Survey of Online Identity Management Techniques on Blockchain

Abstract

Secure identity management is one of the controversial topics in the cybersecurity landscape. The user needs to rely on third-party providers for managing their personal information, which is a big security concern. Traditional identity systems typically suffer from single points of failure, lack of interoperability, and privacy issues such as encouraging mass data collection and user tracking. Blockchain technology has the potential to support novel data ownership and governance models with built-in control and consent mechanisms, which may benefit both users and businesses by alleviating these concerns. Blockchain-based systems provide the possibility for their users to insert their data in this distributed ledger. Users can trust the blockchain as it is leveraging consensus mechanisms to validate and gather the transactions in immutable blocks. The transparent and decentralized nature of the blockchain network enables the development of a non-refutable and unbreakable record of data, which is the fundamental feature of many applications, such as identity management.