An Efficient Personal Key Recovery in Self-Sovereign Identity Environments

An efficient method for personal key recovery in self-sovereign identity environments, combining online and offline infrastructure for personal identification is proposed in this paper. This new concept, self-sovereign identity, that emerged in recent years supports various applications like online banking, digital assets, and digital identity management. Public key encryption is fundamental in self-sovereign identity and the management and recovery of private keys is of paramount importance. The proposed method uses a fragmentation and combination strategy for private keys, augmented by bio-metric recognition utilizing encryption algorithms such as AES, SEED, and SSS and minutiae points. A private key storage and recovery approach utilizing a combination of online and offline environments through a hash graph is also proposed.

I. Introduction

Identity serves as a crucial tool for identifying individuals in society, groups, and institutions [1]. Traditional identity management systems rely on a centralized model that involves storing personal information such as names, passwords, and ID numbers in a central database managed by service providers. This model, however, imposes the burden of managing multiple login credentials on individuals and may not offer adequate protection for personal information. To address these issues, the federation identity model has been developed, utilizing an Identity Provider (IDP) service, such as OAuth, SAML, SSO, or OpenID Connect, to serve as an intermediary between individuals and service providers [2]. This enables individuals to utilize a single set of login credentials across multiple services. However, as there is no universal IDP that operates on all services, users may still need multiple accounts with different IDPs. Additionally, the IDP serves as a safeguard against malicious administrators leaking personal information. If a user chooses to withdraw from the IDP service, they will lose access to all services connected to that IDP.