Ethical Design of Digital Identity Environmental Implications from the Self-Sovereign Identity Movement

Abstract

In a world that is becoming more digital, it is relevant to find some guidelines for organizations to design digital identity more ethically. A universal identity system on the internet is still missing and there are no clear standards for organizations to design digital identity. With this research, knowledge and insights have been obtained to advance organizations to design digital identity more ethically. A contribution has been made by proposing the conditions to enable improvements for a more ethical design. To gain insights, the environment surrounding digital identity has been researched. This environment contains the following five concepts: industry norms, political and legal, professional codes of ethics, societal norms, economic and competitive (McDevitt et al. 2007). The research is practice-oriented, explorative, and approached from an abductive perspective. Qualitative research based on ten semi-structured interviews with respondents from the Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) market has been used to collect data. To design digital identity more ethically, organizations should pursue autonomy, transparency, equal power relations, privacy, and inclusivity. In society we should become aware of the problem of digital identity and we should change the monetization of data. A governance framework can advance organizations to design digital identity more ethically.