The Principles of SSI V3 have been organized to provide a human rights-based perspective in the context of digital identity and identity rights holders with the ultimate goal to enable humans to exercise their rights to work, study, and travel while having freedom of choice and being protected.

These foundational principles of SSI are intended for use by any digital identity ecosystem. Any organization is welcomed to incorporate these principles into its digital identity ecosystem governance framework provided they are included in their entirety. The Principles of SSI shall be limited only by official laws and regulations that apply in a relevant jurisdiction.

AGENCY

Every human being has the right to to study, work, vote, receive health care, without bias

An SSI ecosystem shall provide the means for any entity—human, legal, natural, physical or digital—to be represented by any number of digital identities.

An SSI ecosystem shall empower entities who have natural, human, or legal rights in relation to their identity (“Identity Rights Holders”) to control usage of their digital identity data and exert this control by employing and/or delegating to agents and guardians of their choice, including individuals, organizations, devices, and software.

An SSI ecosystem shall not exclude or discriminate against identity rights holders within its governance scope.

An SSI ecosystem shall maximize usability and accessibility of agents and other SSI components for identity rights holders, including consistency of user experience.

AUTONOMY

Every human being has the the right to freedom of choice, free of coercion

An SSI ecosystem shall not require an identity rights holder to participate.

An SSI ecosystem shall not require reliance on a centralized system to represent, control, or verify an entity’s digital identity data.

An SSI ecosystem shall enable digital identity data for an entity to be represented, exchanged, secured, protected, and verified interoperably using open, public, and royalty-free standards.

An SSI ecosystem shall not restrict the ability of identity rights holders to move or transfer a copy of their digital identity data to the agents or systems of their choice.

INTEGRITY

Every human being has the right to be protected, and preserve integrity

An SSI ecosystem shall empower identity rights holders to secure their digital identity data at rest and in motion, to control their own identifiers and encryption keys, and to employ end-to-end encryption for all interactions.

An SSI ecosystem shall empower identity rights holders to provide verifiable proof of the authenticity of their digital identity data.
An SSI ecosystem shall empower identity rights holders to protect the privacy of their digital identity data and to share the minimum digital identity data required for any particular interaction.

An SSI ecosystem shall empower identity rights holders and all other stakeholders to easily access and verify information necessary to understand the incentives, rules, policies, and algorithms under which agents and other components of SSI ecosystems operate.

عربى – Arabic,     বাংলা – Bengali (India),     简体中文 – Chinese (simplified),     繁体中文 – Chinese (traditional),     English – English,     Français – French,     Deutsch – German,     हिंदी – Hindi,     Italiano – Italian,     日本語 – Japanese, 한국어 – Korean    Português – Portuguese,    Pусский – Russian,     Español – Spanish,     தமிழ் – Tamil,     Türkçe – Turkish

Principles of SSI V1 December 2020 Authors: Drummond Reed, Chris Raczkowski, Sankarshan Mukopadhyay

Principles of SSI V2 August 2021 Authors: Line Kofoed and Sankarshan Mukopadhyay

Principles of SSI V3 September 2022 Authors: Line Kofoed and Sankarshan Mukopadhyay