Blockchain and digital ID platforms have already come a long way since last year. This is evident in the number of notable organizations that have recently involved themselves in the sector. In January, the Iceland-based ID verification platform Authenteq revealed that it had secured $5 million in a Series A funding round led by Draper Associates — which, in the past, had invested in Tesla, Skype and Baidu. That same month, the chief executive of the Canadian Bankers Association (CBA) stated that it was favorably investigating the idea of using a blockchain-based solution as part of the open-banking ID system it was planning to develop.
2018 brought other examples of governmental and commercial interest in blockchain-based ID, including from the European Union, Microsoft, Telefonica and Johnson Controls. For the most part, such interest isn’t merely the result of the novelty of blockchain and the hype surrounding it, but rather of the genuine progress a variety of startups and organizations have made in developing their platforms.
There is hope that blockchain-based platforms will play an increasingly important role in securing digital ID and personal data in the future. However, since the organizations to which we have to prove our identities are growing so quickly as to stretch into almost every corner of our lives, it’s clear that it’s still going to take a long time before blockchain-based ID systems become widespread. What’s more, added resistance will be provided by all those platforms and companies that profit from the current system, in which people don’t have control over their personal data.
“Big companies manipulate data, so they are not very interested in decentralizing this kind of information,” notes Vlad Dobrynin, the CEO and founder of Humans.net, a blockchain-based social network for people to directly trade skills and help. Dobrynin warns that personal data is a highly profitable market and one that no company or industry would give up without a fight.
Blockchain has been an irrefutably resourceful invention which is practically bringing about a revolution in the global business market. Its evolution has brought with it a greater good, not only for businesses but for its beneficiaries as well. But since it’s the revelation to the world, a vision of its operational activities is still unclear. There isn’t a defined rule or regulation about who shall or can make use of this immaculate technology. Though at present, its potential users are banks, commercial giants and global economies only, the technology is open for the day to day transactions of the general public as well. The only drawback blockchain is facing is global acceptance.
“Sovrin’s approach to identity is based on multi-source identity where identity attributes are vouched for by many credential issuers,” he says.
“Anyone can become a credential issuer. Identity owners can hold credentials from multiple sources and present them to prove things about themselves. Credential verifiers determine which credentials they will trust. This is how identity works in the physical world. Sovrin brings it online.”