Smart Contract Federated Identity Management without Third Party Authentication Services

TL;DR

This paper presents a blockchain-based federated identity management system that eliminates third-party authentication, enhances privacy, reduces costs, and simplifies infrastructure by using smart contracts for direct user-to-RP authentication.

Contribution

It introduces a hierarchical smart contract architecture that removes the need for credential service providers and PKI, improving validation and scalability for large identity providers.

Findings

Eliminates third-party authentication in federated identity management

Reduces costs by removing reliance on CSPs and PKI

Enhances user privacy and sovereignty

Abstract

Federated identity management enables users to access multiple systems using a single login credential. However, to achieve this a complex privacy compromising authentication has to occur between the user, relying party (RP) (e.g., a business), and a credential service provider (CSP) that performs the authentication. In this work, we use a smart contract on a blockchain to enable an architecture where authentication no longer involves the CSP. Authentication is performed solely through user to RP communications (eliminating fees and enhancing privacy). No third party needs to be contacted, not even the smart contract. No public key infrastructure (PKI) needs to be maintained. And no revocation lists need to be checked. In contrast to competing smart contract approaches, ours is hierarchically managed (like a PKI) enabling better validation of attribute providers and making it more useful for large entities to provide identity services for their constituents (e.g., a government) while still enabling users to maintain a level of self-sovereignty.