Integrated Trust Network (ITN)
Integrated Trust Network (ITN)
The member-owned and operated ITN is a layer-two, protocol-agnostic digital infrastructure built to provide trusted identity services (DIDs registry) for connected ecosystems and IoT commerce.
The member-owned and operated ITN is a layer-two, protocol-agnostic digital infrastructure built to provide trusted identity services for connected mobility and IoT commerce.
What is the ITN?
The global cost of cybercrime and data breaches is estimated to reach $10.5T annually by 2025. As digital threats mature in an increasingly connected world, organizations around the globe are seeking secure ways to identify entities and verify claims in an auditable, tamper-evident, privacy-preserving manner.
Created by MOBI members, along with members of other consortia such as MEF and AAIS, the Integrated Trust Network (ITN) is a federated network offering trusted identity services built on World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs). ITN leverages DLT to establish and maintain trust during transactions, eliminating the need for costly intermediaries while reducing exposure to cyber threats.
Structure and Governance: Built for Network Resilience
ITN is a federated network owned and operated by ITN Node Operators. ITN is designed such that (1) no single entity can gain control over the network, and (2) the ITN anchors DIDs on multiple blockchains. This democratic, diversified approach is critical to prevent monopolization and ensure maximum network resilience.
Digital Business and the Trust Problem
Currently, digital transactions rely on identities issued by centralized platforms to prove their credentials. However, in addition to being vulnerable to growing cybersecurity threats, centralized approaches to identity management fail to address the trust problems created by the rise of decentralized services, IOT, and Generative AI. As digitization advances, it will become increasingly challenging — and costly — to verify data authenticity, secure digital perimeters, and ensure cross-border regulation compliance.
ITN: A New Paradigm for Digital Trust
Overcoming these challenges requires a Zero Trust framework, which requires every entity to authenticate and authorize every other entity for every single digital interaction at all times. Since this is not possible through centralized means at scale, we need ways to establish trusted identities that are self-sovereign and decentralized.
The ITN is the first Web3 infrastructure for trusted, self-sovereign identities for businesses. Specifically, the ITN is a federated network of member-owned and operated nodes designed to overcome the security and resiliency failures of centralized systems by providing decentralized infrastructure as the required core trust services of governance, authority, identity, and assurance for multi-party business ecosystems. ITN capabilities have been demonstrated in several completed and ongoing Web3 pilots — click here to learn more.
How It Works
The ITN acts a registry for W3C DIDs. Rather than being issued and controlled by centralized authorities, DIDs are self-sovereign — created and managed by the entities to whom they belong.
When anchored in a trust network such as the ITN, DIDs allow entities to engage in secure, tamper-evident transactions via W3C Verifiable Credentials. This reduces the reliance on centralized authorities and enhances entities’ data autonomy while shielding sensitive data from aggregators and bots.
As the growing Internet of Things (IoT) brings an exponential increase in digital transactions, it is necessary to develop new ways to identify and verify the entities involved in these transactions. In light of growing cybersecurity threats, with the rise of big tech data aggregators and increasingly pervasive malware, consumers, regulators, and organizations are increasingly concerned with the ability to preserve data privacy and assert ownership over their identity and digital assets.
In 2019, W3C published the first draft of its Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) standard. The DIDs standard defined a new type of identifier: one which is universal, cryptographically protected, and which links entities to relevant attributes, characteristics, and capabilities.
Rather than being issued and controlled by centralized authorities, DIDs are self-sovereign — i.e. created and managed by the entities to whom they belong (or a verified owner/controller of that entity). When anchored in a tamper-evident decentralized trust network such as the ITN, DIDs allow entities to engage in unique, private, and secure transactions using W3C Verifiable Credentials. The DIDs standard was advanced to a W3C recommendation in July 2022.
The creation of a standardized framework for decentralized trusted identity will reduce the reliance on centralized authorities and empower connected entities to own and control their data while shielding sensitive data from aggregators and bots. By enabling more secure IoT transactions, reducing the cost of trust, and opening the door to a number of multi-party applications for business automation, trusted identity promises to unlock the potential for a more robust and democratic IoT commerce ecosystem.
The Integrated Trust Network (ITN) is a scalable, protocol-agnostic digital infrastructure to provide trusted identity services for connected mobility and IoT commerce.
The ITN was launched by the MOBI community and is currently being developed in collaboration with MEF, AAIS, and other consortia. The goal is to unlock monetization opportunities across usage-based services by allowing application interoperability and multiparty
data sharing, enabling participants to execute trusted decentralized transactions at the edge.
The Web3 economy is projected to be worth $81.5 billion in 2030. With increasing enterprise adoption, the technology is quickly becoming a mainstream reality.
The ITN leverages W3C DIDs standard to provide a secure, decentralized, privacy-preserving framework for managing trusted identities to enable trusted transactions in the Web3 economy. MOBI and its members are building Citopia, a federated Web3 marketplace that uses ITN core services to empower
individuals and organizations to take charge of their own data, unlock multiparty business automation, and propel connected mobility and IoT commerce worldwide.