IBM and Hyperledger have joined the Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF), a consortium formed in order to promote an ecosystem where decentralized identities are anchored by blockchain-based ID systems.
The foundation is already comprised of a diverse group of corporates, startups and open-source projects, including Microsoft, Accenture, Civic, Gem, evernym and Sovrin, that are collaborating in order to design and develop the underlying technology.
The Foundation expressed: “Our members come from different backgrounds, market verticals, and regions of the world — many are competitors. However, this diverse set of individuals and organizations is bound by a common creed: the belief that identity is composed of a deeply personal collection of data that defines us, and your identity should answer to no one but you.”
By stating that “Organizations developing solutions in the space lacked the fundamental primitives, protocols, and tools necessary to create an interoperable ecosystem”, the foundation is aiming to achieve self-sovereignty by working on a set of specs and reference implementations for building blocks such as personal data stores and decentralized identifiers.
Furthermore, IBM stated: “We are excited to announce IBM has joined the Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF) as a complement to our current stewardship in the Hyperledger Project. Today, the Hyperledger Project has also announced that they are joining DIF as we together join like-minded organizations such as Microsoft, Evernym, the Sovrin Foundation, and others who aspire to make the vision of self-sovereign identity a reality.”
