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Data Subjectivation - Self-sovereign Identity and Digital Self-Determination

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore the philosophical implications of the Self-sovereign identity (SSI), considered one of the most prominent examples in which the process that we define as data subjectivation takes place. We will begin by examining the technical side of the SSI model and then delve into the concepts of identity and sovereignty, which are crucial for defining digital identity. We will explain how these concepts must be understood within a broader theoretical framework that we refer to as data subjectivation. This framework acknowledges the emergence of a new digital subject defined through the materialisation of data, which determines an individual’s rights and powers in their digital life. We scrutinise this process starting from the concept of “virtual materiality” and from the relationship between the physical world and the virtual world defined by Katherine Hayles. We will show that, to achieve the promises that are often associated with the SSI model, such as a decentralised and trusted web inhabited by digitally “sovereign” users, we must frame the vision put forth by the SSI as a socio-technical imagery. We sketch how this discourse can be oriented by employing the idea of digital self-determination, trying to frame the open questions of powers and rights in digital spaces linking the SSI and the process of data subjectivation. Finally, we show how a purely technical solution to the goal of a user that “owns” their data cannot be feasible, and we encourage further exploration of the inextricable links between the technological development of digital identity solutions and the political values that shape them.

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Notes

  1. https://id2020.org/, accessed the 10th of May 2022.

  2. Self-sovereign identity has been used for offering an identity for refugees in Jordan (Wang & De Filippi, 2020), although there is some criticism regarding the effective capacity of a technical solution to empower marginalised groups and individuals, by the use of technology alone (Cheesman, 2022; Corballis & Soar, 2022).

  3. https://sovrin.org/, accessed the 10th of May 2022.

  4. An interesting case of a moral value attached to the idea of “owning data” is the concept of “data altruism”. This term is employed by the Data Governance Act, where the regulation defines a framework where individuals and companies can freely choose to share their data to be used for public interest. This is clearly a case in which a positive value “altruism” is attached to the idea of possessing data as a commodity that can be collectively used and that their owner can donate. This idea becomes even more significant in the current European Commission’s proposal for the Data Act. Here, a series of articles are devoted to defining an obligation to share data in the case of a public emergency. This brings the discourse a step further: the ownership of data not only entails a moral significance, but enables a set of extraordinary obligations.

  5. https://serviceinnovationlab.github.io/digital-identity-glossary/

  6. https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/#dfn-credential

  7. “A ‘verifiable presentation’ is a tamper-evident presentation encoded in such a way that authorship of the data can be trusted after a process of cryptographic verification” (https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/#dfn-verifiable-presentations).

  8. https://www.moxytongue.com/2012/02/what-is-sovereign-source-authority.html, accessed the 18th September 2022.

  9. Here, we present the reconstruction that Cristopher Allen offered in his seminal article http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2016/04/the-path-to-self-soverereign-identity.html, accessed the 18th September 2022.

  10. Hayles, tracing back the stages of the development of cybernetics, argues that the contemporary epoch (dating from 1980 to the present day) can be defined as the epoch of virtuality (as distinct from the two previous epochs, referred to as the epoch of “homeostasis”, characterised by the concepts expressed by the Macy Conferences on Cybernetics (Abraham, 2020) and following Wiener’s theoretical systematisation of “reflexivity”, marked by the publication of Autopoiesis and Cognition by Maturana and Varela (1980).

  11. According to Hayles, three phases of cybernetics can be identified, marked by the characterisation of the relationship between materiality and immateriality. The three phases would be characterised by the concepts of homeostasis for the first phase, reflexivity for the second phase, and virtuality for the third phase. As for the phase of virtuality, according to Hayles, it would be characterised by a possible intersection between materiality and information.

  12. https://essif-lab.eu/, accessed the 7th of May 2022.

  13. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, in her State of the Union address, 16 September 2020, https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/european-digital-identity_en, accessed at 1 Feb 2023.

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Funding

This paper has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation under the project IMPULSE – Identity management in public services, grant agreement No 101004459.

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  1. CyberEthics Lab., Rome, Italy

    Federico Pierucci & Valeria Cesaroni

  2. University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy

    Valeria Cesaroni

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  1. Federico Pierucci
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  2. Valeria Cesaroni
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Research on the relevant literature has been conducted by Federico Pierucci and Valeria Cesaroni. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Federico Pierucci and Valeria Cesaroni, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Federico Pierucci.

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Pierucci, F., Cesaroni, V. Data Subjectivation - Self-sovereign Identity and Digital Self-Determination. DISO 2, 21 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44206-023-00048-0

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