Decentralized Identifiers and Verifiable Credentials for Smartphone Anticounterfeiting and Decentralized IMEI Database

The smartphone industry is lucrative for device counterfeiting with over 1.5 billion devices sold annually in the last three years. In 2017, it is estimated that there were around 184 million counterfeit devices, valued at 45.3 billion EUR, 12.9% of total sales. Beyond its economic impact, smartphone counterfeiting affects various aspects of user security and privacy, harms manufacturer reputation, and degrades service quality. Furthermore, since smartphone devices are attached to different mobile networks globally, challenges arise on how devices’ identities are maintained and verified and how the supply chain actors can access the device identity throughout its life cycle with less control from third parties. Decentralized identifiers (DIDs) and verifiable claims implemented on a distributed ledger technology present a powerful candidate to address this challenge. Thanks to Blockchain’s use of cryptographic identifiers, record immutability, and provenance, and the features provided by the DIDs and verifiable claims that enable identity management decentralization, portability, and discoverability. This article proposes a smartphone anticounterfeiting system based on an integrated approach of the technologies mentioned above. The proposed system eliminates the need for a central authority and provides the features of identity creation, transfer of ownership, and the capability of fast and secure reporting of stolen devices.