As we continue to explore the concept of decentralized identity, we must talk about how it can impact and add unique value to businesses and industries. Leveraging decentralized blockchain technology, decentralized identity solutions aim to change the very basics of how the internet operates. These blockchain-based identity solutions can securely verify and record identity-related data without the need for a centralized entity, and thus enable users to prove, control, and manage their digital identity on the internet.
In this blog, we’ll explore such applications of decentralized identity to different industries and showcase how these identity solutions can dramatically transform many traditional industries.
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Higher education records and skills credentials
Many businesses and organizations provide internal training programs to employees and members. These programs can be quite valuable and become important for individuals looking to enhance their career skills to grow in their chosen career field. Yet, these internal training programs are difficult to verify by external parties, as normally they are just kept in the internal database of the company or organization.
This puts the people who took the time to take these training programs in a bind. They don’t have a way to certify the skills learned outside the entity that provided the training. In many cases, mentioning them in a CV is not enough, as HR departments may want some sort of proof.
There also have been cases of people faking their education degrees to manipulate others for their interest.
Many popular third-party services also offer learning programs and skills training in a variety of career fields. However, these can be counterfeited and duplicated by experienced hackers. In short, it is becoming harder to prove the integrity and legitimacy of credentials in an increasingly digital world that offers unscrupulous actors many digital tools to fake diplomas, degrees, and certifications.
Related reading:
- How Cardano Connect aims to provide a decentralized identity for Cardano users
- Decentralized identity use cases for Cardano Connect
- What are decentralized identifiers (DIDs) and how do they work?
This is where decentralized identity solutions can be used to validate a user’s skill certificate, degree, or diploma. They enable individual users of the solution to verify and keep their personal certification information in a crypto wallet which is always under their control. At any point, they can provide the certificates and other parties can verify the content of the training.
This results in an efficient system that is a win-win for both individuals looking to easily verify, preserve, and control their information and companies looking to combat fake personal information.
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Medical and healthcare records
Another major area of growth for decentralized identity is in healthcare. The COVID-19 pandemic showed how unprepared the world is to track important medical information such as an individual’s vaccination records.
It was very important to track who had the proper certifications to control the spread of the virus. In most cases, immigration checks had to contend with paper certificates and written signatures, sometimes from foreign jurisdictions that were hard to verify and authenticate.
A decentralized identity solution built using blockchain technology can be created which authenticates and tracks all the vaccines a person has received, plus if any of these need to be renewed, without the individual having to transfer control over to a centralized party. This protects the privacy of individuals while also reducing administrative costs for healthcare providers and removing the hassle of paperwork for agents who need to verify such records.
Not only for vaccination records, but these identity solutions could apply to many other areas of healthcare where patient records need to be stored, updated, and managed securely and confidentially.
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Digital identity for refugees and stateless persons
Another major problem facing the world today is refugees and people who don’t have documents to prove their citizenship and nationality. In many parts of the world due to differing reasons, people have been forced from their homes without important documents and cannot legally prove their identity. They cannot provide proof of their age, name, medical needs, or other information that could give them access to support from national governments.
Here, a decentralized identity solution can be created which ensures a person’s identity is preserved and updated even when they are forced to relocate. It can also track what sort of services and aid they need and can help nation-states more efficiently allocate resources for refugees.
They would just need access to the internet and their digital wallet to regain access to their verified, personal information and present it when needed to the proper authorities.
This would help governments reduce their administrative spending for records keeping, make processes more efficient for both governments and individuals and enable individuals to prove their identity to gain access to essential services easily.
Read more: EMURGO partners with AID:Tech for decentralized identity
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Anti-counterfeiting
The luxury goods industry has sustainably grown throughout the years and has earned staying power among global consumers. Yet, with this level of success, many challenges have also arisen for the industry. Due to the demand for limited, expensive, luxury items, the trade of fake luxury goods has also proliferated and is estimated to be 3.3% of all global trade. This heavily affects the luxury industry.
In 2021, the OECD estimated that the market for counterfeit luxury goods would reach 3 trillion dollars by 2022. Decentralized identity solutions can greatly help with this problem, as it’s the only technology that allows for each item to also have properly verifiable authentication.
Blockchain technology serves as a ledger that can record this important data from the moment goods enter production, while the information in the metadata works to authenticate all items in a production line. This combination can dramatically help solve the challenges faced at the moment by luxury goods brands and enhance consumer trust in a digital age.
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Supply-chain management
This concept of identity not only applies to human beings, decentralized identity solutions can apply to and benefit physical objects as well. In supply-chain management, there is a constant need to track products that have a finite expiration date or that have to be kept under a certain temperature (cold-chain). Multiple stakeholders in the supply chain also have to trust this data provided by others including dates, weights, pricing, etc.
These products can be a hassle to track as their information is contained in private databases controlled by a centralized party. A third party in the supply chain has to trust the party keeping and recording these records.
However, in supply chain management, trust must be kept between many different parties and stakeholders, but conflicting incentives can exist to manipulate certain data.
This is where decentralized identity solutions could transform supply chain management by simultaneously and transparently enabling all stakeholders involved including the shipping company, wholesaler, customs agency, retailer, and consumer to easily track the data related to the end product in real-time. Records cannot be manipulated and kept opaque.
This can dramatically cut the oversight needed to track products, reduce costs for all parties involved in the supply chain, enhance trust for consumers, and improve business reputations for parties that use such a solution.
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