As Facebook destroys privacy, here’s how blockchain wants to protect your identity

Selfishly, this could be the moment digital economist Stefano Pepe has been waiting for.

Pepe, the CEO and co-founder of San Francisco-based identity blockchain startup UniquID, believes that blockchain technology, a digitized, decentralized, and tamper-proof ledger, could be a solution sooner than later.

He quickly points to the nearly 150 million people (and counting) affected by the massive data breach last year at credit rating agency Equifax. And now Facebook, the world’s largest social network, is reeling after admitting the personal information of more than 87 million users on its platform was misused by Cambridge Analytica, a UK-based consultancy firm that uses personal data to influence elections. Facebook’s scandal is so severe that CEO Mark Zuckerberg had to testify before Congress yesterday on how he’s trying to fix it.

“There’s definitely a problem with digital identity and we’ve been avoiding it for far too long,” Pepe said. “This is a high-level situation that needed to be solved yesterday.”

UniquID protects personal identities and institutional assets inside a network of smart devices, using blockchain.

At a time when there’s more access to people’s data than ever before, and instutions breaching the public trust are increasingly common, Pepe and others hope the encryption technology that supports bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, could be the answer.

However, we may be years away, experts say. But given what’s happening to a global behemoth like Facebook, now is the time for serious conversations about whether blockchain, which startups want to use for everything ranging from tracking voting and healthcare payments, can do the same for identity protection.

“Our most precious data is our identity, and we need to be in control of it,” said Pepe, 38, who began working on UniquID three years ago. UniquID allows smart devices to connect with each other, without the internet, through a blockchain trust layer, thus “keeping their identity and valuable data away from remote and potentially vulnerable concentration points,” according to its website.

Pepe thinks people having their own secure ID through a blockchain provider will give them more authority in what’s known as self-sovereign identity. The hope is that this gives them more control of their identities across the internet and reduce the chance of a a service provider suffering a data breach.

For example, Pepe said blockchain is already based on cryptography technology that supports self-sovereign identity. This involves a complex set of digital keys to ensure a person uses their unique identity when making a transaction to the blockchain and it was that person who made the transaction.

In short, the data remains consistent among the users, Pepe added.

“That’s why there has to be some discussions and trial-and-error,” he said. “We have to go in this direction. We don’t want our information and identities to be at risk, like it is today.”

Titus Capilnean, who heads up communications at Civic, a digital security identity startup that uses blockchain, agrees. “We have to effectively get to a place where we’re not merely passive about knowing where our data goes,” he said.

But it could take years before blockchain could be used for identity management purposes, said Martha Bennett, an analyst with Forrester. There will need to be a lot of explaining to the public and businesses about the uses of blockchain beyond banking.

“Those who persevere with their blockchain initiatives are not only aware (sometimes painfully) that the technology is still at a very early stage of development, but also understand that this isn’t really about technology, but about business,” Bennet said in a post last year. “You need to be prepared to be in it for the long haul, as the true transformational potential of blockchain-based networks will take a long time to materialize.”