The Demand for Digital Identity

It's more about what you are than who you are.

Dateline: Amsterdam, 9th October 2022.

When it comes to exploring new technologies, it is common to hear the phrase “a solution looking for a problem” thrown around the boardroom. And, of course, in many cases this is an entirely valid criticism of the pointless and redundant application of a new bit of kit, or software architecture, or complicated cryptographic concept that no-one really understands. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish the use cases from the useless cases: The idea that fire departments, for example, might use the blockchain to fight fires more effectively than by using a database (one of my favourite useless cases) might reasonably be criticised in this context.

When it comes to the new technologies of identification, authentication and (in particular) authorisation though, this criticism is wholly misplaced. In the identity world, we have not one but a million problems looking for the same solution: Digital identity.