Accenture and Microsoft have announced their partnership to build the Decentralised Identity Foundation. The new group is aimed to leverage blockchain to develop an open source ecosystem for online identities.
A number of large companies and startups are collaborating on the latest initiative with Accenture and Microsoft. Blockstack, Civic, Sovrin and Netki are among the key participants.
Single standard system for digital identities
The new ecosystem is targeted to allow a single standard system for digital identities. The participant companies that want individual users to have a secure, verifiable IDs to access the Internet, the latest development could enable a decentralised web. The whole idea is to give more control to the end users.
Therefore, Decentralised Identity Foundation will initiate efforts towards a decentralised system where a single entry cannot control the entire system and just act as a gatekeeper. It will also create a level playing field for competing online companies.
“We’d want a fully open-source, unencumbered model where your data and your identifiers are yours, and not necessarily lock you in to an eco-system that is specific to us,” Daniel Buchner, who runs decentralised identity projects at Microsoft, told Quartz in an interview.
Enables control over data and privacy
Being an open source solution, the decentralised system promises to give more control to individuals over their data and privacy. Its major advantage would be privacy. Also, tt can help in prevent hacks and attacks that centralised cloud-based services are vulnerable to.
Microsoft and Accenture will certainly bring value to the DIF initiative. Microsoft being security and privacy-focused company can add great value to Decentralised Identity Foundation. Additionally, it would use its emerging experience in the open source space to make the group a better place for the community.
