eprintid: 10074541 rev_number: 27 eprint_status: archive userid: 608 dir: disk0/10/07/45/41 datestamp: 2019-12-17 15:14:29 lastmod: 2021-11-27 23:31:49 status_changed: 2019-12-17 15:14:29 type: article metadata_visibility: show creators_name: Goodell, G creators_name: Aste, T title: A Decentralised Digital Identity Architecture ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: B04 divisions: C05 divisions: F48 keywords: digital identity, certification, identification, trust, privacy, anonymity note: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ abstract: Current architectures to validate, certify, and manage identity are based on centralised, top-down approaches that rely on trusted authorities and third-party operators. We approach the problem of digital identity starting from a human rights perspective, asserting that individual persons must be allowed to manage their personal information in a multitude of different ways in different contexts and that to do so, each individual must be able to create multiple unrelated identities. Therefore, we first define a set of fundamental constraints that digital identity systems must satisfy to preserve and promote human rights. With these constraints in mind, we then propose a decentralised, standards-based approach, using a combination of distributed ledger technology and thoughtful regulation, to facilitate many-to-many relationships among providers of key services. Our proposal for digital identity differs from others in its approach to trust: by avoiding centralisation and the imposition of trust from the top down, we can encourage individuals and organisations to embrace the system and share in its benefits. date: 2019-11-05 date_type: published official_url: https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2019.00017 oa_status: green full_text_type: pub language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 1659142 doi: 10.3389/fbloc.2019.00017 lyricists_name: Aste, Tomaso lyricists_name: Goodell, Geoffrey lyricists_id: TASTE72 lyricists_id: GGOOD81 actors_name: Stacey, Thomas actors_id: TSSTA20 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: Frontiers in Blockchain volume: 2 article_number: 17 citation: Goodell, G; Aste, T; (2019) A Decentralised Digital Identity Architecture. Frontiers in Blockchain , 2 , Article 17. 10.3389/fbloc.2019.00017 <https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2019.00017>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10074541/7/fbloc-02-00017.pdf