This report explores the implementation of Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) and Verifiable Credentials (VCs) within the telecom sector. It highlights how providers can leverage their existing customer verification infrastructure to become both issuers and verifiers of trusted digital identity credentials. Although SSI has traditionally been driven by government-issued digital identities such as Mobile Driving Licenses (mDLs), national IDs, and digital passports, telecom providers are uniquely positioned to integrate these public credentials into their workflows and to issue their own credentials for telecom-specific use cases.
The report outlines strategic opportunities for telecom providers to enhance security, reduce fraud, and improve operational efficiency through SSI adoption. Key applications include proof of telephone number ownership, enterprise caller authentication, age verification, and identity portability across services. Technical considerations — such as wallet recovery mechanisms, detection of identity changes, credential revocation, and governance frameworks — are examined to ensure trust, interoperability, and compliance with regulatory requirements.
By embracing SSI, telecom providers can streamline onboarding, reduce reliance on vulnerable manual verification processes, and protect customer privacy by minimizing the storage of sensitive data. This decentralized, standards-based approach positions telecom providers to play a leading role in the digital identity ecosystem, fostering new business models, improving customer trust, and enabling secure, user-controlled identity verification at scale.