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Self Sovereign Identity (aka SSI) is the only way out of those identity sovereignty issues. It shouldn't be acceptable that your identity depends on anything or anyone. It should just be your identity.

A paper or certificate can prove an entity trusts your identity to be <firstname, lastname, etc...> but that shouldn't be your identity.

You just are. Not your google Id, not your Apple Id either of course.

Governments are lame.

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You are conflating the philosophical notion of identity with functional identification in the real world. There is no cryptographic escape hatch from the social contract.

>You just are/I just am

Is not an acceptable thing to say to a bar tender when being served an alcoholic drink when you're 22. You hand them government issued ID.


I agree, and that government ID isn't your identity, it's just a piece of it.

I'm not arguing against government ID, I'm saying identity doesn't have to be that piece of paper, or that Google ID.

Analogy: if google ID is your primary key in your User table, then you're cooked. Instead use a uuid for the PK, and add Google ID as just another id. But the identity is the PK.


> Governments are lame

In 2019, the EU created an eIDAS compatible European Self-Sovereign Identity Framework (ESSIF).

How is the government lame, here? We've had the infrastructure for 7 years now.


eIDAS tends to hear "our European Sovereignty" when they hear Self-Sovereign.

You can't have a government issue a Self-Sovereign identity to you, it's an oxymoron. They can only issue credentials. But then they'd feel like they're losing control, so they pervert it. Now they call it SSI but it's just digital credentials.

The very title says it all: German implementation of eIDAS will require Google or Apple ID. That's not self-sovereign identity.

And that's why I find it lame.


How is that not lame?



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