Mindstorm

I’ve spent last 3 years working with distributed technology (a.k.a blockchain), cryptography and new business models. It enables us to leverage the power of self-sovereign digital identity and I strongly believe that this is the future. If you want to learn more about that please follow my work at www.monetha.io

Additional proof that reusable digital identity is the future, this time from fintech. Onfido, Deloitte, and Evernym have recently announced the positive results of their Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulatory sandbox pilot, confirming that reusable digital identity solution has been proven with market participants.

My question to business owners: would you implement a reusable digital identity solution? How do you think it would help your business?

For those who are less familiar with the concept, here’s the problem. To access any online service, you need to prove your identity by creating a new profile and re-verify it for each service. With dozens of services and accounts (almost 200 for an average business user), it becomes a headache. The more complex is the registration process, the higher are the chances user will abandon it even before sign up. 

OAuth may be a solution to some extent (used as social login by Google, Facebook, Twitter), but the amount and type of data are limited. It’s just a way to share your social profile, which is also completely controlled by the service providers and utilized for their benefit. 

Self-sovereign reusable digital identity goes a step further: the profile is controlled solely by a user and can be filled with any data. Users get the ease of use (no need to register and verify identity every time they use a new service) and businesses profit by trustworthy user profiles while reducing onboarding cost and other operational challenges.