Definitions (Definitions?)

Distributed Identity refers to a particular method of verifying one’s identity and personal attributes to a relying party. 

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An advantage of distributed identity is that The that the user decides whether and what to release at any point. Their ability to control attribute release improves privacy and data protection.

The verification could use a digital infrastructure like digital signature verification on a signed piece of data or consultation with a registry or a distributed ledger. 

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• Better attribute aggregation: in a DI4R setting, attribute aggregation happens within the user wallet. This enables attributes from more sources with the user in perfect control of the release.
• Easier integration for the provider identity and service (are both meant here?) providers: Providers need not to federate - they can decide to provide or consume user information or stop consuming user information doing that at any time and it is only up to the user whether they want to provide attributes or not. (overlap with the later "SP is responsible for asking for only what it needs...")
• No tracking by IdP: In a SAML or OIDC setting, the Identity Provider can track in real-time where its users are logging in. In DI4R, the issuer cannot track any subsequent usage of the issued information and thus learn about the user's behaviour.
• Easier compliance with GDPR:
• The user holds control over cards and can easily delete them.
• For the IdP there is not much difference (actually can be less good, less , except in terms of less control - the IdP cannot know/limit what happens with the credentials once issued - they can only track their inclusion into the user's wallet (including after a claim has expired or is revoked)
  
• The IdP's ability to control attribute release improves privacy and data protection.
• Not having a proxy! (in the long run? we go to lengths below with proxies!) is also a big advantage with regards to the GDPR.
• The authorisation is decoupled from providing attributes.
• The service is responsible SP is responsible for asking for only what it needs and trusts to and is responsible for claims regarding verification, authorization and in an IRMA-like system you always get what you ask forGDPR-complied handling of released information.
• Easier in the ecosystem to exchange information without top-level trust route approval - basically mesh-like federation. 
• Explanation: we came up with tagging in eduGAIN so that we don’t break the trust model and yet entities can express extra stuff.
  

Work done

From Sprint Demo 4.6 - September 21/22:

• Implement and improve IRMA issuer in SimpleSAMLphp

• Test verification of claims from multiple schemes

• Explore the best way to describe the scheme

• Discuss IRMA ‘metadata’ distribution risks

• Investigate assurance

• Device assurance

• Expressing assurance from source

• Investigate revocation

• Multi-valued attributes

Bellow are all (unclassified) features, achievements, findings, issues, todos and questions from Sprint Demo 4.6 - September 21/22 conclusions - keep in Done or move to 2 or 4:

• IRMA does improve end-user control over attributes

• Tracking behaviour is indeed impossible

• Is the app helpful or do we need to simplify GUI?

• Issuer chaining is still untested

• Per claim revocability (untested)

• No fallback for the mobile app at this time

• No central infrastructure collects all user data

• Not having a proxy reduces the administrative and legal burden
• Once claims are issued, the Issuer is no longer involved, this  improves scalability
• What is the legal/GDPR model, as ‘consent’ is not applicable
• Use of app adds to improved LoA
• LoA enhancing is much easier because of the mobile platform
• Service can cherry-pick claims; unused data is not send
• A distributed Identity model may provide a more flexible ecosystem, while it can still have similar trust properties as we have with eduGAIN
• Does an app provide us with better control over our ecosystem?

Potential future work

Functional model

Here provided comparative overviews illustrate the transition toward distributed identities.

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