A Tapestry of Credentials: How Self-Sovereign Identity Can Unlock Property Rights for Billions

Chris Mellon and Yuliya Panfil wrote an article for Good ID arguing that self-sovereign identity can help turn people's everyday data into a tapestry of evidence for property rights.

The pieces of evidence that administrative agencies require in order to issue property documents – things like a survey plan, a notarized will, or a state-issued identity card – are unattainable for many. In Uganda, for example, where a survey plan is a prerequisite for obtaining a land title, there are fewer than 100 official land surveyors and over 15 million distinct land parcels. It would take those surveyors more than 1,000 years to map and register every informal parcel in the country.

Obstacles of that kind prevent billions of people from getting the property documents they need to apply for loans, solve land disputes, and pass their assets on to their children.

But traditional credentials like survey plans and notarized forms are far from the only evidence of property rights. In fact, property rights are evidenced by a multitude of small, everyday events: where people sleep at night, where their mail is delivered, their relationships with their neighbors, the fact that they pay to maintain and improve their properties.

Until recently these everyday events occurred, unrecorded, in the analog world, beyond the sight of administrative agencies that provide us with property documents. But with the proliferation of smartphones, satellites, and social media platforms, more and more of these small events leave a data trail. What if we found a way to harness this digital evidence, and use it to supplement the small number of credentials currently accepted by administrative agencies?

Read their argument here.