For me, Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) is about privacy for the user. We need the same privacy level in the digital world as in the physical world. At the moment, privacy is under siege, also in the SSI community.
On the one hand, the community is taking shortcuts and sacrifice privacy to solve tricky technical challenges, like revocation or minimal disclosure. On the other hand, compromises are made to please existing systems.
We are on an inflexion point of SSI. A lot of projects are underway, and the topic attracts more and more startups and companies. If architecture- and standardization decisions made “wrong”, we end up with just another federated identity. It can end even worse. We need to raise more awareness in the SSI community regarding privacy.
A simple privacy test.
The most straightforward test compares a digital identity system’s privacy with physical documents’ privacy level. If it provides less privacy, it did not fit the purpose.
A simple example. If you show your physical driving licence at some entrance, the issuing authority doesn’t know about it. And the person at the checkpoint doesn’t know if your driving licence was ever revoked or can check revocation in the future.