Microsoft is moving forward to launch Decentralized Identity Systems

According to Microsoft’s new post, which was posted today, described that Microsoft is going to welcome public Blockchain, Bitcoin, and Ethereum, for decentralized identity systems. The company will be supporting the blockchain-based decentralized IDs (DIDs) through the Microsoft Authenticator app.

Unlike the other forms of identifications use in today’s world, a decentralized identity system is neither controlled by any centralized institution nor by any government or large tech organization. The decentralized identity system will decrease the possibility of censorship and provides an individual full control over their identity and reputation.

After eyeing on different kinds of decentralized identity systems, Microsoft turned towards the public blockchain because of their ability to enable the privacy, self-ownership, and permissionless access.

Microsoft wrote:

“After examining decentralized storage systems, consensus protocols, blockchains, and a variety of emerging standards we believe blockchain technology and protocols are well suited for enabling Decentralized IDs.”

Identity is one of the long-touted use cases of blockchain technology which does not even have anything to do with payments or currency. In the post, Microsoft mentioned Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin as three particular platforms which will be the suitable foundations for DIDs.

Dozens of blockchain projects related to identity have popped up over the years, with Blockstack ID and uPort being two of the most well-known examples.

Microsoft has planned to work with DID method implementations, that follow a specific standard outlined by a W3C working group. Anyhow, Microsoft has not revealed any particular DID method integrations at this time.