A Decentralized Document Verification System using Self-Sovereign Identity with IPFS and Smart Contracts

Document verification in traditional systems suffers from centralized control, single points of failure, and lack of user sovereignty over personal credentials. This paper presents a novel decentralized document verification system based on Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) principles, integrating IPFS for dis- tributed storage with smart contracts for immutable verification. Our three-tier architecture comprises users who maintain full control over their documents, verifiers who can authenticate document integrity through QR code scanning, and authori- ties who manage verifier permissions through blockchain-based access control. The system stores document content on IPFS while maintaining metadata and cryptographic hashes on-chain, ensuring both privacy and verifiability. Users upload documents to IPFS, generate QR codes containing document identifiers, and register hash values in smart contracts. Verifiers scan QR codes to retrieve documents and verify authenticity by comparing stored hashes with computed values through smart contract functions. Security analysis demonstrates resistance to tampering, unauthorized access, and single points of failure. Performance evaluation shows efficient gas usage, scalable verification times, and reduced storage costs compared to fully on-chain approaches. The system addresses critical limitations of existing identity management solutions by providing genuine user sovereignty, eliminating central authorities, and enabling privacy-preserving verification. This work contributes a practical SSI implementa- tion suitable for academic credentials, government documents, and enterprise certificate management, advancing the field of decentralized identity systems.