The Swiss federal council has decided to build the Swiss E-ID based on self-sovereign identity (SSI) principles. Similarly, the European Union and many companies around the world plan to introduce SSI-based solutions for identity and access management. With SSI, users own their digital identity and autonomously control what information is revealed to which service providers. This contrasts with current Internet single sign-on architectures, which threaten user privacy by deploying central identity providers.

SSI combines many foundational technologies, such as blockchain-based distributed ledgers (DLT), cryptographic proofs of identity attributes (zero-knowledge proofs), PKI with distributed key management, and various software components such as mobile wallets and agents connected in a P2P network. Accordingly, the technology stack of SSI is very complex. In order for SSI to develop into a secure technological basis for a national E-ID, various aspects need to be researched:

• security of the protocols
• scalability of solutions
• preservation of privacy
• possible restrictions, e.g., regarding decentralization
• usability for consumers
• trust management and governance

Goal of the project

If you are interested in doing a thesis around SSI, please contact us. There are many different possibilities both on the theoretical or practical side.

Requirements

• Analytical skills
• Good programming skills (depending on the task)
• Interest in identity and access management