express credentials on the Web in a way that is
cryptographically secure, privacy respecting, and
automatically verifiable.

6. Anatomy of a Verifiable Credential
Verifiable Credential
Issuer Signature
ClaimsClaimsClaims
Credential Identifier
Credential MetadataCredential MetadataCredential Metadata
6

7. Verifiable Credentials Ecosystem
7
Issuer
(Website)
Government, Employer, etc.
Verifier
(Website)
Company, Bank, etc.
Holder
(Digital Wallet /
Personal Data Store)
Citizen, Employee, etc.
Issue Credentials
Present
Profiles
Verifiable Data Registry
(Maintain identifiers and schemas)
Ethereum, Veres One, etc.
Register identifiers
and use schemas
Verify identifiers
and schemas
Verify identifiers
and use schemas

9. Verifiable Credentials Status
9
WG Launch
(May 2017)
FPWD, WDs
(Aug 2017-today)
Implementations
(Nov 2017-today)
Complete Test
Suite
(Jan 2019)
CR
(Jan 2019)
PR
(Mar 2019)
Roadmap
Spec/Issue Regular Contributors: 15
Weekly WG Participants: 20-22 / 85
Known Corporate Implementation Commitments: 10

10. Questions about
Verifiable
Credentials?

11. Anatomy of a Verifiable Credential
11
● <IDENTIFIER>
○ license: I1234562
○ hair: BLK
○ name: ALEXANDER JOSEPH
○ address: 2570 24th STREET …
○ date of birth: 08/31/1977
○ issued by: California DMV
○ digital signature: MIIB7ZueKqp...

12. Which identifiers do we use today?
12
jdoe@bigcorp.com
https://flitter.com/jdoe

13. Why is this a problem?
13
500M
20182017
143M
2016
412M
2015
78.8M

14. The Web’s Identifier Problem
14
To date, no identifier you use online
belongs to you; it belongs to someone
else.
This results in problems related to cost, data
portability, data privacy, and data security.

15. Web Identifiers Today
15
Domain Name System
(Identifiers are leased to individuals)
Issuer
(Website)
Government, Employer, etc.
Verifier
(Website)
Company, Bank, etc.
Holder
(Digital Wallet /
Personal Data Store)
Citizen, Employee, etc.
Issue
Credentials
Present
Profiles

16. What is missing?
16
Many portable identifiers for any person, organization,
or thing that does not depend on a centralized
authority, are protected by cryptography, and enable
privacy and data portability.

17. Decentralized Identifiers
17
A new type of globally resolvable,
cryptographically-verifiable identifier, registered
directly on a distributed ledger (e.g. a blockchain)

18. What does a DID look like?
18
did:example:123456789abcdefghijk
Scheme
DID Method
DID Method Specific String
did:v1:nym:DwkYwcoyUXHNkpj3whn4DgXB4fcg9gj95vKxYN2apkZD
Example:

19. DIDs Resolve to DID Documents
19
{
"@context": "https://w3id.org/veres-one/v1",
"id":
"did:v1:nym:DwkYwcoyUXHNkpj3whn4DgXB4fcg9gj95vKxYN2apkZD",
"authentication": [{
"type": "Ed25519SignatureAuthentication2018",
"publicKey": [{
"id":
"did:v1:test:nym:DwkYwcoyUXHNkpj3whn4DgXB4fcg9gj95vKxYN2apkZD#aut
hn-key-1",
"type": "Ed25519VerificationKey2018",
"owner":
"did:v1:nym:DwkYwcoyUXHNkpj3whn4DgXB4fcg9gj95vKxYN2apkZD",
"publicKeyBase58":
"DwkYwcoyUXHNkpj3whn4DgXB4fcg9gj95vKxYN2apkZD"
}]
}],
"service": [{
"type": "ExampleMessagingService",
"serviceEndpoint": ”https://example.com/services/messages”
}],
… more DID-specific information here …
}
1. Authentication Mechanisms
3. Service Discovery
2. Public Key Material

20. Decentralized Identifiers
20
Decentralized Identifiers
(Identifiers are owned by individuals)
Blockchains / DHTs
(Decentralized Ledger)
Veres One, Sovrin, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric, etc.
Issuer
(Website)
Government, Employer, etc.
Verifier
(Website)
Company, Bank, etc.
Holder
(Digital Wallet /
Personal Data Store)
Citizen, Employee, etc.
Issue
Credentials
Present
Profiles

22. Decentralized Identifiers Status
22
Technology Incubation
(May 2014 - today)
Specification and Implementations
(October 2016 - today)
W3C DID WG
(Q2 2019-2021?)
Roadmap
Spec/Issue Regular Contributors: 12
Weekly Community Group Participants: 15-28 / 161
Known Corporate Implementation Commitments: 13

23. Implementers
23
Method DID prefix
Bitcoin Reference did:btcr:
Ethereum uPort did:uport:
IPFS did:ipfs:
IPDB did:ipdb:
Sovrin did:sov:
Veres One did:v1:

24. 24

25. Questions about
Decentralized
Identifiers?

26. Acknowledgments
26
● Manu Sporny, CEO at Digital Bazaar
○ Co-Inventor of Verifiable Credentials, Decentralized Identifiers, and
JSON-LD
○ 10+ Years in Web Standards
○ msporny@digitalbazaar.com
● Dan Burnett, Standards Champion at ConsenSys
○ Co-chair of the Verifiable Credentials Working Group
○ 20 Years in Web Standards
○ Participant in the Credentials Community Group (Decentralized Identifiers)

27. Trademark Attribution
27
The corporate logos used in this presentation are the registered trademarks of
their respective companies.
Logos are used for educational purposes only under fair use provisions of
copyright law.
The Five Mental Models of Identity were developed by Joe Andrieu, Legendary
Requirements, joe@legreq.com, and are available on GitHub.