Shift to SSI could preserve security of India’s digital ecosystem at scale

The Data Security Council of India (DSCI) and the Digi Yatra Foundation have released a joint paper that argues for India’s digital identity systems move to decentralized, consent‑driven models.

The document “Self‑Sovereign Identity and the Future of Digital Trust” points to rising expectations around privacy, security and user control. The paper outlines how traditional centralized identity architectures are struggling to cope with large‑scale digital services, data breaches and fragmented verification systems.

The organizations say self‑sovereign identity (SSI) offers a more resilient alternative by allowing individuals to control their own data and share verifiable credentials without relying on central repositories.

“Digital identity is foraying into a new phase where trust is now built through user control, not data accumulation,” said Suresh Khadakbhavi, CEO at Digi Yatra Foundation. “This paper reflects our vision of creating systems that are scalable, efficient, yet inherently privacy-first.”

According to the paper, India is well positioned to advance SSI because of its existing digital public infrastructure (DPI) including Aadhaar, UPI and DigiLocker. The authors highlight Digi Yatra, which allows for contactless airport processing and is built on decentralized identifiers and verifiable credentials, as a real‑world instance of SSI principles deployed at scale.

The study argues that similar frameworks could extend across finance, healthcare and public services, which would create a unified cross‑sector identity layer. It also notes growing global alignment around open standards such as W3C Verifiable Credentials, ICAO’s Digital Travel Credential and IATA’s One ID.

Vinayak Godse, CEO of DSCI, said centralized models will become increasingly inadequate as digital systems scale across sectors and borders. “SSI offers a strategic pathway to embed interoperability, security, and user control at the core of digital infrastructure. For India, this is an opportunity to move beyond adoption and actively shape global standards,” he said.

The report is thorough and offers in-depth detail not only for those interested in India as it examines how the European Union has worked things through (or not). The report identifies interoperability as the main unresolved barrier in digital credential systems. For example, the current two major formats, the W3C VC family (including SD‑JWT VC, JSON‑LD/Data Integrity and AnonCreds) and the ISO mdoc standard, coexist without a universal bridge.

The EU’s decision to require both SD‑JWT VC and mdoc in the EUDI Wallet show a pragmatic acceptance that unifying formats is not realistic in the near term, the report reflects on. Work on protocol‑level interoperability, such as OID4VP, OID4VCI and the Trust Registry Query Protocol, is progressing but not yet mature enough to function as a global layer. Trust registry federation remains early‑stage, and while the EU’s Trusted Lists and ICAO’s PKD offer models within their domains, no cross-jurisdictional trust‑resolution system exists.

Legal and governance frameworks lag even further behind with eIDAS 2.0 providing EU‑wide legal recognition for qualified attestations, the report notes, but internationally there is no equivalent structure.

The 2025 EU–Canada MoU is marked as one of the few bilateral efforts, but broader mechanisms for cross‑border credential recognition are still missing. The gap between emerging technical interoperability and the absence of legal mutual recognition is now the main bottleneck to global digital credential maturity.

The paper concludes that India’s next phase of digital identity development will require strengthening interoperability frameworks, building sector‑wide credential ecosystems and ensuring privacy and security are embedded by design. The organizations say these steps will be essential as countries move toward interoperable, cross‑border digital identity systems.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  Digi Yatra  |  digital ID  |  digital identity  |  India  |  self-sovereign identity