Abstract
Self-sovereign identity (SSI) is a new paradigm, which puts users back in control of their own digital identity. This does not only strengthen the position of the users but implies new interaction schemes that may improve interoperability and usability. Smart services systems enable the integration of resources and activities and use smart products as boundary objects. As such systems typically involve digital interactions between multiple actors, it can be assumed that utilising SSI has a positive impact on them. To investigate how these potential improvements manifest themselves, we investigate electric vehicle charging as example of a smart service system. At the core of our conceptual analysis is the service process, which we extract from a reference model. Based on a SWOT analysis, we identify areas for transformation and derive an SSI-enabled interaction model for an electric vehicle charging service. The evaluation of the new process shows that SSI can reduce complexity of integration with partners and can provide a better customer experience through simplified registration and authentication. Moreover, SSI might even lead to the disintermediation of actors in the service system. Although SSI is still emerging, our findings underline its relevance as a mechanism to establish trust in smart service systems through the seamless and standardised integration of digital identities for humans, organisations, and things.
Highlights
1.1 MotivationDigital services require trust between the involved parties
The internal perspective is based on the analysis of the presented exemplary EV charging service (EVCS) system
If the service processes can be handled via an application issued by the Mobility Service Provider (MSP), a streamlined activity of registration can be assumed, as no physical documents have to be exchanged to establish the contract
Summary
1.1 MotivationDigital services require trust between the involved parties. participants in transactions need to prove their identity in some way. Online services are at the centre of the identity ecosystem, as each one requires users to register a user account with them, which can be used together with a password to log in [2]. Popular examples include so-called social logins, such as the ones offered by Google, Facebook, and Microsoft Their major drawback is the dependency of both the user and the service on identity providers [3] as well as the potential tracking of the usage behaviour [4] to create detailed user profiles. These might become part of data-driven business models such as targeted advertising [5]. They are attractive targets for identity theft [4]
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