What is SSI?

Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) is a new paradigm for building trust on the internet, aiming to grant individuals the necessary capability to have complete and exclusive control over their own identity online. Instead of relying on third parties, such as governments or corporations, to manage and authenticate their digital identity, SSI proposes that individuals become the sole owners and administrators of their personal information.

The central idea of SSI is to empower each individual to own and control their personal data, deciding when and with whom they share it. This is achieved through the use of three fundamental technologies:

• Distributed ledgers, such as blockchain
• Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs)
• Verifiable Credentials (VCs).

Self-Sovereign Identity enables individuals to securely store and manage their personal information, selectively sharing parts of it when necessary without having to disclose all their details.

Some of the key principles of Self-Sovereign Identity include:

Goal	Description
Decentralization	Eliminate the requirement for centralized authorities
Control	Give entities, both human and non-human, the power to directly control their digital identifiers without the need to rely on external authorities.
Privacy	Enable entities to control the privacy of their information, including minimal, selective, and progressive disclosure of attributes or other data.
Proof-based	Interactions between entities require the exchange of cryptographic proofs.
Discoverability	Entities can discover each other to learn more or interact with each other.
Interoperability	Different identity systems use common standards so they can work together and share information easily.
Portability	Decentralized identity is system and network independent. This allows entities to use their digital identifiers with any system that adheres to the standards.
Simplicity	Technology easy to understand, implement and deploy.
Extensibility	It is intended to allow expansion of existing systems while not greatly impeding interoperability, portability, or simplicity.