The current web ecosystem gives limited control to users over how their data is used. While innumerable users are now sharing their data on social media and search engines, these platforms, in turn, are selling this confidential data of the users to advertisers. In an effort to use the technology potentially and give users more control over their digital identity data, Microsoft Corporation is initiating to use the of Blockchain technology which is originally used for Cryptography platforms.

The Redmond Giant on its collaboration with DIF, Digital Identity Foundation reveals to solve the challenges of digitally managing and preserving the identities data which further involves Blockchain to enhance privacy and security across the digital and physical world. The company recently shared a blog post, stating “We believe it is essential for individuals to own and control all elements of their digital identity.” They further said, “Rather than grant broad consent to countless apps and services, and have their identity data spread across numerous providers, individuals need a secure, encrypted digital hub where they can store their identity data and easily control access to it.”

To achieve what the company has planned, similar to Lightning Network, they are developing a solution that will allow the processing of huge chunks of data without clogging the blockchain network.

Microsoft jointly researched with DIF and shared some conclusions, yet the demo of the working prototypes of the solutions it gave still remains. It asserts that the use of Blockchain is beyond the cryptocurrencies, such as, Blockchain and can be used for a number of applications.

Overall, with Blockchain Microsoft eliminates the involvement of third-party services and solutions for data control, as the proposed technology can be a major-league in giving back the user his control over the data and securely preserving the digital data.

Further the blog post features, “Today, users grant broad consent to countless apps and services for collection and retention of their data for use beyond their control. With data breaches and identity theft becoming more sophisticated and frequent, users need a way to take ownership of their identity.”

In the best of their approach, Microsoft shares the following, “After examining decentralized storage systems, consensus protocols, blockchains, and a variety of emerging standards, we believe blockchain technology and protocols are well suited for enabling Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs).”

The company in an effort to create an all-access robust decentralized identity ecosystem, is encouraging the use of open-source technologies, protocols, and reference implementations. Also, since the previous year the company is involving with DIF and associating with individuals and organizations who share similar interests and are ready to bring solutions for the users on their control over the data.

Decentralized identifiers (dids):

a W3C spec that defines a common document format for describing the state of a Decentralized Identifier

Identity hubs

an encrypted identity datastore that features message/intent relay, attestation handling, and identity-specific compute endpoints.

Universal did resolver

a server that resolves DIDs across blockchains

Verifiable credentials

a W3C spec that defines a document format for encoding DID-based attestations.

Further Microsoft’s Principal Program Manager, Mr. Ankur Patel shares that, “After examining decentralized storage systems, consensus protocols, blockchains, and a variety of emerging standards we believe blockchain technology and protocols are well suited for enabling Decentralized IDs (DID).”

He concludes that “We are humbled and excited to take on such a massive challenge, but also know it can’t be accomplished alone. We are counting on the support and input of our alliance partners, members of the Decentralized Identity Foundation, and the diverse Microsoft ecosystem of designers, policymakers, business partners, and hardware and software builders. Most importantly we will need you, our customers to provide feedback as we start testing these first set of scenarios.”

Source: https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/enterprisemobility/2018/02/12/decentralized-digital-identities-and-blockchain-the-future-as-we-see-it/