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The Decentralisation Paradox in Digital Identity: Centralising Decentralisation with Digital Wallets?

arXiv Security Archived Mar 18, 2026 ✓ Full text saved

arXiv:2603.16403v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Digital identity is shifting from service- and network-centric approaches toward user-centric ones that promise users increased control over their data. Despite their decentralised design, such approaches often reintroduce centralised components in different forms. This research explores this tension, i.e., the decentralisation paradox, and argues that user-centric architectures tend to redistribute rather than eliminate centralisation. Based on Cr

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Computer Science > Cryptography and Security [Submitted on 17 Mar 2026] The Decentralisation Paradox in Digital Identity: Centralising Decentralisation with Digital Wallets? Ioannis Konstantinidis, Ioannis Mavridis, Evangelos K. Markakis Digital identity is shifting from service- and network-centric approaches toward user-centric ones that promise users increased control over their data. Despite their decentralised design, such approaches often reintroduce centralised components in different forms. This research explores this tension, i.e., the decentralisation paradox, and argues that user-centric architectures tend to redistribute rather than eliminate centralisation. Based on Critical Systems Thinking (CST), digital identity is framed as a "wicked problem" that spans across the technical, legal, social and ethical dimensions. The paper argues that understanding all these interdependencies is essential for designing reliable architectures and ensuring the next generation of digital identity goes beyond superficial decentralisation. Subjects: Cryptography and Security (cs.CR) Cite as: arXiv:2603.16403 [cs.CR] (or arXiv:2603.16403v1 [cs.CR] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.16403 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Ioannis Konstantinidis [view email] [v1] Tue, 17 Mar 2026 11:41:35 UTC (201 KB) Access Paper: HTML (experimental) view license Current browse context: cs.CR < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-03 Change to browse by: cs References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)

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