Intro to Self-Sovereign Identity
for JavaScript Developers

Verifiable Credentials for the Web in a Nutshell

Today's Agenda

  • A little bit about my background

  • What is Self-Sovereign Identity?

  • Technology behind SSI

  • Architecting a simple SSI-based software

  • Developer resources for building web apps with SSI

  • Passwordless Authentication Example

  • Q&A

About Me

Lucas Castro

Developer Advocate, Trinsic

@lucasamonrc

What is SSI?

Human Identity

Intrinsic Extrinsic
Likes, dislikes, personality, physical appearance, etc. Credentials, documents, artifacts, etc.
i.e. How we identify ourselves i.e How others identify us

Can you think of any way how are these identities expressed digitally?

What is SSI?

"Self-sovereign identity (SSI) is an approach to digital identity that gives individuals control of their digital identities." [1]

How do we ensure trust?

Core Technology

  • Agents

  • Verifiable Credentials

  • Decentralized Identifiers

  • Blockchains and Verifiable Data Registries

Verifiable Credentials

  • Cryptographically-protected equivalent of paper credentials

  • Carried by the holder on a smartphone or other computing device

  • Not on a blockchain

Cryptographically-protected data that proves that you are you!

Traditional Systems

SSI Systems

Use Cases

  • Verify user identity to process payments

  • Issue digital government documents such as birth certificate, driver's license, etc.

  • Issue and verify medical documents such as exemptions, vaccination cards, etc.

  • Implement user authentication and management

  • Can you think of something else? 

Use Cases

Ok. But HOW?

Our Problem

Issuer Wallet Verifier
A way to issue account credentials A place to save account credentials A way to verify account credentials

Use Case

Passwordless login - user authentication

What we need

Passwordless Login

Issuer Wallet Verifier
A way to issue account credentials A place to save account credentials A way to verify account credentials

Our Solution

What we need

Issuer Wallet Verifier
Trinsic Studio Trinsic Wallet Credential APIs

SSI Developer Resource

Final Result

Thank You!

Reference

[1]  Ferdous, Md Sadek; Chowdhury, Farida; Alassafi, Madini O. (2019). "In Search of Self-Sovereign Identity Leveraging Blockchain Technology"

If You Need to Contact Me

Website: https://lucasacastro.dev

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucasamonrc

Email: lucas@trinsic.id

UtahJS Slack: @lucasamonrc