Self-Sovereign Identity: A New Paradigm for Identity Management and Its Open Challenges

Abstract

This talk introduces Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) as an alternative paradigm for digital identity management aimed at overcoming limitations of centralized and federated models. Building on conceptual and historical perspectives of identity, it outlines the core principles of SSI, including user autonomy, privacy-preserving credential presentation, and reduced reliance on identity providers. The presentation also addresses common misconceptions about SSI and highlights open challenges identified in the literature, such as the absence of a consensual definition, trust modeling, usability, and migration from existing identity systems.