Announcing SocialKYC, Built on KILT

Update June 8, 2023: Currently, in addition to Twitter and email, SocialKYC credentials can be obtained for free for Discord, GitHub, Twitch, Telegram and YouTube.

We are thrilled to announce the launch of SocialKYC, a service for regaining control over your digital identity using KILT Protocol. SocialKYC is a building block for making online services in Web3 better and safer, providing a way to return your credentials to where they belong — with you!

KYC or “Know Your Customer” is standard practice while opening an account with a bank or exchange, where customers must prove they possess government-issued credentials like a passport. SocialKYC gives the user power to extend trust in a similar way, by building a digital identity using their social accounts.

SocialKYC and Sporran, the KILT wallet, were built by B.T.E. BOTLabs Trusted Entity GmbH (BTE) a subsidiary of BOTLabs GmbH, the initial developer of KILT. Used together, SocialKYC and Sporran allow users to manage and store their personal credentials, and decide which elements of their private information they share with online services.

SocialKYC issues credentials to users confirming the ownership of their email address or social media accounts after the user proves that they control the account. Unlike sign-in processes on the internet to date, SocialKYC then forgets about the user and the credential as soon as the credential is issued. The credential, the personal information, and the control remain with the user.

How it works:

• SocialKYC first sends the user a simple task to verify their control of a specific account (confirm your email address; Tweet this message to prove this is your account).
• After a successful check, SocialKYC issues a credential to the user. The user can save the credential in their Sporran wallet, which is installed locally on their computer. The credential states the ownership of the specific account.
• This personal data is not stored or shared by SocialKYC. It remains in the user’s Sporran wallet under their full control.
• Using Sporran on their local computer, users can later send their credential to any online service that accepts the credential.
• Users can also choose to publish one or more of their credentials, making them accessible to anyone. Published credentials can be unpublished by the user at any time.

Create your identity and get your first KILT credentials now! Here’s how to get started:

Get Your Sporran

The first step is setting up your Sporran, a browser extension for Firefox and Chrome that serves as a wallet for your KILT credentials and KILT Coins. Download this at sporran.org, then follow our step-by-step guide to set it up.

Create Your KILT Identity

In KILT, identity starts with a unique decentralized identifier (DID), represented by a string of numbers and letters:

did:kilt:light:014sxSYXakw1ZXBymzT9t3Yw91mUaqKST5bFUEjGEpvkTuckar

You will get your first DID as part of the Sporran setup. Your digital identity is built by adding different credentials like email, Twitter account, passport, certificates, etc. to this identifier. You may even want to create several digital identities; one personal, one for work, one for gaming.

Get Your KILT Credentials

Once your Sporran is set up, follow our guide to creating your email credential or Twitter credential via SocialKYC here.

By default, these free credentials are anchored on the KILT blockchain and are linked to a “light” DID that lives on the computer it was created on.

Credentials for platforms such as Discord, GitHub, and others are coming soon, which will support use cases like gaming, e-sports leagues, health care, academia, media, and decentralized social networks. We’ll announce SocialKYC partner integrations as they happen, so keep an eye on our Twitter account and blog.

Upgrading to a Full DID

The Sporran also provides the option to upgrade to a “full” on-chain DID. This allows you to create a service endpoint such as a url, providing a way to make your credentials public and making it easier for online services to access them.

Upgrading to a full DID requires a transaction fee payable in KILT (currently less than 0.01 KILT) and a deposit of 2 KILT. The deposit is designed to incentivize users to clear the data from the blockchain once it is not needed any longer, reducing wasted storage space. If you choose to delete a DID at a later date, this deposit is returned.

This could also be of use, for example, for companies who want to share their product credentials, etc. The full DID also allows the owner to set additional keys for different purposes beyond authentication, including attestation and delegation. This would allow the owner to issue their own credentials and create delegation hierarchies — useful in a company where several employees would be involved in the process.

On-chain DIDs will also be useful for individuals who want to publish their credentials, use key rotation for extra security, and anchor their DID anchored on the blockchain.

See how to upgrade here.

Start Building!

We’ve created the infrastructure. The rest is up to you, the Web3 community! Got an idea? Build it! We can’t wait to see you create services that use SocialKYC to make Web3 a reality.

Go to our dev site, read our documentation, and check out the open-source SDK. If you’re not already in the community, join our Discord channel. We’re excited to see the apps and concepts you come up with. Don’t forget, KILT Treasury funds are available for creating infrastructure or initiatives that benefit the network.

We’ve started the ball rolling with a fun use case — a SocialKYC launch raffle on ClanKILT. Set up your credentials with SociaKYC, then enter to win limited edition KILT and Sporran swag.

Keep an eye out for more exciting uses for the full DID coming soon, like DIDsign!

About B.T.E. BOTLabs Trusted Entity GmbH

B.T.E. BOTLabs Trusted Entity GmbH (BTE) is a subsidiary of BOTLabs GmbH, a blockchain R&D company founded in 2018 and based in Berlin. BOTLabs GmbH is the initial developer of KILT Protocol, now a fully decentralized blockchain identity network for issuing self-sovereign, anonymous and verifiable credentials. BOTLabs GmbH is also a founding member of the International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA) and the Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF), and a member of Blockchain for Europe.

BTE collaborates with developers, enterprise and government entities to build applications and services that restore user control and protect digital identity. Use cases include gaming, health care, IoT, academia, sustainability and energy. The Sporran wallet, Stakeboard platform and SocialKYC identity attestation are the first services developed by BTE.

About KILT Protocol

KILT is a decentralized blockchain identity protocol for issuing self-sovereign, anonymous and verifiable credentials. KILT’s mission is to return control over personal data to its owner, restoring privacy to the individual. Developers can use KILT’s open-source Javascript SDK to quickly build applications for issuing, holding and verifying credentials and create businesses around identity and privacy.