Can Self-Sovereignty Fix What Digital ID Broke?

When my colleague’s visa application stalled last month, it wasn’t because she lacked the right documents. Everything was in order — except for one thing: her government-issued digital ID didn’t verify. The system couldn’t connect, and that was enough. The process froze. Banks flagged her transactions. Hours were lost chasing support channels that led nowhere.

This is what happens when identity depends entirely on back-end systems with no backup plan.

Across the globe, governments are rushing to replace physical documents with digital IDs - Canada, the EU, Australia. Proponents pitch them as one-stop credentials for accessing banking, healthcare, voting, taxes, and more. But in practice, they plug into centralized systems that crumble under software errors, policy shifts, or technical glitches. Hundreds of thousands find themselves locked out without any wrongdoing from their part, but because of missing data points or server failures.

The problem is systemic: these systems work only within controlled silos. They can’t talk to each other. Entries become dead ends. Retrieval depends on institutional goodwill.

A Trillion-Dollar Opportunity... With a Human Cost

The rapid progress in Self‑Sovereign Identity (SSI) is worth pausing over. A recent Grand View Research report pegs this market at $1.86 billion in 2024 with expectations soaring to $38 billion by 2030, riding on a compound annual growth rate of 66.8% . Clearly, that’s not a niche technology - it’s as big as some national identity programs. Identity wallets, verifiable credentials, and biometric verifications alone account for over $1.18 billion of today’s spending, and North America is leading usage at around 40% .

But scale doesn’t negate responsibility. When ID stops being a human right and becomes a product, systems that fail to protect can deepen exclusion. At best, mass adoption without checks makes SSI just another layer around surveillance. At worst, it creates new fault lines locking people out if they misplace a phone, forget a password, or get targeted in login errors.

Identity is, basically, how we participate in society. And digital ID is now becoming part of the infrastructure we rely on to function in it. That means failure can become systemic. And right now, there’s no one accountable when it breaks. When we rely on centralized credentials, we become passive recipients of policy changes and feature toggles. It’s the difference between opening your digital wallet with confidence or watching it refuse a click because someone made a server update or policy decision nighttime code push.

Imagine a refugee who arrives in a new country with documentation, but whose phone falls offline. Even if the SSI system is decentralized, user endurance starts breaking down at technical friction. Without recovery tools, optional offline modes, or community support, identity becomes vulnerable.

Those systems being trialed in Europe and Ethiopia today depend not on code alone, but on what happens when it breaks and who stands up to fix it.

In Europe, SSI pilots under EBSI are now issued for real citizens - across borders and platforms. Ethiopia’s FaydaPass is built to work offline, using agent-mediated recovery for vulnerable users.

The Choices We Still Have

If identity remains locked behind inertia, behind central policy, back-end fixes, top-down control, then it is not really “self-sovereign” by design, only by marketing. What we need now are three non-negotiables:

1. Robust recovery systems - from mistaken ID revocations to lost-device scenarios.
2. Interoperability across systems and borders - so credentials withstand institutional change.
3. Governance that centers people - community-led oversight more than tech push.

These aren’t booster requests—they’re functional imperatives. A bit like requiring voter ID not just to vote, but to ask why ballots aren’t being counted.

SourceLess - A Different Way Forward

Digital identity has to be invisible, personal, and reliable. SSI can make that possible but only if it’s built as infrastructure. It’s already gaining momentum: real wallets, real credentials, real users. But to earn trust, it must be anchored in fault recovery, system resilience, and human governance.

None of this gets solved by better apps. It requires a different approach to how digital identity is built, owned, and maintained - one that gives people actual control without creating new barriers or gatekeepers.

At SourceLess, we’ve been working quietly on that foundation: decentralized identity tied to blockchain-anchored STR.Domains, with tools like STR.Talk that let people communicate and verify without giving up ownership. It’s not a universal fix but it’s a direction we believe is worth exploring.

If you’re working on digital ID, rethinking infrastructure, or just trying to stay ahead of what’s coming, take a look. Talk to us. See what we’re building. The more connected the conversation, the more grounded the solutions can be.

https://www.sourceless.net/