The Decentralisation Paradox in Digital Identity: Centralising Decentralisation with Digital Wallets?
This addresses the problem of superficial decentralization in digital identity systems for users and designers, but it is incremental as it builds on existing critiques without introducing new empirical results or methods.
The paper tackles the tension in digital identity systems where user-centric designs intended to decentralize control often reintroduce centralization, arguing that this 'decentralisation paradox' redistributes rather than eliminates centralization. It frames digital identity as a 'wicked problem' across technical, legal, social, and ethical dimensions, emphasizing the need to understand interdependencies for reliable architectures.
Digital identity is shifting from service- and network-centric approaches toward user-centric ones that promise users increased control over their data. Despite their decentralised design, such approaches often reintroduce centralised components in different forms. This research explores this tension, i.e., the decentralisation paradox, and argues that user-centric architectures tend to redistribute rather than eliminate centralisation. Based on Critical Systems Thinking (CST), digital identity is framed as a "wicked problem" that spans across the technical, legal, social and ethical dimensions. The paper argues that understanding all these interdependencies is essential for designing reliable architectures and ensuring the next generation of digital identity goes beyond superficial decentralisation.