The ‘Gheorghe Asachi’ Technical University of Iasi and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in the USA are using European money to develop together an innovative project to streamline academic mobility programmes and facilitate the issuance, sharing and verification of academic documents globally, by using blockchain technology and digital identities.

Associate professor of engineering science Cristian Nicolae Butincu, PhD, told AGERPRES that the project entitled ‘Blockchain-based decentralized and self-sovereign identities’ (DIDSSI) focuses on student mobility programmes carried out in and between Europe and the USA, with as many universities from around the world as possible to be enrolled.

‘In recent years, we’ve had several students who came or went on Erasmus internships. After discussing with them, we realized that the application, acceptance, enrollment, and return procedures are quite bureaucratic and time-consuming,’ explained Cristian Nicolae Butincu, project manager.

The professor claims that this process can be simplified for both students and universities through the DIDSSI project.

According to him, DIDSSI is the first transatlantic blockchain-based platform for student mobility programmes, the issuance and recognition of academic accreditations between participating universities.

‘The project aims to develop a decentralized identity protocol based on blockchain, which allows support for self-sovereign identities, i.e. identities under the exclusive control of the user through a digital wallet, which is also developed within the project. In such a system, users have full control over their personal information and over the information they decide to share to prove their identity or credentials. Thus, users’ data, including identity information, diplomas, certificates and any other credentials are stored securely, using data encryption techniques, in the digital wallet in their possession,’ detailed Cristian Butincu.

Therefore, he argues, users no longer depend on a centralized identity provider, such as Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, which has access to their personal data and exercises control over them, often without providing detailed information about access to the data or the processing method.

‘Furthermore, if such an identity provider ceases its activity or is no longer available due to malfunctions, users will no longer be able to authenticate in other systems until the identity provider fixes its malfunctions,’ states Cristian Butincu.

Through the technologies used and the way of implementing digital identities, the DIDSSI project does not present the deficiencies found in centralized identity providers, such as compromising user confidentiality, vulnerability to cyber attacks, unavailability of services and low user control over personal data,’ Cristian Butincu also stated.

The ‘Blockchain-based decentralized and self-sovereign identities’ (DIDSSI) project is financed under the European Union’s Horizon Europe – Research and Innovation Programme, through NGI Sargasso (Unique collaborative ecosystem and programme for promoting the transatlantic cooperation in NGI technologies).