The Jolocom Protocol - Own Your Digital Self

Our Approach

The Jolocom identity solution aims to be a universal, lightweight, open source protocol for decentralized digital identity and access right management. The protocol is built on to leading open source standards standards and relies on distributed / decentralized systems such as Ethereum and IPFS for identity registration and resolution.

The protcol architecture revolves around three main concepts:

• Hierarchical Deterministic Key Derivation , which enables pseudonymous, context-specific interactions through the creation of and control over multiple identities.
• Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) , which are associated with each identity and used during most interaction flows, such as authentication or data exchange.
• Verifiable Credentials , which are digitally-signed attestations issued by an identity. The specification can be used to develop a simple way of associating attribute information with identifiers.

Cryptographic keys and DIDs enable the existence of a self-sovereign identity. Keys and verifiable credentials provide the tools required to create complex data while simultaneously preserving simplicity at the core.

This approach allows us to keep the protocol generic while facilitating an unlimited number of specific use cases with varying levels of complexity.

A further component of the protocol architecture calls for the integration of a public, censorship-resistant, decentralized network for anchoring and resolving user identifiers. For this we currently use IPFS for storage and Ethereum for anchoring and indexing identifiers.

In its most simplistic form, the Jolocom protocol can be used to:

• Create a self-sovereign identity for use by humans, organisations, and smart agents;
• Attach meaningful information to identities in the form of verifiable credentials;
• Easily request and consume verified information about identities in an automated fashoin.

We hope it will serve efforts to decentralize the web and digital identity, and enable people, organisations, and smart agents to own and control the data that defines them.

Where to go next?

• 1. Introduction
  • 1.1. The Jolocom library at a glance
• 2. Getting Started
  • 2.1. How to install the Jolocom library
  • 2.2. Browser and React Native Environments
  • 2.3. How to create a self-sovereign identity
  • 2.4. Using the identity
  • 2.5. What can I do now?
• 3. Credentials & Signed Credentials
  • 3.1. Create a signed credential
  • 3.2. Validate a signature on a signed credential
  • 3.3. Working with custom credentials
• 4. Public Profile
  • 4.1. Adding a public profile
  • 4.2. Removing your public profile
  • 4.3. View the public profile
• 5. Credential-based Communication Flows
  • 5.1. Credential requests
  • 5.2. Credential issuance
  • 5.3. What next?
• 6. Using custom connectors