When we began reaching out to experts worldwide to share their perspectives about the impact of SSI in their specific industries and jurisdictions, we were overwhelmed by the number of responses we received. During the period when the book was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, word spread even further, resulting in the submission of even more outstanding chapters for part 4.
When it became clear that we had many more chapters than could fit within the length limit of the print book, the Manning editorial team offered to publish the rest of the submissions in the Livebook edition. In this appendix, we list the additional chapters that appear in the Livebook edition as of the time the book went to print. We hope to add more chapters on Livebook as other industry experts share their views about SSI, so keep checking the Livebook edition for updates.
Chapter 25: SSI, payments, and financial services
Traditional institutions, such as banks, credit unions, and government agencies involved in financial regulation, have been among the earliest potential adopters of SSI. But between 2.5 and 3.5 billion people and millions of organizations lack access to basic financial services. Banks often cite critical, expensive, and inefficient regulatory compliance requirements as the reasons they are forced to “de-risk” or exclude many individuals. SSI can pay dividends by helping enable financial access and protect financial system integrity at the same time by modernizing customer onboarding, fraud controls, and Know Your Customer (KYC), Anti-Money Laundering, and Counter-Terrorist Financing (AML/CFT) protections. Amit Sharma is the founder and CEO of FinClusive, a hybrid fin/reg-tech company that provides a full-stack financial crimes compliance (FCC) platform for individuals and companies that are underserved, excluded, and/or de-risked by traditional banking. He is also the chair of the Compliance and Inclusive Finance Working Group (CIFWG) at the Sovrin Foundation.
Chapter 26: Solving organizational identity with vLEIs
Stephan Wolf, Karla McKenna, and Christoph Schneider
Legal Entity Identifiers (LEIs) are an ISO standard for globally unique identifiers for any legal entity in any jurisdiction (corporation, partnership, sole proprietorship, nonprofit, and so on). The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) was established in 2009 by the Financial Stability Board to provide a standard way to identify and track the financial dealings of a legal organization so it could not hide its identity and relationships under different registrations in different jurisdictions. With the emergence of SSI, GLEIF is expanding its focus to include the issuance of verifiable credentials for LEIs, called vLEIs. The vLEI system will enable instant and automated digital identity verification between counterparties operating across all industry sectors anywhere in the world. The chapter is authored by the GLEIF management team responsible for the vLEI program: Stephan Wolf (CEO), Karla McKenna (head of standards), and Christoph Schneider (head of IT development and operations).
Chapter 27: SSI and healthcare
Paul Knowles and Dr. Manreet Nijjar
Technological advances in portable medical device manufacturing have led to improved personal healthcare, but remote interactions between entities have resulted in fragmentation. With the convergence of technology and data propelling civil society into an era of artificial intelligence, the exponential rise in machine-generated data brings with it the need for a new paradigm in connectivity and handling personal data. In this chapter, Paul Knowles, co-founder of The Human Colossus Foundation, and Dr. Manreet Nijjar, consultant physician at Barts Health NHS Trust and co-founder of Truu, explain how trusted healthcare relationships can be maintained through SSI solutions in an increasingly decentralized healthcare industry.
Chapter 28: Enterprise identity and access management realized with SSI
As part 1 of this book explains, identity and access management (IAM) is already a well-established, multi-billion-dollar segment of the enterprise software market. SSI is the disruptive newcomer to this space. But that doesn’t mean SSI needs to displace existing IAM systems so much as integrate with them. In this chapter, André Kudra, co-founder and CIO of esatus AG, one of Germany’s leading enterprise security and IAM companies, explains the reality of how IAM is implemented in enterprises today, especially in large-scale organizations with complex application landscapes. Siloed data structures still predominate. In such environments, SSI technology can quickly find utility as a golden source for business facts. Furthermore, SSI can simplify and automate many IAM processes, particularly time-intensive onboarding processes or working across separate companies. André also walks through an entire start-to-finish retrofit scenario based on actual SSI integrations esatus has performed.
Chapter 29: Insurance reinvented with SSI
In this chapter, David Harney, group CEO of Irish Life, and Jamie Smith, senior director for business development at Evernym, explain how SSI will transform how insurance is designed, operates, and is experienced. They explore how long-established insurance industry processes will change with individuals becoming the managers of their own digital identity and couriers of their own data. Insurance companies will be able to develop richer, longer-lasting relationships with customers; develop smarter insights to inform pricing and risk analyses; reduce fraud; lower costs; improve data compliance; and innovate with new insurance products and services—for example, around data integrity and authenticity. Individuals, too, will experience the impacts of SSI—not just cheaper, more personalized, smarter insurance products and services but also new products that help them understand their lives through data and decide what coverage they really need (and how much they actually need to pay).
Chapter 30: Enabling SSI in humanitarian contexts
Nathan Cooper and Amos Doornbos
Although SSI holds great promise in humanitarian contexts, implementing it is fraught with challenges—technical and non-technical. For example, humanitarian organizations operate in some of the most remote locations on Earth and work with some of the world’s most vulnerable people. Most SSI infrastructure is web- and smartphone-based; most humanitarian contexts are not. Furthermore, in humanitarian contexts, it should be assumed the infrastructure is poor (networks, roads, power, health), connectivity is limited or non-existent, the environment is harsh (sandy, high temperatures, power surges, and so on), literacy rates are low (digital and linguistic), and the most common device is a feature phone at best. Nathan is senior advisor for innovation in disaster preparedness at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies; Amos is disaster management strategy and systems director for World Vision International. Together, they know the realities of these challenges firsthand, so they speak from the heart when they explain what they believe will be necessary for SSI to help displaced and disadvantaged populations.
Chapter 31: Guardianship and other forms of Delegated Authority with Self-Sovereign Identity
Jack A. Najarian, Aamir S. Abdullah, Jeff Aresty, and Kaliya Young
As a term defined in the law, guardianship means something very specific. The term has subsequently been co-opted by technologists working on SSI infrastructure to describe certain relationships that involve entities holding verifiable credentials on behalf of people who cannot hold and present those credentials themselves. However, this does not necessarily fit within the legal definition of guardianship. It is important for policymakers and governance framework creators to understand this difference, because law and precedent matter greatly in the legal system. Acknowledging this difference will make it possible for lawmakers and technologists to develop appropriate governance frameworks for SSI technology that meet all their needs. Jack, Aamir, and Jeff are all attorneys with years of experience in internet law, and Kaliya “Identity Woman” Young is co-founder of the Internet Identity Workshop and co-author of chapter 16 on the evolution of the global SSI community.
Chapter 32: Design principles for SSI
Jasmin Huber and Johannes Seidlmeir
SSI has advanced considerably since its inception in 2016, but so far, there has not been a single definition of the essential principles of SSI. A widely referenced starting point is Christopher Allen’s 10 principles of SSI (included in this book as appendix C). In this chapter, Jasmin and Johannes present an updated set of design principles to account for the continuing evolution and maturation of SSI. As researchers at the University of Bayreuth in Germany, they were motivated by the many misconceptions they found about the definition of SSI, both in academia and in practice. From their systematic study of the literature and a series of expert interviews, they derived this set of design principles that became the inspiration for the “Principles of SSI” published in 15 languages by the Sovrin Foundation in December 2020 (and included in this book as appendix E).
Chapter 33: SSI: Our dystopian nightmare
While much of this book paints a very bright picture of an SSI-enabled future, that future is far from assured. The answer to, “What could go wrong?” could fill an entire book. Philip Sheldrake of the AKASHA Foundation tries to condense that answer into one highly thought-provoking chapter about why SSI architecture can express only a small fraction of the richness of human identity and relationships—and why it may never be able to express the rest. He explains the very real dangers of how one-click identity could lead to a highly dystopian future and makes recommendations about how a new focus on generative identity can address these gaps. Philip is a technologist, chartered engineer, and web science researcher whose expertise spans digital innovation and analysis, process engineering, organizational design, marketing, and communications.
Chapter 34: Trust assurance in SSI ecosystems
The trustworthiness of digital transactions is assured through a framework of governance constructs, accountability requirements, and skilled participants who play contributing roles for the benefit of all members of the ecosystem. This chapter will explore how digital trust is created and how the components of a trust assurance framework operate in an SSI ecosystem to achieve the appropriate risk mitigation for its stakeholders.
Chapter 35: The evolution of gaming with SSI
Sungjun (Calvin) Park and Jake Hostetler
The security of personal data and accounts is an issue across all industries and applications. However, the issue can be more critical and emotional for gamers because their account contains not only personal information, but proof of devoted time and purchased in-game assets—plus affinity for the gamer’s virtual self. In this chapter, Sungjun (Calvin) Park, a product manager at a Korean blockchain company, and Jake Hostetler, a writer and SSI specialist at Metadium, explore how the gaming industry can be transformed with the implementation of SSI technologies.