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Self-Sovereign Identity

Self-sovereign identity is the principle that individuals should own and control their digital identity without depending on any external authority. Christopher Allen’s 2016 articulation of the 10 Principles of Self-Sovereign Identity established the framework. In this garden, self-sovereign identity nodes focus on the principal authority framework from agency law — how identity rights are delegated, enforced, and protected.

Scope

Covers: The principal authority model (agency law applied to digital identity), authority delegation patterns, enforcement mechanisms, and the bridge between self-sovereign identity principles and the vault’s augmented knowledge architecture.

Does not cover: Technical standards implementation (DIDs, Verifiable Credentials, DIDComm) — those belong in a future technical self-sovereign identity domain or in [[Digital Identity]]↑. Also excludes the broader digital identity landscape beyond self-sovereign identity.

Key Forms

Principal Authority Framework

• [[Principal Authority as Agency Law for Digital Identity]] — gloss: self-sovereign identity duties and definitions through agency law lens
• [[Authority Conferral Chain]] — model: three delegation types (Type A: full, Type B: constrained, Type C: revocable)
• [[Authority Flows from the Person]] — principle: authority is delegable but not alienable
• [[Three-Part Enforcement Stack]] — pattern: three layers of enforcement (technical, legal, social)

All 4 nodes were extracted from plan-principal-authority-forms in session 7 of the garden-foundation workstream. They draw on Christopher Allen’s self-sovereign identity article (2016), BCR-2026-xxx spec drafts, and chat archives from Blockchain Commons discussions.

Candidate Forms

Potential forms identified from Blockchain Commons Values & Design Principles — not yet extracted:

Convictions

• Digital Rights as Fundamental Human Rights — digital rights deserve the same standing as other human rights; not a policy preference but a claim about what rights are

Principles

• Privacy by Design as Standing Constraint — embed privacy protections into every system as default practice, not as an add-on feature
• Resilience Against Exploitation — architect systems to withstand adversarial threats; autonomy must remain intact under pressure
• Revocable Permissions as Agency Preservation — users retain ongoing control over delegated information; relationships change, permissions must follow
• Data Minimization as Default Practice — minimize data collected; reduces vulnerability surface and respects dignity

Patterns

• Selective Disclosure and Elision — choices for redaction and elision to control what individuals share; prevents reduction to digital records
• Progressive Trust as Relationship Evolution — systems that reflect the natural evolution of trust, enabling selective disclosure incrementally (bridges [[Synpraxis]])

Models

• Membrane Analogy for Identity Boundaries — digital identity as a selective boundary (from Living Systems Theory): enabling both individual autonomy and collective participation, like cell membranes that filter while remaining part of a larger ecosystem

Open Questions

• What additional self-sovereign identity nodes should be extracted? The 10 Principles alone could yield 10 principle nodes.
• How does self-sovereign identity relate to the [[Delegated Decision Authority Spectrum]] boundary? (Currently the spectrum is tagged Deep Context Architecture; the authority concepts bridge both domains.)
• Should technical self-sovereign identity standards (DIDs, VCs) be a sub-domain or a separate domain page?

Sources

• Allen, Christopher. “The Path to Self-Sovereign Identity.” (2016)
• BCR-2026-xxx spec drafts (Blockchain Commons)
• [[Digital Identity]]↑ — parent map of content in Categories/

Relations

• relates_to::[[Deep Context Architecture]] — Self-sovereign identity agency law concepts inform the vault’s principal authority model
• relates_to::[[Digital Identity]]↑ — Self-sovereign identity is a subset of the broader digital identity field

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