SELF-SOVEREIGN IDENTITY – A COMPARISON OF IRMA AND SOVRIN
Much effort has been put in by many to realize this vision, which is currently referred to by the phrase Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI), and which roughly refers to a set of principles that are generally considered the basis on which a next generation of internet applications will exchange (issue, request, and obtain) personal data.
Today, we see tens if not hundreds of initiatives that work with these principles. However, it is still quite difficult to satisfy all of them: Others surveyed some 50 of them, and identified the three that came closest: uPort, IRMA and Sovrin.
In this document we try to compare two of them: IRMA and Sovrin, the purpose of which is to give our audience an idea about what they are about, what the differences are, and where we stand today. The comparison is rather high-level, and touch upon functionality, protocols and maturity.
We conclude that this area is still evolving (and quite rapidly). Quite a few issues remain to be resolved, most of which perhaps are not of a technical nature, but have to do with usability/user friendliness, legal stuff, adoption and the ability and willingness of businesses to transition to this new way of working.