Decentralized Identity Management for a Maritime Digital Infrastructure : With focus on usability and data integrity

Abstract: When the Internet was created it did not include any protocol for identifying the person behind the computer. Instead, the act of identification has primarily been established by trusting a third party. But, the rise of Distributed Ledger Technology has made it possible to authenticate a digital identity and build trust without the need of a third party. The Swedish Maritime Administration are currently validating a new maritime digital infrastructure for the maritime transportation industry. The goal is to reduce the number of accidents, fuel consumption and voyage costs. Involved actors has their identity stored in a central registry that relies on the trust of a third party. This thesis investigates how a conversion from the centralized identity registry to a decentralized identity registry affects the usability and the risk for compromised data integrity. This is done by implementing a Proof of Concept of a decentralized identity registry that replaces the current centralized registry, and comparing them. The decentralized Proof of Concept’s risk for compromised data integrity is 95.1% less compared with the centralized registry, but this comes with a loss of 53% in efficiency.