Buenos Aires integrates, open sources self-sovereign identity protocol QuarkID

Diego Fernández, secretary of innovation and digital transformation for the city of Buenos Aires, announced in a LinkedIn post that the city has released the code of QuarkID, a decentralized self-sovereign identity protocol created under the Apache 2.0 license.

Now open-source, QuarkID will soon be integrated into the miBA app, the official government app of Buenos Aires, giving citizens easier access to and control of legal documents. Additionally, other private entities are in the process of implementing the SSI protocol to offer their users decentralized verifiable credentials.

The city has been working to implement the protocol since last year in partnership with digital identity company Extrimian.

QuarkID is a framework that allows users to create and manage digital identities using asymmetric cryptography and blockchain. It is based on international standards from organizations like W3C, Trust Over IP, and Sovrin Foundation. It is also interoperable.

The self-sovereign framework is anchored in zkSync, a zero-knowledge Ethereum scaling protocol.

“When we started to build this protocol we wanted it to adapt to the needs we have as a government but we wanted it to be an open source solution… so that anyone can use it,” says Fernández in a machine translation of a recent interview with Bankless.

“We decided to anchor QuarkID in a public blockchain because we are convinced that the only way for these types of solutions to grow and develop an ecosystem of value on them is for them to be open and not permissioned.”

Article Topics

Argentina  |  biometrics  |  Buenos Aires  |  digital ID  |  miBA  |  mobile app  |  QuarkID  |  self-sovereign identity