‘DID Alliance Korea 2019’ Conference was a major event
- A lot of questions were raised regarding Decentralized ID
DID Alliance Korea announced on October 22 the successful completion of
its "DID Alliance Korea 2019" conference that gathered over 600
people, including world's’ top experts in terms of Decentralized ID, Biometric
Authentication systems and Cybersecurity.
DID Alliance Korea, which is operated jointly by the Korea Financial
Telecommunications & Clearings Institute, the Korea PKI Forum and the Korea
FIDO Forum, was held under the theme, "Decentralized Identity" that will
revolutionize our lives.
Prior to the event, DID Alliance and DID Alliance Korea held preliminary
meetings to establish a Decentralized ID ecosystem in Korea and overseas, while
looking for cooperation agreements in various industries. Further in-depth
information will be shared to establish an efficient cooperative system in the
future.
DID Alliance Korea Chairman Yeong Rin Kim said in a welcome speech, "With the emergence of the Self-Sovereign
Identity for users, the identity management system is being improved from a traditional
Server-Client model to a system in which users take the control back over their
own personal information." He added, "After today's launching
ceremony, DID Alliance's policies will be completed, while being structured
around Korea and the U.S., and the foundation for DID will be established in
accordance with the participating organizations’ opinions."
Taher Elgamal, a security expert who
was the first speaker, enumerated three important goals that the Distributed Identity
should fulfill. The Decentralized ID should:
1. Prove ID in a Secure Way;
2. Be a Decentralized Authority over data;
3. Enhance Individual Privacy.
He also mentioned four elements that we should watch out for: "Unknown
uncertain events", "Key Recover", "Multiple DID" and
"People trying to Defeat the system."
Taher Elgamal emphasized the importance
of security, "There are three things that we should not forget from the
past. Since cryptography can be broken (1), we need to be able to respond to
'single point of failure' (2) through ‘flexible design’ (3) so that we can
protect against other unexpected attacks when deploying SSL or ‘Agile
Cryptography’, and so we can prevent one failure from affecting the entire system."
"DID will lead to drastic changes in the way people use the
Internet," said Dr. Ho Hyeorn Han, Vice-Chair of DID Alliance Korea, who was
the second speaker of the session. "A public consensus on a system that
supports each individual's role as the main subject of information is needed.”
He added, “DID platforms that various companies are currently striving to
develop still rely on the existing identity system. Building an authentic
DID-based Identity system requires the development of future technologies that
can be operated directly between individuals.” He also mentioned about the leading
role that plays Korea in the adoption of the DID technology in the world while
emphasizing on the need to develop a global cooperation to quicken the
diffusion of the technology worldwide.
Phillip
J. Windley, Chairman of the Sovrin Foundation, presented the third session. He
started his presentation by enumerating the problems of digital identity such
as proximity, autonomy, privacy, anonymity, flexibility, interoperability and
scalability. He then explained that digital identity systems must exist in an online
metasystem, which is an encapsulating protocol that unified user experience, where
users select appropriate identity providers and features. He also mentioned that
standard metasystems should not be a single entity (not a monolith). The
Chairman of Sovrin added that an identity metasystem that changes online
interactions could become trustworthy by using trusted credentials. Such
metasystem could strengthen security and users ownership over their personal
information while reducing integration costs.
Tae Jin
Kim, the CTO of Raonsecure, was the following speaker of the conference. He introduced
OmniOne, the FIDO-based DID network for Self-Sovereign Identity while
explaining, "In the age of Web 2.0, two-way communication was the key
point focusing on user-generated content and participatory culture. In the age
of Web 3.0, which is evolving into an era of customized data with the advent of
big data, we expect that individuals will take the ownership back over their
personal information.” The CTO of Raonsecure added, “Identity systems have been
changing from centrally managed system to federated system, and the trend is
rapidly evolving toward a new user-centric structure." In particular, he
expressed his hope that the DID Alliance will serve as an anchor point for
easing the interoperability between various DID platforms such as OmniOne and
Sovrin.
Then, the
co-founder of the DID Alliance, Ramesh Kesanupalli, unveiled for the first time
in the world a high-level concept related to the DID: the Global Association
for Digital Identity (GADI), which is an infrastructure “preventing users from
creating multiple digital addresses.” He pursued, "Using standardized API
allows users to connect their personal information (identity attributes) to
already created digital addresses anywhere in the world." Ramesh
Kesanupalli explained that GADI could bring unprecedented responsibility and
trust in digital identification industry without infringing on users' privacy, which
drew participants’ attention.
The speaker of the sixth session, Sang Hyun Baek, who is the Manager of
Cyber Security Team in the Information Planning Department at Military Manpower
Administration, introduced a use case of the DID technology in the public
sector. He explained, "We wanted to implement blockchain and DID technology
on trust-based civil application service and public administrative services in
order to seek alternative measures for public certificates, strengthen the
reliability of civil affairs handling, and improve the distribution system of military
service certificates.” He explained, "By doing so, we expect to increase
users' authentication convenience, reduce costs, simplify issuance and handling
process of military service certificates, and we look forward to expanding
nodes and services by securing blockchain infrastructure."
"As
of September 2019, twenty-six (26) financial companies have confirmed their
participation in the financial distributed ID consortium propelled by the Korea
Financial Telecommunications & Clearings Institute (KFTC), and we are
discussing with nine (9) financial companies about their participation in the
consortium," explained Jung Hyun Park, who is the Team Leader of Next
Generation Certification Department at KFTC. The last speaker of the conference
added, "In terms of differentiation points, the financial distributed ID
consortium plans to:
-
Provide tailored financial
information based on a robo-advisor;
-
Use bio-authentication
infrastructure (providing distributed ID structure enabling low-cost & high-efficiency);
-
Ensure distributed ID
compatibility online and offline;
-
Conclude partnerships with Korean
platform providers.
Jung Hyun
Park eventually mentioned, “We will actively contribute to the DID Alliance and
the International Standardization while striving to develop Service Standards
based on the financial distributed ID consortium in order to established them as
financial standards in Korea.”
DID Alliance will reportedly host a global conference in the U.S. in the first half of next year.