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Comment by burakemir | Hacker News Reader

Finally a good use case for decentralized technology? From https://www.eid.admin.ch/en/technology "The e-ID architecture is based on a decentralised identity model that gives users full control over their identity and personal data. There is no central authority that aggregates, stores or controls credentials. Data flows occur directly and in a decentralised manner between the holder and an issuer or verifier. Linkability of usage across different services is technically restricted. Interactions between different actors also cannot be directly linked. During a verification process, the holder shares only the necessary data directly with a verifier, without the issuer being informed."

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Have not looked into it yet but sounds a lot like a PKI based certificate style scheme: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44723418

The verifier is the entity you hand your information to for verification, ie the CA. The extent of your interaction and linkage with them is mainly at point of verification and issuance.

It is however possible to trace a certificate to it's issuer, which on the surface sounds like a bad thing, but is in fact good if the goal is to provide privacy while ensuring accountability.

I mean in this case there is only one issuer, the Swiss state, so is that really a big deal? Ultimately the government is and should be the provider of identity.

Who maintains the register? And what happens if they withdraw credentials, or what are the grounds to do so?

Depends on the credential being issued. For the digital identity document it is the federal state, but the cantons (states) or even corporations are able to issue their own credentials using their own register.

Very interesting, that sounds a whole lot better than I envisaged. In theory your drivers license, passport, social number can all remain separate (not that it's necessarily set up like that in Switzerland). Thanks.

The privacy story of this looks better than the Norwegian BankID approach.

I would like if Norway moves in this direction, and I think that through the ongoing alignment with the EU wide program on digital id, that might happen.

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