[New Wave] What Are the Issues with the Domestic DID Mobile ID Card Business?

The era of digital identification cards, which allow individuals to prove their identity without carrying plastic resident registration cards or driver's licenses, is officially beginning in South Korea. Recently, the government announced the Korean version of the 'Digital New Deal,' actively promoting the use of DID (Decentralized IDentity) mobile IDs as a key element of the non-face-to-face economic infrastructure. To accelerate widespread adoption, a 'Public-Private Joint DID Council' has been launched, involving 13 government and related organizations including the Ministry of Science and ICT, Ministry of Strategy and Finance, Ministry of the Interior and Safety, Financial Services Commission, Military Manpower Administration, Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA), Financial Security Institute, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation, and Busan City Hall. Additionally, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety has commissioned a blockchain-based mobile public official ID card project worth 1.763 billion KRW, with plans to expand DID mobile IDs to include disability registration cards, driver's licenses, and more in the future.

The core of DID mobile IDs lies in 'smartphones' and 'distributed network technology,' enabling users to store various IDs and certificates on their personal smartphones, thereby enhancing convenience. Potential forgery and tampering issues are addressed using distributed network technologies such as 'blockchain.' Furthermore, by employing 'Zero-Knowledge Proofs' technology, only the minimum necessary personal information recorded on the mobile ID is exposed during identity verification, and the exposed information cannot be used elsewhere, thereby strengthening 'personal information self-determination' (the individual's control and management of their own personal data).

The DID market is already gaining global attention. According to global research firms such as Zion and Fortune Business Insights, the global DID authentication market is expected to grow from $10.1 billion in 2021 to $25.2 billion by 2025. Microsoft launched the public beta version of its open-source DID solution 'ION (Identity Overlay Network)' on its website last June. In addition, global IT companies like IBM and startups such as YOTI, SecureKey, and BlockStack are actively pursuing challenges in this field.

However, the issue is that the direction of the domestic DID mobile ID project differs somewhat from the global trend. While overseas projects utilize various distributed network technologies beyond blockchain to build DID, the domestic pilot project relies solely on blockchain-based DID, which may pose challenges in securing technological neutrality during standardization.

A more significant problem is that the domestic DID project is overly dependent on specific companies and is mostly based on permissioned blockchains, making it closed. In contrast, Microsoft's ION is developed under design principles that align with Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin philosophy: open source, public, and permissionless. This allows it to operate independently without any centralized entity or trusted intermediary, including Microsoft, and offers unlimited global scalability.

In the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, where the safe utilization of data is emphasized, government and corporate interest in DID and blockchain is welcome. However, excessive reliance on specific technologies or companies, or excessive government intervention, is problematic. For the true success of the Digital New Deal, a clear analysis of the fundamental philosophy and underlying technologies of DID, along with diverse approaches, is necessary.

Seungjoo Kim, Professor, Graduate School of Information Security, Korea University