The future of our digital identity: NFTs or Verifiable Credentials? by Tommaso Agnola

Note: as the video registration was lost due to a technical issue, the recovered low quality audio has been remixed with the slides kindly provided by the speaker. Every day the user is required to manage his personal information and provide it whenever it is necessary to access a particular service. This information includes the user's identity including documents such as airline tickets, driver's licenses, loyalty cards, etc. It is essential that, as its property, this information remains in possession and control of the user, and that no one acts as an intermediary in communications between the subject and service provider. A transition is taking place in the concepts of individuals, identity, and identification, moving from the federated to the decentralized identity model The latter model enables decentralized, secure, and privacy-friendly management. Some approaches in this regard are NFT and SSI. We will first analyze the individual identification models, discover their characteristics, and then focus on the decentralized one. Then, the concepts of NFT and SSI for credential and identity management will be analyzed. Finally, some solutions on the market will be presented, useful for embracing these approaches in a wide variety of contexts. The auditor, without prior knowledge in the field, will be able at the end of the talk to understand the main features of decentralized identity solutions and be able to choose which is the best option.