The Role of Privacy in the Business Adoption of Blockchain, Interview with Michael Jackson.
The lack of identity data gives the crypto users a sense of anonymity, which has turned into one of the top features attracting a certain type of people to blockchain, however Concordium completely changes this paradigm by creating the first blockchain with an identity layer at the protocol level.
By replacing anonymity and pseudonyms with encrypted and private IDs, Concordium aims to bring the blockchain technology into the regulated business world. But can this new privacy approach facilitate the adoption of blockchain in business? To answer this question, I conversed with Michael Jackson, former COO of Skype and Strategic Advisor at Concordium.
Privacy, Secrecy, Anonymity? What’s the difference and is the role of privacy and secrecy changing with the new blockchain developments?
We all do things that we want to keep private. Discussions between close friends, what we do behind closed doors. Disclosure may be uncomfortable, but rarely harmful. We all have secrets, even if we don’t think we do anything interesting. Our PIN on our bank card, just to name something. Sometimes we like being anonymous. Sitting on the public, topless beach, where nobody knows who we are. All these concepts are important for our everyday life, and we need to balance them in different situations. In business, we usually want to know who we deal with, but we want the contents of our dealings to be kept private from people who have no need to know, and not even tell my partners some of my secrets.
We develop Concordium to recognise that privacy and secrecy are needed for trust in business, but there is no place for anonymity. This is one of our core values and it makes us different.
You mentioned that Concordium understands “privacy and secrecy are needed for trust in business, but there is no place for anonymity”, can you elaborate on this?
Data privacy is extraordinarily important in business today. Newer regulations have really changed the agenda after the consequences of breaches have become so large. From a subject that only occupied a few online commentators, data privacy is now on the regular agenda of every board and management team in every company. This extends not just to the storage and protection of data, but into a fundamental need for any systems and processes to be designed with data privacy in mind. Businesses do not want to hold more information than they need, and helped by our Zero Knowledge Proof framework, they no longer need to. As an example, an eCommerce site can verify your identity, your age and residence without you needing to send them a photo of your National ID, with all the data storage implications that this holds.
Concordium claims to replace anonymity with privacy. Why would privacy be better than anonymity? Would this facilitate the business adoption of blockchain?
It is impossible to believe that respectable international business will rely on a blockchain that is governed by unknown actors, and is used for anonymous transactions that are against the law in many countries. Whilst privacy is a basic human right protected by the law, anonymity has no place in our current society. Some may not like this, and they are welcome to use other products. I have been writing about this in connection with cryptocurrencies already in 2013, and it doesn’t make friends in the libertarian circles. We decided that no-one can use Concordium without a verified ID. But that doesn’t change our core belief that everyone has a right to privacy and secrecy., and we all work and design our systems and protocols to ensure that external observers cannot breach privacy or secrecy — we provide encrypted transactions, for example — so observers on the chain cannot see what you are doing. You can create sub-accounts to mask identities from explorers. But, behind it all, with the correct legal processes, your identity can be revealed to authorities and your counterparty can be certain who you are. Trust is the most important part of any distributed system, and we want to make sure that everyone can trust Concordium.
Living in a COVID-19 time where some of the countries try to fight the virus by imposing a civilian tracking system is the technology not playing a strong role in destroying privacy?
For the first time in several generations, we will have to learn to live with a deadly virus circulating in our society. We will need technology to help — and we are fortunate that the massive advances in cryptography over the last twenty years can be a key part of improving public health without compromising fundamental privacy. The good news is that experienced cryptographers, such as those we have in COBRA and Concordium, have spent their life developing for exactly this. For the first time, a public health emergency may well be managed using advanced mathematics performed by a gadget in your pocket that you can absolutely trust with your privacy, but in this case we all would want your anonymity to be revoked should the device suspect that you have a contagious disease. Yet, for broad acceptance, your privacy needs to be respected — and cryptography can solve this.
About Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson is a board member of Volvo Cars, AXA Insurance, and the largest systemic local bank in the Baltics, Luminor. He has also held board roles at two of the world’s leading software companies: Blockchain and Kneip Communications.
He reached these positions after a successful career transforming the communications industry, first as a senior executive in Tele2, Europe’s leading alternative operator, and then as Chief Operating Officer at Skype in its formative years, creating its business model followed by ten years as an investor, company builder and fund manager as a Partner at Mangrove Capital Partners in Luxembourg — one of the top decile performers in the European Venture Capital industry.
Working with regulators allowed Michael to change the legal framework of the phone industry, and thereafter create the world’s first MVNO — an industry now worth tens of billions.
Michael has been a thought leader in VC and the new world of Blockchain, a regular media commentator on BBC, CNBC, FT and Bloomberg, and has authored reports on Cryptocurrency subjects. He continues a strong belief in the future of distributed ledger technologies where they are appropriate. His position as a Director of Blockchain.com, the leading consumer wallet supplier, gave insights into the past and future of cryptocurrencies, and direct involvement with both the challenges and opportunities of the industry
Michael graduated with honours from University College London with a degree in Communications Engineering
About Concordium
Learn more: https://concordium.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ConcordiumNet
Telegram: https://t.me/concordium_official
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Concordium_Official
Developers Hub: https://developers.concordium.com/tech
Concordium Blockchain Research Center Aarhus (COBRA):https://cs.au.dk/research/centers/concordium/
