Helge Michael: IDunion - How to Build a Decentralized Identity Ecosystem

Yeah, I would like to introduce you the I network. And at least I would give you some tips how to build a decentralized identity ecosystem because that's not easy. And I will explain you why and what you can see here. Yeah. Is the basic logic, power and decentralized identity system works. So on the left hand side, you have a issuer in the middle, you have a holder and at the right hand side, you have a verifier. And that means the issue is the one who issues, where identity information. So most important to get all our identity information.

The holder is the one who stores for information and he stores itself at is own device for nature person. It's mostly the, the smartphone. And that's why we call itself some identity beholder because beholder controls its own identity and it's not wire cloud service or something like that. On the right side, we have a verifier that's one, the service who needs to consume for identity. And it's really difficult to start a decentralized ecosystem because you need to get involved all with three parties.

So it's this three sided markets and maybe most of you know, how difficult it is to, to start a two side market like a credit platform, for example, but a three sided mark market platform is even more difficult. Yeah. But now I would like to give you some insights, what are different components of a decentralized identity ecosystem and how to build them? When we started our project, I think it was two years ago. We started, we had just with a prototype building some software components.

And when we soon realized, okay, it's not done by all only building prototypes, you have to involve other parties and as well. And that's what we did. And yeah, we were really successful by doing it. Now we have more and 30 partners on board and what's common or what's really necessary for all the parties is to have a basic layer. We have a basic layer in our case is the identity network where all the identities are tied on or at least tied two and where identity decentralized identity network, it's, it's really decentralized. So all the different involved parties running their own notes.

And maybe some of you are familiar with trust over IP foundation and the trust of IP stack. And in, in, in this logic DT network where union DT network of what be the, the, the layer one, the utility layer, what you also need. And that's why we call it an open ecosystem is software applications. So we have different software providers providing smartphone apps, wallet, apps on iOS and Android. We also have big institution agents, or maybe some of you know, it as business agents. So that are the software pieces, whether responsible for issuing, managing and verifying identities.

We have also different software providers and completely open. So we, within our yeah ecosystem, we have German software providers, but we as well have other software providers, for example, in the us or in Canada and yeah, everyone who fits to our standards can yeah. Develop their own software. And we also have open source software as, as well. Our ecosystem is, or the software components are built on hyper areas. So including, yeah, we did come protocol that's yeah.

Maybe the technical guys of you are familiar with, with hyper areas and, and did come vet is somehow the basic layer for communication and all of the stuff for the software applications. And coming back to the trust YP stack, whether the second layer of the trust or YP stack, what we need then is a trust framework. So revelation between the issue of the owner and needs to be regulated. So how can a verify trust the identity information that comes from an issue at the end of the day? And that's why we need a trust framework and within our project. Yeah.

Especially the banks caring a lot because we are highly regulated and we are occurring currently building our own trust for work framework. So especially how can we trust each other that for example, KYC, credentials are yeah.

Are, are, are true. That's in, in the trust of IP stack, it's for layer three and the most important things that are the issue of owner ands, especially via issuers who issue identity information, and verify who verify by identity information and BES what we call complete ecosystem. So all the software applications on, on top of where identity stack, where visit logic is in that's is that's the layer for in the, in the test, the YP stack. And maybe I can, can com can explain it in a little bit more detail, what I, what we have done within our project.

So that's our DT test network and rush already mentioned it. We, we started with the test network. I think it was three months ago that was done within a project that's funded by the ministry of economics here in Germany. So our project is funded and will be funded for the next three years. That's really important for us. We have yeah. Started with now 13 different notes. So one of our last notes that came in last Friday, Ty, and I think customer give a speech yeah. At the end of the conference as well.

So we already have, for example, Bo commerce bank where issuing the money and also they eat ID cards in Germany. I GTO Siemens and, and other players as well. And out of the test network, our aim is at the end of 2021 to build a really productive network. And what's necessary to build a productive network is governance. Yeah. Structure because it's decentralized and you need someone who can somehow yeah. Coordinate the network because it's a public permission network. So it's not, it's not a public network at all, where you have all the consensus comes out of a cancer consensus protocols.

So if you need someone who can control it and that's necessary because you lead to legally enforce it at the end of a day. And we thought a lot, how we could build up or how we can have a cooperative or, and a governance body for that did a lot of work with our legal advisors. And we came to the conclusion that the best way to do it is with a European cooperative. So cooperative, you are familiar with it. One member, one board, that's the, that's the principle. So it's completely democratic. No one has full power over this organization.

And that's especially important if you would like to avoid any hyperscaler to take over the network. And that's, that's really important. You do not, would end up with a decent decentralized identity network, but it's, it's in the hand of a hyperscaler, for example, Google Facebook, or you name it.

And yeah, that's what we would like to incorporate at the, of this year. So all the yeah, little documents are now ready and here we will start with incorporation. Yeah. In the next few months, all the members or everything is invited to become a member of this organization and to use the network and this kind of organization will be the basis for our I yeah. For our product productive identity network. So base layer, you utility here, you have an overview about different software components.

So the layer two, and we have developed within the last years, bullets available and IRS and app store and Android store, we also have the Zao wallet. And we also have vendors from us. For example, intrinsic wallet works as well for both of you who are familiar with it. And we have also agents for companies. For example, if you would like to issue credentials, it's not very easy. You need to stick to all the standards. And this is some kind of middle layer software that is needed really to yeah.

Plug into core your core systems, your core software systems, and communicate with identity wallets of, of end users. And especially we have one open source project. That's the business partner, which agent, but is open for everybody to participate. Everyone can use it, everyone can develop it, you can find it on guitar. So it's really important for us. We do not want any vendor log in. So different software applications already working on, on the network here. You can see our partners as of now 27 partners, but we are discussions with other partners. So we will soon. Yeah.

Welcome further partners within the network. You can see it's a mixture between different industry sectors. We have a lot of banks, for example, I G DEU bank and commerce bank bank for luck is a trust service provider. Yeah. Either trust service provider. And also Deru as a trust service provider, we have big industrial companies like Bosch DBAN Siemens. We have already in discussions with Daimler and, and BMW who have already participated in our project and dotcom as telco is also on board.

And, but really interesting. We also have public sector here on board. For example, one of our partners is the ministry of economics, innovation, digitalization, and energy and risk failure. And we are a strong supporter since, yeah. For one year, for more than one year we've federal office bureau of migration. And Fujis also have we bring board some use cases for our consortium and the city of Berlin. And that's really important for us. It's a mixture. It's not only a private consortium. It's a really a mixture between private and public sector partners. And maybe you guys are familiar.

German government has started and identity ecosystem initiative in December. And yeah, it's, it's nearly the same concept as we, as, as, as we have in, in mind. And a lot of our partners are all working, very working in the identity initiative of the government as well, and very, really, and in deep context. And while we are, because we are fostered by the ministry of economics, whereas really close contact between the governance initiative as well.

So it's not that we do things things twice, maybe to give you a short look into the different use cases, we have more than 35 different use cases identified, and we will, yeah. Maybe I explained we have structured it into seven sectors. So we have e-government. We have education, financial industry, industry, and IOT, eCommerce, mobility, identity, access management, and eHealth, and yet different partners are involved in different projects. For example, maybe to give you an example for the e-government sector, we have yeah.

An initiative where we derive a German passport onto an identity board that stand by our partners from Buno. We also working together with Northland, with failure to get a connection or to connect with SELFA identity stack onto the service console so that you can all the ANGs cotton Germany. So the accounts for, from the state accounts that you can plug into the sales identity logic, and yeah, we also have a lot of initiatives in Berlin and in cologne. Yeah. A lot of different use cases and the education area we working strongly together with, to Berlin.

And the idea is really have completely digital identity systems within the, to Berlin campus, from the student ID to different cricket, to diplomas, student wallets, you name it. So really have a completely campus built on digital identities based on SSI and financial industry. We are currently discussing use cases around how we can exchange KYC credentials between banks and also how we can do qualified electronic signatures via our S SSI technologies. And in the industry sector, our main use case is made data, data management and supplier onboarding.

So the idea is not only given nature ware identity, but also companies. So at the end of the day, each company, or every company in Germany should have their own digital wallet where we can store yeah. Different certificates to certificates, bank, account numbers, you name it. And at the end of a day in the supplier onboarding process only have to present the different credentials. And when the onboarding process is done and maybe most of you know, that it's really a pinpoint to do the onboarding process right now, because it has to do with a lot of exchange of emails.

And we are, we are also in deep discussions with Gaia project. So idea is having an I S I identity stack for identity access management on Gaia. And where's a separate project going on on Gaia. And a lot of our partners are involved in that project. And where idea is really having a really close connection with between GEs and ID, union tech. And we also are currently exploring the possibility to has to have product IDs.

So we, in discussions with OEMs in the automotive industry, really having a vehicle that has an its own SSI identity did ID and can identify its app, for example, for, for a payment, for, for independent payment, we have use cases in the eCommerce and mobility sector, for example, where, yeah, where for need to have smart check outputs with, within the eCommerce industry, really giving for example, address data, bank, account data, different certificate, each of each verification.

So a lot of, of things that you can give to retailers out of identity bullet and our ideas, we building a smart checkout process out of it. And also having a lot of different mobility use cases to connect different mobility profiles and with identity access management, our use case is mainly on single sign on password reset, but also physical access. So we are building together with BWI that's where it provider of a German and where idea is have, or allow physical access wire in save someone identity credential. So really plugging real world with physical world, tied it to yeah.

Save identity bullet and in the sector. Yeah. As you could imagine, we currently thinking of having some yeah. COVID use cases around SSI. So there are the different use cases where we will yeah. Implement within the next three years. Some are only already in piloting. Some are in, in the prototype stage, but yeah, the goal is really having the first productive ready use cases at the end of the year, for example, in commerce bank, our aim is at the end of the year, we have 35,000 employees of commerce bank with a digital audit and that we can reset their passwords with benefit system. Yeah.

You can see, we have more than 35 use use cases. All of our partners together have more than 50 billion customers and the public sector, our public sector partners have more than 20 million. Yeah. Citizens in Germany. And we hope we really build out of it successful yeah. Identity ecosystem. And when I look into the, the stack at the beginning, I think the most important thing for us is really owner of our identity information, because we already have the DT network. We already have different software applications. We have issuers, we have a barriers and now it's really time to yeah.

Gain end users. And hopefully with all the different use cases, we can convince the end user to use an identity bullet and yeah. Start with ESF identity.