DID Use Cases
Introduction
Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) enable a new approach to digital identity that puts control in the hands of the entities they identify. This document explores the practical applications of DIDs across various domains, helping you understand where and how DIDs create value in real-world scenarios.
DIDs are designed with four essential characteristics:
- Decentralized: No central issuing authority
- Persistent: Inherently long-lasting, not requiring maintenance from an issuing organization
- Cryptographically verifiable: Enables proving control through cryptographic methods
- Resolvable: Allows discovery of metadata about the identifier
These characteristics make DIDs particularly valuable in scenarios where traditional identifiers fall short. Let's explore the key use cases that highlight their advantages.
Use Case Domains
DIDs apply across a wide range of domains. The following sections organize use cases by domain to help you understand how DIDs create value in different contexts.
Individual Identity
These use cases focus on how people can use DIDs to manage their digital identities across various contexts.
Enterprise and Organization
These use cases demonstrate how businesses and organizations can leverage DIDs for identity management and verification.
Credentials and Verification
These use cases explore how DIDs facilitate the issuance, management, and verification of credentials.
Supply Chain and Provenance
These use cases show how DIDs can track and verify the origin and movement of goods.
IoT and Devices
These use cases illustrate how DIDs can identify and authenticate machines and devices.
Data Privacy and Control
These use cases demonstrate how DIDs enable new models for data ownership and permissioned access.
Key Use Cases
Personal Identity Management
Online Shopper
A person shopping online needs to prove their identity, payment method, and shipping address to a merchant they've never interacted with before. With DIDs, they can:
- Present verifiable credentials from trusted issuers
- Control exactly what information is shared
- Avoid creating yet another username and password
- Build reputation across platforms without correlation
This enables trustworthy transactions between parties who have no prior relationship, without relying on centralized identity providers.
Portable Secure Communication
Users want to communicate securely across multiple devices and services without being locked into a single messaging platform. DIDs enable:
- Creating encryption keys linked to your identity, not a specific service
- Moving communications between services while maintaining your identity
- Verifying the identity of message senders cryptographically
- Establishing secure communication channels based on mutual DID resolution
This use case illustrates how DIDs support truly portable, service-independent digital identity.
Education and Credentials
Lifelong Learning Credentials
Students accumulate credentials from multiple institutions throughout their educational journey. DIDs allow:
- Educational institutions to issue verifiable credentials linked to a student's DID
- Students to own their credentials independently of the issuing institution
- Employers to verify credentials without contacting each institution
- Seamless transfer of credentials between educational systems
This creates a portable, verifiable educational record that remains under the student's control throughout their lifetime.
Transferable Skills Verification
Workers need to verify their skills and experience when changing jobs or moving between regions. DIDs enable:
- Employers to issue verifiable credentials attesting to skills and experience
- Workers to maintain these credentials even after leaving the employer
- New employers to verify skills credentials without extensive background checks
- Building a portable professional identity across multiple employers
This reduces friction in labor markets while maintaining trust in skills verification.
Healthcare
Prescription Management
Patients need to prove their identity and prescription authorization to pharmacies. DIDs allow:
- Doctors to issue verifiable prescription credentials to a patient's DID
- Patients to present these credentials to any authorized pharmacy
- Pharmacies to verify the credentials without contacting the doctor's office
- Maintaining privacy while preventing prescription fraud
This improves patient convenience while maintaining necessary security and privacy controls.
Patient-Controlled Health Records
Patients want control over who can access their health data. DIDs enable:
- Patients to control access to their health records through their DID
- Healthcare providers to request specific access permissions
- Patients to grant granular, revocable access to different providers
- Creating an audit trail of health data access
This puts patients in control of their health information while enabling appropriate sharing with healthcare providers.
Supply Chain and Provenance
Tracking Authentic Products
Manufacturers and consumers need ways to verify product authenticity throughout the supply chain. DIDs enable:
- Manufacturers to create DIDs for product batches or individual high-value items
- Recording verifiable credentials at each step in the supply chain
- Retailers and consumers to verify product authenticity
- Tracing products back to their source when quality issues arise
This builds trust in product authenticity while enabling efficient supply chain management.
Cross-Border Trade
Importers and exporters need to provide and verify documentation across international boundaries. DIDs allow:
- Creating verifiable credentials for customs declarations, certificates of origin, and other trade documents
- Linking these credentials to organizational DIDs
- Customs authorities to verify document authenticity without complex international systems
- Reducing administrative friction in international trade
This streamlines cross-border trade while maintaining necessary verification steps.
Financial and Legal
Digital Asset Control
Users need secure, recoverable control over their digital assets. DIDs provide:
- Cryptographic control of assets linked to a DID, not just a key
- Key rotation capabilities to maintain control even after key compromise
- Social recovery options through trusted delegates
- Proof of asset control for regulatory compliance
This improves security and recoverability compared to traditional key-based control systems.
Legal Entity Verification
Organizations need to verify the identity and authority of other organizations they do business with. DIDs enable:
- Organizations to establish verifiable digital identities
- Authorized representatives to prove their connection to the organization
- Verifying organizational credentials across jurisdictional boundaries
- Automating entity verification processes
This reduces fraud risk while streamlining business-to-business interactions.
Privacy and Selective Disclosure
Zero-Knowledge Proof Verification
Users need to prove attributes about themselves without revealing unnecessary data. DIDs support:
- Creating verifiable credentials that can be used with zero-knowledge proofs
- Proving you meet requirements (like age verification) without revealing the exact data
- Minimizing data collection while maintaining trust
- Creating audit trails of verification without storing sensitive data
This enables privacy-preserving verification in regulatory compliance scenarios.
Correlation-Resistant Services
Users want to prevent tracking across different services. DIDs allow:
- Creating different DIDs for different relationships or contexts
- Presenting different identifiers to different services
- Proving connection between DIDs only when desired
- Maintaining separate reputation in different contexts
This gives users control over correlation and tracking in their digital lives.
Benefits and Features
The use cases above highlight several key benefits of DIDs:
| Feature | Benefit |
|---|---|
| Self-sovereignty | DIDs are created and controlled by their controller, not a central authority |
| Persistent | DIDs can exist indefinitely, independent of any particular organization |
| Cryptographically verifiable | DIDs enable strong authentication and proof of control |
| Resolvable | DIDs allow discovery of associated verification methods and services |
| Decentralized | DIDs don't depend on a central registry or authority |
| Cross-platform | DIDs work across different systems and platforms |
| Privacy-preserving | DIDs support selective disclosure and minimized correlation |
| Verifiable | DIDs enable cryptographic verification of claims |