A novel approach to establish trust in verifiable credential issuers in Self-sovereign identity ecosystems using TRAIN

Abstract

Self-sovereign identity (SSI) promises to bring decentralized privacy friendly identity management (IdM) ecosystems to everyone. Yet, trust management in SSI remains challenging. In particular, it lacks a holistic approach that combines trust and governance frameworks. A practical and scalable mechanism is needed for verifiers to externally verify their trust in credential issuers. This paper illustrates how TRAIN (Trust mAnagement INfrastructure), an approach based on established components like ETSI trust lists and the Domain Name System (DNS), can be used as a trust registry component to provide a holistic approach for trust management in SSI ecosystems. TRAIN facilitates individual trust decisions through the discovery of trust lists in SSI ecosystems, along with published credential schemas, so that verifiers can perform informed trust decisions about issued credentials.