Welcome to uPortlandia!
uPortlandia is our vision of the future of data and identity management. The near future, even. Like, within one or two years if we all play our cards right.
It’s a tempting vision too — a future with simple, secure digital identity. A future of password-free online experiences. A future where you can prove who you are or verify facts about your life while sharing far less personal information. A future where we, the people, we as individuals, control our digital identities. Without being beholden to the Facebooks, Experians, or Googles of the world.
This is hardly a new vision. The cypherpunk and identity communities have been sketching out the value and requirements of this future for a couple decades. But although this vision was birthed many years ago, we’ve faced real challenges getting it in the hands of the public, the people who really need it. There are lots of stories to tell about why this is taking longer than we’d like in the age of blockchain. But ultimately, like so many technology adoption arcs, these boil down to the bootstrapping problem of getting users and network effect. Once we have a critical mass of users, the ecosystem of people, businesses and government will hum. You’ll get the stuff you want without sharing your eye color, your location, or your preference for Nickelback.
In the blockchain / crypto space, the number one challenge that we’re all working towards is better UX. With a decade of mobile under our belts, we mostly understand why and how people use their mobiles for their everyday personal and commercial activities — messaging, video calls, buying stuff, etc. What we’ve been missing in the blockchain-based identity space is UX. Great UX. UX that’s as easy-peasy as Apple Wallet. But this UX topic needs its own separate article, which is part 2 of this series.
For now, let’s tackle the question of how controlling our personal data works.
Easy Personal Data Control in a Thriving Economy
uPortlandia is a city from Italo Calvino’s municipal mediation, Invisible Cities. It’s a city where the municipal government is eager to return data ownership back to their citizens, while ensuring economic dynamism and growth. It’s a city where, once established, you can reuse data attributes about yourself so you don’t have to fill out boring and time-wasting paperwork every darn time you want to buy something from another vendor.
These chunks of personal data we must offer up to the vendor gods, these identity attributes, are called “verifiable credentials” in uPortlandia. Once you get a verifiable credential in uPortlandia, you can reuse it for other services without sharing the underlying data that comprises the credential.
For example, in uPortlandia, when you apply for a job, you have to prove that you graduated from the University of uPortlandia. The current, normal way that happens is that you have to call, or email, or fill out form, so the University will send an official document confirming your matriculation. But in uPortlandia, there is a better way!
When the University issues you a credential of matriculation, it’s now under your control. You can choose who to share it with whenever you want. And maybe even more important than that, you don’t have to share the underlying information, like your classes, GPA, major, etc.
This holds true for another cliched example many of us experience on a regular basis. Buying alcohol. When we present our drivers license, we are not *just* proving that we are over 21, we are also providing our specific birthdate, our eye color, our (former) weight, and for god’s sake, our street address. What right do these people checking our IDs have knowing where we live? None!
With a verifiable credential in your pocket, you merely show your picture with a QR code, et voila! You’ve been verified while only sharing the minimum amount of data about yourself required for the transaction.
These are the kinds of transactions and personal control uPortlandia is about.
Beyond Smart Cities
While uPortlandia is a delicious demonstration of how people can control their data and share it as they please within a “Smart City,” this approach also applies to any kind of ecosystem or consortium. If you’re involved in an industry group and want to share company data with other organizations, e.g. Know Your Supplier information, that can be also be done with reusable verifiable credentials. Set up your data credential once, then just reuse it for every future instance that data is needed again. It’s easy and incredibly satisfying to be this efficient!
Download the App and Play with uPortlandia!
So please go try our uPortlandia demo, create and gather all of your personal credentials, share them with all the institutions and organizations throughout the city of uPortlandia and imagine how much better life can be when you have easy, secure control over your privacy and how you share the data of your daily life.
Download the uPort App iOS here, and Android here!
*Next week, in our second article about uPortlandia, we’ll dive into the UX R&D that went into making uPortlandia amazing!
