Necessity of Reliable Self-Sovereign Identity Management Framework for Resource Constrained IoT Devices

Abstract

One of the main aspects of the digital revolution is the interconnectedness of people, processes and devices in which securely managing digital identity is one of the most important prerequisites. Security threats and proven drawbacks of existing identity management systems motivate searching for a new trustworthy solution for managing the identity of individuals and entities. Especially, a massive number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices pose some challenges to the centralized security solution and following the IoT ecosystem, distributed ledger-based decentralized Self-sovereign Identity (SSI) management techniques are seen by many as the future of this genre. Although this mechanism seems promising, there are some limitations and challenges concerning the capability of IoT devices. Low computing power, storage space, inability to perform the cryptographic operation is the main challenge that creates a barrier in the adoption of SSI using Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). This paper describes the necessity and the required attribute of Self-sovereign Identity. It highlights the unresolved key challenges needed to bring a universal, usable, trustworthy, secure and privacy-preserving digital identity management framework for the Internet of Things. Finally, the conclusion has been made by setting focus on designing a novel SSI Management Framework for IoT devices.