About this Research Topic
Blockchain has arrived as a technology enabler for building alternative ways to manage identity that are centred on people, not corporations. A new generation of “Self-Sovereign Identity” ecosystems are emerging that will take advantage of the decentralisation features of blockchain to resolve the inherent issues with identity today. Many people have dedicated their professional and academic lives to making this happen.
Self-Sovereign Identity gives people control over their personal information, including the mechanisms to grant, revoke and apply constraints to their consent for others to use it. The characteristics of Self-Sovereign Identity are wide ranging and naturally apply to ‘blockchain for good’ scenarios such as refugee crises, patient-centric healthcare, financial inclusion and many more.
The open standards and technical infrastructure for these ecosystems are now materialising due to the pervasiveness of the internet, mobile devices, the emergence of viable decentralised networks and the intellectual capital of the identity community. However, there remain serious challenges for generating the change and incentives needed for society to willingly trust and transition to this approach. Questions include:
• How will society transition from today’s vast, vulnerable identity data silos to SSI?
• Will social media giants and governments embrace or resist SSI?
• Will SSI play a role in activism by civil society organisations?
• What are the incentives and commercial models that will encourage SSI adoption?
• What kinds of governance structures need to be established for SSI?
The purpose of this Research Topic is to generate a rich resource for identity practitioners, researchers, technologists, potential adopters and many more to explore, understand, advance and enrich this subject. There is a wealth of publicly available material, but this collection provides a unique opportunity to bring the rigour of community peer review and the trust and confidence that it will engender in the work.
Articles submitted to this Research Topic in 2019 are eligible for the $10,000 “Yun Family Frontiers in Blockchain Prize".
For more details, please see our blog post here:
https://blog.frontiersin.org/2018/12/12/frontiers-in-blockchain-introduces-new-journal-wide-10000-best-paper-prize/
Self-Sovereign Identity gives people control over their personal information, including the mechanisms to grant, revoke and apply constraints to their consent for others to use it. The characteristics of Self-Sovereign Identity are wide ranging and naturally apply to ‘blockchain for good’ scenarios such as refugee crises, patient-centric healthcare, financial inclusion and many more.
The open standards and technical infrastructure for these ecosystems are now materialising due to the pervasiveness of the internet, mobile devices, the emergence of viable decentralised networks and the intellectual capital of the identity community. However, there remain serious challenges for generating the change and incentives needed for society to willingly trust and transition to this approach. Questions include:
• How will society transition from today’s vast, vulnerable identity data silos to SSI?
• Will social media giants and governments embrace or resist SSI?
• Will SSI play a role in activism by civil society organisations?
• What are the incentives and commercial models that will encourage SSI adoption?
• What kinds of governance structures need to be established for SSI?
The purpose of this Research Topic is to generate a rich resource for identity practitioners, researchers, technologists, potential adopters and many more to explore, understand, advance and enrich this subject. There is a wealth of publicly available material, but this collection provides a unique opportunity to bring the rigour of community peer review and the trust and confidence that it will engender in the work.
Articles submitted to this Research Topic in 2019 are eligible for the $10,000 “Yun Family Frontiers in Blockchain Prize".
For more details, please see our blog post here:
https://blog.frontiersin.org/2018/12/12/frontiers-in-blockchain-introduces-new-journal-wide-10000-best-paper-prize/
Keywords: self-sovereignty, identity, self-sovereign identity, Decentralised Identity, Verifiable Credentials, Decentralised Identifiers, Decentralisation
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
