Self-Sovereign Identity: A Systematic Map and Review

Self-Sovereign Identity is a user-centric identity model. In this model, the user maintains and controls their data. When requested by a service provider, user data is sent directly by the user, without the intermediation of third parties. Thus, in Self-Sovereign Identity, the participation of known identity providers for proof of identity is reduced, which increases user privacy. This identity model has attracted the attention of researchers and organizations around the world. All this interest increased the number of scientific articles published on the subject. The analysis of published materials showed that ideas and proposals are very diverse and dispersed. Although there are few systematic reviews, they lack methodological rigor and are limited to a small subset of published works. This study presents a rigorous systematic mapping and systematic literature review covering theoretical and practical advances in Self-Sovereign Identity. We identified and aggregated evidence from publications to answer four research questions, resulting in a classification scheme used to categorize and review publications. Open challenges are also discussed, providing recommendations for future work.