Development of a National Identity Management System using Blockchain Technology

Nigeria’s national identity systems that exist today, which were developed on centralized data management system,may soon present operational risks for citizens and government agencies due to single points of trust and failurewhich make the system vulnerable to attack. Decentralized identity management system is a solution to address thischallenge, which specifies a user-focused approach that gives full control of identity back to the individual. Thispaper proposes the blockchain, which is a secure and decentralized system, as the platform to achieve this. TakingNigerian’s National Identity Management System as a case study, a blockchain-based identity management system isproposed. Models for identity creation, modification, authentication and disclosure are presented. Prevention ofSybil attack and developing of handshake protocol model for identity attribute disclosure are other contributions.Lastly, a prototype of the proposed system is developed in Python programming language to demonstrate the salientfeatures that meet the research objectives.