Independent advisor and host of the Nonconformist Innovation Podcast, saving humanity from itself one podcast at a time.
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Identity is as old as humanity itself. Identity in a human context may be defined by the characteristics of how personhood is construed in society. In modern society, many centuries after humans began walking the planet, capitalism fueled the growth of the use of arbitrary identifiers and centralized management of identities among consumer populations. Centralized storage of identity data and the processing of consumer information is knowledge in the hands of the capitalist, and with that knowledge comes power.
The power of centralized identity data management is not limited to merchants and consumerism. In Edwin Black's book IBM and the Holocaust, Black details how IBM founder Thomas Watson, as The Atlantic author Jack Beatty writes, "made other equally indefensible choices in his years of doing a profitable business counting Jews for Hitler." This is all to say that census information, such as demographic, economic and population data — in the wrong hands — can easily be abused and destructive to modern societies.
More common harmful consequences of centralized storage and processing of identity data range from identity theft to economic losses, espionage and the insidious practice of widespread surveillance capitalism. In Verizon's 2020 annual report on data breaches, 157,525 incidents were analyzed, which revealed that the majority (86% of breaches) are financially motivated. It is clear that centralized storage of identity data is a honey pot for cybercriminals and should be cause enough to stop and reflect on better approaches.
If bitcoin is the only innovation that comes to mind when thinking about blockchain, patterns for decentralization that inspired the standards we have today such as the Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF), Hyperledger and the Trust Over IP Foundation (ToIP) can be added to the list. In decentralized identity models, the use of strong encryption and digital wallets empower users with greater control and privacy by design, enabling trust between consumers and merchants.
As with any new emerging technology, it is rare that every organization agrees on the problem being solved or how to solve it. This reality stems from the fact that not all business leaders today believe in privacy as a fundamental human right or that our identity data is our own. With "profit at any cost" being prevalent in shareholder dominant capitalism, it should come as no surprise that decentralization is often at odds with the majority of businesses today.
In my experience in speaking with analysts, technologists and business leaders about decentralized identity, there are at least three major social perspectives that are represented. They are as follows:
The Analyst Perspective
In a recent webinar I hosted, a highly regarded VP and principal analyst at a research organization explained how there's a natural reversion to governance that a lot of technologists have because they get faced with the stark reality that this is not just about technology but it's about rules, and faced with that, technologists have learned that governance is kind of the safe place. The trick for identity is going to be to take the identities and the relationships that we have that by and large are working pretty well, and digitize them more faithfully — take them from the analog to the digital.
The Skeptic
Shortly after the same webinar, the skeptic voice emerged. Rather than analyzing presentations for their merits and substance, the skeptic voice criticizes the delivery rather than the message. The skeptic always has a way of seeing the glass as half empty and spotting shortcomings. The skeptic is wary of committing to ideas that may satisfy any sense of ethics, while looking (waiting) for rabid market demand as the key indicator of success.
Boots On The Ground
Those working on decentralized identity projects every day are the ones whose voices carry authority through the display of demonstrable experience. Examples of this perspective include IBM's Rapid Supplier Connect, a blockchain-based supply chain solution designed to enable supplier identity and help get Covid-19 responders the equipment they need. On an episode of my podcast, a guest explained that businesses can maintain distributive control over diverse ecosystems and adapt to market forces without the need to build more unsustainable identity sources, or services, and delivery silos. Mastercard believing that digital interactions should be privacy-enhancing, while "restoring trust in a digital world" with decentralized identity is yet another case in point.
These viewpoints may sound like the classic argument of the glass being half full, or the counter-argument to it being half empty. Yet there is another view that should be represented, and that is of the entrepreneur who sees neither a half-full or half-empty glass, but as an opportunity for several startups — and perhaps the next $1 billion unicorn.
Compelling evidence that the decentralized identity market has reached the early adopters phase is Ping Identity's acquisition of ShoCard, which was announced in March of 2020. Since 2001, Ping's CEO Andre Durand helped pioneer identity in (and for) the cloud, and with this recent acquisition demonstrates a commitment to a privacy-first approach to identity models, making identity for the people a reality in the mainstream consumer experience.
Regardless of which perspective you identify with most, nonconformist innovation requires that entrepreneurs and professionals give serious consideration to the Peter Parker principle that states, "With great power comes great responsibility." Digital identity isn't something that should happen to you; it is something that should happen for you, with dignity and respect for an end user's privacy being the first principle. And finally, may "rabid market demand" never be regarded as a key performance indicator for the success of a good idea. Human rights, privacy above profit and doing the right thing for all stakeholders is the new black.
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