October 26, 2018
Mountain View, CA, Oct. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Sovrin Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to enabling self-sovereign digital identity for all, concluded a demonstration this week highlighting some of the advanced capabilities of the Sovrin Network. Attendees at the 27th Internet Identity Workshop (IIW) had the opportunity to use the Sovrin Network to collect verifiable digital credentials issued from multiple sources and then share them privately using Sovrin’s decentralized identity network.
The Sovrin Network is designed to bring the trust, personal control, and ease-of-use of analog IDs – like driving licenses and employee ID cards – to the internet. A team from the Sovrin Foundation attending IIW showcased the Sovrin Network’s open-source distributed-ledger technology, which allows developers to create interoperable applications that run on the Network. Businesses and institutions could potentially use these applications to issue and verify digital credentials while adhering to GDPR and other data privacy regulations. This would allow individuals to privately and securely own and control digital identities.
Based on the New Yorker cartoon that famously points out the problems with identity online, the goal of the demonstration was for participants to digitally prove they were not a dog. Sovrin Foundation employees first instructed participants to download the first Sovrin-based digital wallet, called Connect.me, developed by self sovereign identity solutions provider, Evernym. After setting up their wallets, IIW attendees could then collect three different verifiable digital credentials, issued by Sovrin Foundation employees. The credentials contained a collection of different personal information – called attributes – such as the person’s name, or their employer, among others. The identity holder then could use attributes from any two of their three digital credentials to confirm to a fourth person acting as a verifier that they were, in fact, human. The entire process took only minutes and demonstrated how multiple credentials can be issued, managed, and used on the Sovrin Network.
IIW Conference co-founder and Sovrin Foundation Board of Trustees Chair Dr. Phil Windley believes the Sovrin Network adds the missing identity layer to the internet. “This demonstration was a fantastic achievement for Sovrin, and it was a privilege to share it for the first time with members of the identity community at IIW. This exercise shows how the Sovrin Network can offer a solution to many of the problems we see with digital identity. A change in how online identity works has been long overdue – and Sovrin offers an evolutionary step forward.”
The Sovrin Network, launched in 2017, is currently supported by more than 50 trusted organizations, called Stewards, which run the validator nodes that protect the integrity of the public ledger. The Sovrin Foundation is a member of Hyperledger, a Linux Foundation Project and donated the initial code to Hyperledger Indy, one of the projects under the Hyperledger umbrella.
“The way identity is done online today is broken,” said Sovrin Foundation Executive Director, Heather C. Dahl. “Today, our team demonstrated how we can use this groundbreaking technology to help create long lasting, portable, and easy-to-use digital identity. Whether it be logging into your bank, communicating with your doctor’s office, or negotiating the hoops we are forced to jump through to sign up for government services, username/password problems affect us all. The Sovrin Foundation is proud to show how the Sovrin Network could transform security, privacy, and control of our online identity.”
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ABOUT THE SOVRIN FOUNDATION
The Sovrin Foundation is a nonprofit organization established to administer the Trust Framework governing the Sovrin Network, a decentralized global public network enabling self-sovereign identity on the internet. The Sovrin Network is operated by independent Stewards and uses the power of a distributed ledger to give every person, organization, and thing the ability to own and control their own permanent digital identity.
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Helen Garneau Sovrin Foundation +1 801 701-1848 helen@sovrin.org« Use case spotlight: Truu, using Sovrin to provide trusted digital identity for doctors “Identity for Good” program helps provide SSI to NGOs and nonprofits »