SelfKey Identity Network

Your KEY to Freedom

The SelfKey ecosystem is a blockchain based identity management system that puts identity owners in control of their digital identity and allows them to request document certifications. After the user is verified, they can instantly and securely access products and services avoiding any repetitive and burdensome KYC process. Relying parties, certifiers and identity owners can transact in a secure, private, decentralized manner to exchange identity claims.

SelfKey runs on smart contracts with economic incentives powered by SelfKey tokens (KEY) and smart contracts run on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and Ethereum Blockchain.

The Problem

Society is exceptionally dependent upon the internet. However, as our identities move online, they are kept in giant vulnerable centralised databases. This sometimes results in data breaches, exposing people to identity theft

Furthermore, for companies dealing in finance or money, KYC compliance is an expensive and painful reality, and makes users go through a long, laborious onboarding process.

The size and scope of the problem is vast, and imparts huge costs on both institutions as well as individuals. Recent estimates indicate that over $40B USD is spent complying with KYC regulation each year, in addition to the trillions of hours of associated time costs.

We currently lack of an identity wallet where we can control and manage our most important identity attributes and financial data, and a platform that allows efficient KYC onboarding processes.

The Solution

For the first time, SelfKey’s blockchain-based, decentralized digital identity system gives users complete control over their personal identity information.

SelfKey’s ‘privacy by design’ puts individuals at the centre of their identity management process, allowing them to open bank accounts, establish a company or even apply for citizenship, while retaining control and ownership of their identity documents at all times. The concept, known as Self-Sovereign IDentity (SSID) has the potential to make individual identity theft a problem of the past.

The gateway into the world of Self-Sovereign IDentity is through the creation of a SelfKey digital wallet, the Identity Wallet. This Identity wallet is capable of storing personal identity data such as a copy of an individual’s passport photo page, tax numbers and other unique identifiers such as driver’s licence numbers and proof-of-address information.

When the SelfKey wallet is created, a unique public/private cryptographic key pair is generated for that individual. The premise of public key cryptography is that anyone can encrypt messages using the public key, but only the holder of the paired private key can decrypt the message. Once the SelfKey wallet is created and loaded with cryptographically signed identity documentation, the individual can begin securely sharing their digital identity information in commercial transactions.

With SelfKey, proving identity becomes seamless — and secure. When an individual is asked by their bank to provide a copy of their passport, instead of sharing a physical copy of this document, with SelfKey they’ll simply sign a digital copy of the passport photo page in their wallet using the bank’s public key and deliver it to the bank via the SelfKey network.

As it travels along the SelfKey network, the individual need not be concerned about their passport information falling into the wrong hands. Because the passport information is cryptographically signed (encrypted) using the bank’s public key, it can only be decrypted once the bank applies its corresponding private key, which is known only to them. To everyone else on the network, only the secure hash of the passport information is visible.

This cryptographic exchange mechanism therefore prevents unauthorised sharing of secured information. For example, if the bank subsequently attempted to share the passport copy with another third party, the document would be unreadable to that third party. Using SelfKey, the individual identity owner is able to retain full control over their personal data whilst being able to safely and securely share that data with third parties of their choice.

SelfKey Ecosystem

The SelfKey Network mainly consists in the Identity Wallet, the Marketplace and the KEY token — all of which are open source and fully auditable:

The Identity Wallet

The SelfKey Identity Wallet, an open-source digital identity wallet through with which identity owners can securely access and manage their identity attributes and documents, such as passports, stored on their personal device. This removes the need to have that sensitive personal data held by a third party on a vulnerable centralised database or in the blockchain.

In addition to access and share ID documents, the Identity Wallet is capable to store, send and receive ETH, KEY and any ERC-20 Token.

Through the SelfKey Identity Wallet and a cryptographic key pairing (private and public), users will be able to digitally sign documents, request identity checks and document certification from certifiers, such as eNotary services, and authenticate at multiple platforms.

These certified identity attributes and documents can be shared with relying parties listed in the SelfKey marketplace in order to access to their products and services.

SelfKey enables automated processes that re-uses KYC data, allowing for a quicker KYC onboarding process and to save time to complete applications that are currently tedious.

The Corporate Identity Wallet will allow for linked identities that can provide multi level verification, ideal for organizations to easily and quickly have their documents notarized and open bank accounts or establish subsidiaries.

The Marketplace

The Marketplace allows users to compare and apply for products and services without having to go through the manual and paper-intensive KYC processing that service providers would require outside the SelfKey network. A pre-alpha version of the SelfKey marketplace is available at alpha.selfkey.org.

These products and services include but are not limited to: citizenship and residency by investment, company incorporation, bank accounts, fintech products, insurance, real estate, precious metals purchase and storage, among others.

In addition, the Identity Wallet will allow for an instant Exchanges account sign up and verification.

As the Identity Wallet is capable to store ETH and any ERC-20 Token, it enables instant onboarding to Token Sales. Being possible to whitelist an address sending KYC documents and transfer ETH to Token Sales, within the same App.

In fact, SelfKey has already powered/is powering several Token Sales KYC processes such as Airswap, Gatcoin, Polymath, AiX, Aditus and others.

SelfKey has already established partnerships with financial service providers, corporate services providers, registered agents, lawyers, consulting firms, notaries, exchanges to offer the aforementioned products and services.

The KEY Token

The native token KEY, an ERC-20 token used as access rights and payment unit within the network.

The SelfKey network will require participants to stake a certain amount of KEY tokens to access the network. This prevents spam, decreases the total amount of float, and encourages people to buy and hold KEY, and act in accordance with the trust framework (legal agreement) so that relying parties don’t for instance, misuse identity data — because if they do, they will lose their stake.

Bonded notaries will work exactly how notaries work in the real world, except on chain. The notaries will need to stake a certain amount of KEY in order to become a notary — in the same way as it currently happens, where a notary has to post a surety bond with the government.

KEY will be also used as a payment unit for document notarization and for products and services offered by relying parties in the SelfKey marketplace. Marketplace listings will be either wholly or partially priced in KEY.

Each member of the ecosystem will have a valuable role to play utilizing KEY, enabling a feasible transactional economy between the parties.

Road Map

2018

2019

The SelfKey Team