BAN444 Digital Identity Management: Technology and Applications

• Topics

  Effective identity management is crucial for secure organizational processes, yet many organizations fail to approach it strategically. Instead, they rely on usernames and passwords or social logins, which are often tedious and insecure. New technological solutions aim to address these issues, either by narrowly focusing on authentication (e.g., passkeys) or identification (e.g., national eIDs), or with a much broader scope (e.g., European digital identity wallets). In this course, we unpack the limitations of traditional digital identity management and discuss the opportunities and challenges of these emerging technological solutions, with a focus on national eIDs and digital identity wallets for individuals and organizations ("business wallets").

  The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the key questions of digital identity management. It will begin with an introduction to the technical building blocks, including public key cryptography and digital signatures. We will then identify end-user and organizational requirements, and map traditional identity management solutions against those requirements. The second part of the course will then focus on European digital identity wallets. By extracting their key benefits and challenges, students will learn where and how they can create value. The course will answer questions such as:

  • What is the feature scope of digital identity management solutions?
  • What are the core technical building blocks of digital identity management solutions?
  • What are the benefits and challenges of today’s digital identity management solutions?
  • Where can digital identity wallets make a difference and how?
  • What are zero-knowledge proofs, and how can they improve data protection in digital identity wallets?

• Learning outcome

  Upon successful completion of the course, the students:

  Knowledge

  • Understand the core features of digital identity management solutions
  • Understand the role of public key cryptography and, in particular, digital signatures in modern digital identity management
  • Understand the key requirements for digital identity management solutions in the private and public sector
  • Understand the limitations of traditional digital identity management solutions
  • Understand the economic potential of improved digital identity management solutions in general and of digital identity wallets in particular
  • Understand deployment challenges for digital identity wallets
  • Understand privacy requirements of modern digital identity solutions and how zero-knowledge proofs can address them
  • Understand the relationship between digital identity management and other emerging technologies:
    • Understand how artificial intelligence (AI) can benefit from digital identity management,
    • Understand how digital identity wallets can contribute to combating (AI-generated) disinformation on social media platforms
    • Understand the impact of digital identity management solutions on the Internet of Things (IoT)
    • Understand the relationship between digital identity management and other emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and quantum computing

  Skills

  • Can recognize misconceptions about technical, economic, and organizational aspects of digital identity management solutions
  • Can identify use cases that can benefit from digital identity wallets
  • Can identify the key opportunities and challenges associated with digital identity wallets

  General competencies

  • Understand the role of digital identity management for secure organizational processes
  • Can map different identity management solutions to the specific requirements of different application contexts

• Teaching

  This course combines lectures and tutorials on the use of digital signatures and digital identity wallets. Students are encouraged to bring a laptop running Adobe Acrobat Reader and a mobile phone running Android or iOS.

• Recommended prerequisites

  Basic programming experience in one of the popular higher-level programming languages, such as Python, C/C++, Java, Kotlin, JavaScript, Go, and others.

• Credit reduction due to overlap

  None.

• Compulsory Activity

  Mandatory attendance in at least 60% of the lectures.

• Assessment

  Term paper (4000 words) within one month after the final lecture. Depending on the course size, these term papers may also be written in groups of two or three students, with corresponding length adjustments.

• Grading Scale

  Pass-Fail

• Computer tools

  Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• Literature

  • Anderson, Ross (2011). "Can we fix the security economics of federated authentication?"

  In: Proceedings of the 19th International Workshop on Security Protocols, pp. 25-32.

  https://www.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25867-1_4https://www.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25867-1_4

  • Feulner, Simon, Johannes Sedlmeir, Vincent Schlatt, and Nils Urbach (2022). Exploring the use of self-sovereign identity for event ticketing systems. Electronic Markets, 32(3), 1759-1777. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-022-00573-9https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-022-00573-9
  • Glöckler, Jana, Johannes Sedlmeir, Muriel Frank, and Gilbert Fridgen (2023). "A systematic review of identity and access management requirements in enterprises and potential contributions of self-sovereign identity". Business & Information Systems Engineering. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-023-00830-xhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-023-00830-x
  • Kudra, Andre, Alexander Rieger, Johannes Sedlmeir, Tamara Roth, Gilbert Fridgen, and Amber Young (2025). Digital identity wallets: A guide to the EU’s new identity model. Information Systems Journal. https://doi.org/10.1111/isj.70009https://doi.org/10.1111/isj.70009
  • Lacity, Mary and Erran Carmel (2022). "Self-sovereign identity and verifiable credentials in your digital Wallet". In: MIS Quarterly Executive 21 (3). https://doi.org/10.17705/2msqe.00068https://doi.org/10.17705/2msqe.00068
  • Lacity, Mary, Erran Carmel, Amber Grace Young, and Tamara Roth (2023). "The quiet corner of Web3 that means business". MIT Sloan Management Review 64 (3).https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-%20quiet-%20corner-%20of-%20web3-that-means-business/https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the- quiet- corner- of- web3-that-means-business/
  • Lassak, Leona, Elleen Pan, Blase Ur, and Maximilian Golla (2024). "Why aren’t we using Passkeys? Obstacles companies face deploying FIDO2 passwordless authentication". In: USENIX Security Symposium. https://www.usenix.org/system/files/sec24summer-prepub-618-lassak.pdfhttps://www.usenix.org/system/files/sec24summer-prepub-618-lassak.pdf
  • Maler, Eve and Drummond Reed (2008). The venn of identity: Options and issues in federated identity management. IEEE Security & Privacy, 6(2), 16-23. https://doi.org/10.1109/MSP.2008.50https://doi.org/10.1109/MSP.2008.50
  • McKinsey & Company (2020). Digital ID: The opportunities and the risks. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/banking-matters/digital-id-the-opportunities-and-the-riskshttps://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/banking-matters/digital-id-the-opportunities-and-the-risks
  • Miebach, Michael (2023). "The crucial role of ID verification in the digital economy". Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2023/09/the-crucial-role-of-id-verification-in-the-digital-economyhttps://hbr.org/2023/09/the-crucial-role-of-id-verification-in-the-digital-economy
  • Podda, Emanuela, Pol Hölzmer, Alexandre Amard, Johannes Sedlmeir, and Gilbert Fridgen (2025). The impact of zero-knowledge proofs on data minimisation compliance of digital identity wallets. Internet Policy Review, 14(3). https://doi.org/10.14763/2025.3.2019https://doi.org/10.14763/2025.3.2019
  • Preukschat, Alex, and Drummond Reed. (2021). Self-Sovereign Identity: Decentralized digital identity and verifiable credentials. Manning Publications Co.
  • Rieger, Alexander, Tamara Roth, Johannes Sedlmeir, Gilbert Fridgen, Amber Young (2024). Organizational identity management policies. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 25(3), 522-527. https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00887https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00887
  • Schlatt, Vincent, Johannes Sedlmeir, Simon Feulner, and Nils Urbach (2022). "Designing a framework for digital KYC processes built on blockchain-based self-sovereign identity". Information & Management 59 (7). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2021.103553https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2021.103553
  • Sedlmeir, Johannes, Tom Barbereau, Jasmin Huber, Linda Weigl, and Tamara Roth (2022). Transition pathways towards design principles of self-sovereign identity. In: Proceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Information Systems. https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2022/is_implement/is_implement/4/https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2022/is_implement/is_implement/4/
  • Sedlmeir, Johannes, Reilly Smethurst, Alexander Rieger, and Gilbert Fridgen (2021). Digital identities and verifiable credentials. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 63, 603-613. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-021-00722-yhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-021-00722-y
  • Sedlmeir, Johannes, Alexander Rieger, Tamara Roth, and Gilbert Fridgen (2023). Battling disinformation with cryptography. Nature Machine Intelligence 5, 1056-1057. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-023-00733-2https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-023-00733-2