Microsoft plans to pilot a blockchain-based digital ID platform that would allow users to control access to sensitive online information via an encrypted data hub.
Microsoft is working to create a blockchain-based, decentralized digital identity management platform that would allow users to own and secure access to their online persona via an encrypted database hub.
Over the past year, Microsoft said it has been exploring how to use Blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies to create new types of digital identities designed to enhance personal privacy, security and control.
“This new world needs a new model for digital identity, one that enhances individual privacy and security across the physical and digital world,” Ankur Patel, a principal product manager with Microsoft’s Identity Division, wrote in a blog post. “Rather than grant broad consent to countless apps and services, and have their identity data spread across numerous providers, individuals need a secure encrypted digital hub where they can store their identity data and easily control access to it.”
Last month, Microsoft joined the ID2020 alliance, a global partnership working to create an open-source, blockchain-based digital identity system for people in the U.S. or nations who lack legal documentation because of their economic or social status.
The ID2020 alliance is targeting the people who lack fundamental rights and services such as voting, healthcare, housing and education that are tethered to legal proof of identification.
This week, Microsoft detailed what it has learned from its own exploration of blockchain as well as from its partnership with ID2020; as a platform for a new open ledger ID technology, the company plans to use its existing cloud-based Microsoft Authenticator application, which already enables multi-factor authentication for business and consumer customers.
Microsoft plans to work with other companies and industry groups to enable its “self-sovereign digital identity platform,” according to Patel.
