Leveraging Self-Sovereign Identity in Decentralized Data Aggregation

Abstract: Data aggregation has been widely implemented as an infrastructure of data-driven systems. However, a centralized data aggregation model requires a set of strong trust assumptions to ensure security and privacy. In recent years, decentralized data aggregation has become realizable based on distributed ledger technology. Nevertheless, the lack of appropriate centralized mechanisms like identity management mechanisms carries risks such as impersonation and unauthorized access. In this paper, we propose a novel decentralized data aggregation framework by leveraging self-sovereign identity, an emerging identity model, to lift the trust assumptions in centralized models and eliminate identity-related risks. Our framework formulates the aggregation protocol regarding data persistence and acquisition aspects, considering security, efficiency, flexibility, and compatibility. Furthermore, we demonstrate the applicability of our framework via a use case study where we concretize and apply our framework in a decentralized neuroscience data aggregation scenario.