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The Current State of DigitalIdentities

Individual digital identities currentlytend to be weak, as they are oftenbased on email addresses and havelittle tangible link with other identityattributes, such as an individual’sname, address, or date of birth.Moreover, there is usually little or nolink between the physicalrepresentation of an identity (e.g. adriver’s license) and a digital one.

What does an identity look likeon the iov42 platform?

Trusting an identity is completelysubjective and is based on theintended use. The requirements forestablishing trust in an identity canbe thought of as sitting on a slidingscale—starting at remaininganonymous all the way to completinga full KYC process.

For example, setting up a socialmedia account often takes littlemore than providing an emailaddress and password. On the otherhand, if you want to set up a bankaccount, you will likely have toprovide a government-issued I.D.,some proof of residence, and somesort of taxpayer identificationnumber, in addition to completingthe paperwork from the bank.

An introduction to identities, claims,and endorsements on the iov42platform

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joe.bloggs#iov.net(identifier)

D.O.B.01/01/2020

Place of Workiov42

NationalitySwiss

AddressSome Street,Somewhere, ZurichSwitzerland

The iov42 identity model has beendesigned to accommodate thisflexibility. This enables an identitysubject to decide which claims theywish to make about their identity,and, more importantly, which claimsthey would like to share with others.

This is possible by representingidentity as an identifier that hasassociated claims, such as thoselisted in the image to the right.

What are claims?

A claim can be any piece ofinformation that asserts some factrelated to a given identity. Forexample, my name is Joe Bloggs. Iclaim that:• I was born on the first of January,

2000;• I am a Swiss citizen;• I work at iov42; and• I live in Zurich.

When Joe Bloggs makes a claimabout his identity, this claim is storedas a hash of the claim against hisidentity within the iov42 network.However, by itself, a claim is not veryuseful in contributing to the trust inan identity, since the identity holdercould make a claim about prettymuch anything. The key to buildingtrust in any claim is to have itendorsed by third parties.

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What are endorsements andhow are they captured on theiov42 platform?

On the iov42 platform,endorsements are captured by theuse of cryptographic signatures.

An endorsing party, independent ofthe identity holder, can endorse anidentity's claim. The trust conveyedto a claim is dependent on who theendorsing party is and whether theiridentity contributes to the validity ofthe claim. For example, you wouldexpect that the endorsement of yournationality by the Passport Officewould convey a high level oftrustworthiness for that particularclaim, whereas the sameendorsement by your hairdresserwould not have the same level oftrustworthiness.

Once an endorsing party signs aclaim, it is submitted to the iov42network, where it goes throughconsensus for validation. Oncevalidated, the claim and relatedendorsement are added to theidentity to enable a richer expressionof the identity, which can later beused to assert trust in trustedtransactions.