Self-Sovereign Identity in a World of Authentication: Architecture and Domain Usecases

Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) is projected to become part of every person's life in some form. The ability to verify and authenticate that an individual is the actual person they are purported to be along with securing the personal attributes could have wide spread implications when engaging with third party organizations. Utilizing blockchains and other decentralized technologies, SSI is a growing area of research. The aspect of securing personal information within a decentralized structure has possible benefits to the public and private sectors. In this paper, we describe the SSI framework architecture as well as possible use cases across domains like healthcare, finance, retail, and government. The paper also contrasts SSI and its decentralized architecture with the current widely adopted model of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).