BACKGROUND

Most currently used documents or records that prove identity are issued by centralized organizations, such as governments, schools, employers, or other service centers or regulatory organizations. These organizations often maintain every member's identity in a centralized identity management system. A centralized identity management system is a centralized information system used for organizations to manage the issued identities, their authentication, authorization, roles and privileges. Centralized identity management systems have been deemed as secure since they often use professionally maintained hardware and software. Typically, the identity issuing organization sets the terms and requirements for registering people with the organization. When a party needs to verify another party's identity, the verifying party often needs to go through the centralized identity management system to obtain information verifying and/or authenticating the other party's identity.

Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) are a new type of identifier, which are independent from any centralized registry, identity provider, or certificate authority. Distributed ledger technology (such as blockchain) provides the opportunity for using fully decentralized identifiers. Distributed ledger technology uses globally distributed ledgers to record transactions between two or more parties in a verifiable way. Once a transaction is recorded, the data in the section of ledger cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent sections of ledger, which provides a fairly secure platform. Since a DID is generally not controlled by a centralized management system but rather is owned by an owner of the DID, DIDs are sometimes referred to as identities without authority.

The subject matter claimed herein is not limited to embodiments that solve any disadvantages or that operate only in environments such as those described above. Rather, this background is only provided to illustrate one exemplary technology area where some embodiments describe herein may be practiced.

BRIEF SUMMARY

This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.

Embodiments disclosed herein relate to the resolving of a decentralized identifier at a customized security level. When a decentralized identity is resolved, it is resolved into a data structure (e.g., a document) that corresponds to the decentralized identity. However, there could be trust issues associated with the resolving process itself. For instance, one or more resolvers may not be appropriately configured, or may behave improperly, or even maliciously, so as to return an improper corresponding data structure.

There may be times when it is especially critical to have an accurate resolving of the decentralized identifier (e.g., when presenting security clearances), and other times when it is less critical (e.g., when making a claim about your favorite color). However, obtaining higher levels of trust in the resolving process can involve greater levels of overhead. Accordingly, the principles described herein allow the user to have control over the security level to use when resolving their decentralized identity.

The method includes causing a user interface to be rendered to the user, detecting user interaction with the user interface, and then based on that user interaction identifying a level of resolver security to use when resolving that decentralized identifier. For instance, the user may interact with a slider control to set the resolver security level for a particular decentralized identifier. The method then resolves the decentralized identity using that identified level of resolver security. As an example, higher levels of resolver security may be obtained by using consensus from multiple resolvers.

Additional features and advantages will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by the practice of the teachings herein. Features and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instruments and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. Features of the present invention will become more fully apparent from the following description and appended claims, or may be learned by the practice of the invention as set forth hereinafter.

