Self-Sovereign Identity and Distributed Ledger Technology : Framing the Legal Issues

Distributed ledger technology (“DLT”), including the use of blockchain technology, has been touted as a way to create and validate digital identities that serve many of the same purposes that physical forms of identification (such as a passport or driver’s license) do today. This summary describes the development of DLT as a means for creating a decentralized, portable, secure, privacy-respecting, and entirely user-controlled online identity system, often referred to as self-sovereign identity (“SSI”), and outlines the high-level legal issues and technological challenges that must be addressed ahead of mass adoption.