We’re a quarter of a century into an era of digital feudalism.
The feudal system is a medieval construct: serfs work the land to create value, and landlords confiscate most of that value.
Today, instead of farm produce, the asset class is data—created by us, but captured by digital landlords such as social media and other Web2 applications. “Surfing the internet” has become “serfing the internet,” with users yielding intimate details of their lives for the internet lordships to aggregate, expropriate, and monetize.
This is important, because personal data isn’t just the by-product of your labor. It is the stuff of your identity in the digital age. It constitutes a digital version of you, that remembers everything you did online, everyone you interacted with.
There are obvious problems with this arrangement. Notably, we can’t we can’t use our own data to plan our lives. It’s stored in other people’s silos, which we can’t access—but third parties like Cambridge Analytica can, often without our knowledge. Meanwhile, we enjoy none of the rewards of this third-party data usage, yet bear most of the risk and responsibility for its clean up in the event our digital lords lose or abuse our data. And finally, we can’t make money from the data ourselves, but are forced to watch as companies get rich from these valuable assets.
The solution? Self-sovereign identity
What each of us needs is a digital self-sovereign identity (SSI), neither bestowed nor revocable by any central administrator and enforceable in any context, in person and online, anywhere in the world.
This will be one of the key topics discussed at Web3 & Blockchain World (W3B), in Toronto on November 8-9, 2022. Business leaders from many countries will convene for two days to discuss how to harness the power of Web3 and blockchain technologies.
Here’s how a self-sovereign identity works: It starts with Web3, also known as the Internet of ownership, which supports the creation and custody of non-fungible identity tokens through which we control the rights to steward our own identity, access (and allow others to access) the data that comprise our identities. We envision an identity commons, distributed among and maintained by the people whose identities it protects so that everyone’s incentives align, and token holders participate in rule-making around the preservation and usage of the commons.
Several identity projects are working to provide these tools and capabilities. Here are a few:
Cardea is an open-source verifiable digital credential developed by Indicio and field-tested with SITA Aero on the island of Aruba, where travelers used the Cardea app to prove their COVID test status at restaurants and other tourist locations.