👤 Digital Identity Market Outlook

Digital Identity - Definition, Lifecycle, and Methods.

Definition

The World Economic Forum provides the following definition for digital identity: “a collection of individual attributes that describe an entity and determine the transactions in which that entity can participate”.

This definition emphasizes the importance of the usage of digital identity. The WEF divides the attributes into three groups: inherent (age), inherited (behavior), and assigned attributes (ID number). These attributes are different for each of these three main user groups: individuals, legal entities, and assets. Here we will only focus on the first two.

The attributes provide both physical and legal entities to partake in transactions by proving to their counterparty that they have the specific attributes required for that transaction

WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM ATTRIBUTES CLASSIFICATION

Identity Lifecycle

Identity Authentication methods

Authentication systems can be categorized into three large groups. This categorization is according to the elements that each system uses to verify a user's identity (i.e. to authenticate the user):

1. Systems based on something the user knows: passwords.

2. Systems based on something the user has: smart cards or tokens.

3. Systems based on something the user is, or biometric authentication systems: those based on physical traits of the user.

Technical Standards for Interoperability (based on the type of authentication method used)

The major categories of standards listed below fall into the following areas:

1. Biometrics—Image standard— There are several competing standards which are in use for capturing face image (PNG, JPEG, JPEG2000 in most of the systems). For fingerprint image (JPEG, JPEG2000, and WSQ) standard are in use. Comments provide guidelines on the selection of image standards for images like face, fingerprint.

2. Biometrics—Data interchange format — ISO standards for different types of biometrics like fingerprint, iris, face are listed. The type(s) of biometrics selected for implementation of identity systems would dictate the standards to be complied with.

3. Card/Smart Card—Different standards exist for the different types of cards. There are cards with a chip and without a chip. The cards that fall within the chip category can be contact or contactless cards.

4. Digital Signatures ;

5. 2D bar code—The standards commonly used PDF417 and QR codes are listed.

6. Federation protocols— The usage of Open ID Connect and OAuth combination is increasing for the Federation.