In our increasingly digital society, personal data has become a new form of currency. But, the problem is that you do not control your digital identity and therefore cannot monetize it, or, more precisely, you cannot monetize your identity graph or the personal data accreted therein. We need a new model for digital identity in order to regain our sovereignty.

“The next phase of Internet growth requires a re-tooling, with identity and trust at the foundation, to bring the ownership and control of personal data back to the individual. Doing so will spawn a new stage of collaboration and open data exchange,” said ID3 Managing Director Dan Harple.

But, perhaps more than a mere “re-tooling” is required? The solutions existing today for establishing a self-sovereign digital identity fall short on access, transparency and portability principles because they are facilitated by third parties which do not disclose the workings of their systems. To solve these problems, a “shift in control from the center of the network to the edges of the network, where all of us exist and interact as peers” is required, as stated by Alex Preukschat in Self-Sovereign Identity.

Key to success in regaining and securing our digital sovereignty is embracing this user-centric internet referred to by Preukschat, also called Web3. “Web3 and self-sovereign identity are a paradigm shift, a change in the underlying infrastructure and power dynamics of the internet itself. If Web1 was the internet of machines, and Web2 was the internet of data, then Web3 is the internet of people.” – Frank H. McCourt, Our Biggest Fight.

Through the use of blockchain technologies, cloud computing, decentralized communities, provable identity, token-based economics, and a monetizable social graph, Web3 assures and encourages the rights, responsibilities, rewards, and rules that support the interests of individuals, society, a market economy, and our system of governance. In the people-centric internet, people are valued for bringing to the negotiating table the thing that matters most: their authentic selves, backed by digital data about their lives and connections, data they own and control.

“… the new economy and new society that we are building on top of it demand a new way of thinking about identity, and a new way of thinking about money… the two converge [in Web3]. With an effective identity infrastructure in place, there will be no need for a single medium of exchange, no need for fiat currency. If you know all the counterparties to a transaction, and can establish their ‘credit’, then there is no need for cash. Identity substitutes for cash, identity will be the new money. We all need to start planning for the transition to identity-based transactions.” – David Birch, Identity is Broken

We should remember: “technologies that change society are technologies that chance interactions between people,” as stated by Cesar A. Hidalgo and further discussed in my blog post, “What is the Industrial Revolution (And Why Should I Care?“: “… the Industrial Revolution has enabled an increased scale in human organization, facilitated specialization and coordination, brought together groups of people in production processes, and led to the rise of commerce and infrastructure types previously hard to imagine… A process ongoing for the last several hundred years, it can be faulty argued that we are now experiencing a new phase of Industrial Revolution, one that will shape the World in ways we do not yet fully understand.”

Final Thoughts

Identity is everything and, soon, our digital identities will no longer be account based. You will be recognized as a person, not a machine or an IP address. Soon, your digital identity will be a source of authority, influence, and income.

“In the next few years we’ll build an Intention Economy, driven by customers equipped with their own tools, and their own ways of interacting with sellers, including their own terms of engagement. This was the promise of the Net and the Web in the first place, and we’ve awaited delivery for long enough. Time’s up. The age of captivity is ending. Start placing your bets on the demand side.” – Stop making cows. Quit being calves.

The time is now to prepare for when the promise of Web3 is fully realized, when resources of all types are bid on and transacted in across the World, in real time and in every moment, through the use solely of one’s provable digital identity.

…

“The future is not to be forecast, but created.” – Arthur C. Clarke