How Blockchain Can Secure Your Identification and Prevent it From Being Hacked.

It happens a few times a year. You’re reading a news article, and the title is ‘Major Hack in XYZ, Identity of X Number of Users Stolen’. Your heart sinks, you have an account with this company! You rush to change security questions, passwords, and you call the bank to reset your cards if you have to. Potentially, more sensitive information can be leaked. This could have detrimental effects to your credit. Information stolen could include your social security number, mother's maiden name, banking information, address, pets name, what town you grew up in, and every other esoteric question that can be asked of you while on the phone with a service representative.

In the wake of the Equifax hack, the implications of this sensitive information being in the open are enormous. If you are one of 143 Million Americans, a little over 40% of the population according to The United States Census Bureau, your identity has been compromised. It is time to update the system.

A number of countries are using electronic identity, secured by modern cryptography. Each of these entities uses a separate database, and this information is not accessible from another. In the US we use state ID’s and passports to go outside of the country. To verify your ID from outside of your home state, a phone call must be placed by an official and the associated number confirmed to be in the system and belonging to you. The increasing number of techniques employed to prevent forgeries can range from watermarks to RFID, and even that is still not enough. This problem can be easily solved by a ubiquitous cryptographically verifiable database. Blockchain to the rescue!

Nobody should have access to your identity except for you. Your cryptographic identity is registered globally in the ledger of the Blockchain. The information stored on the electronic keys can be read on the front of the electronic identity cards and can even include biometric information to add uniqueness. This key, physically controlled by the owner of the ID itself, prevents it from being used remotely by another. It also means your ID could be accepted without fail in every country in the world! You would no longer need a social security number, and no longer need to live in fear of it being leaked or stolen.

There are also an increasing number of countries applying electronic identification for voting. This can prevent fraudulent votes, increase the ease and speed of counting votes including absentee ballots, and down the road it could even turn voting into a remote process altogether.

Your private information can remain private, and only the portions you want can be shared with whom you choose to interact with. Your identity will no longer be a product taken and sold by, or stolen from the services you must sign up for to participate in modern society! What a wonderful world that would be.

There are a few issues with mass adoption of this system in the U.S. at this time. It would require regulatory adoption and approval, for starters. The security standards would need to include the cryptographic curves used by modern blockchains, or the blockchains would have to upgrade to meet these standards. This would be no quick or easy task, but it is absolutely possible. The Swiss government has even begun testing this concept (see here) and the U.S. must follow. The security of Americans may very well depend on that.

To learn more about how blockchain solutions can become more mainstream, please visit our website (https://www.mimirblockchain.solutions) or follow us on Twitter @MimirBlockchain to join the conversation. It’s an important one! You can follow me personally on Twitter @blockchainNick or connect on Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolasfierro/)

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