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Blockchain, Identity and Privacy: Three words that buzz, fade and mature.
The blockchain is currently one of the most-hyped technologies. In this panel, we will explore how security and privacy can be enhanced by blockchain technology and outline the challenges ahead. Further, we discuss If and when blockchain-based identity projects reach critical mass in terms of user adoption, they could help get more decentralized services off the ground.
Blockchain, Identity and Privacy: Three words that buzz, fade and mature.
The blockchain is currently one of the most-hyped technologies. In this panel, we will explore how security and privacy can be enhanced by blockchain technology and outline the challenges ahead. Further, we discuss If and when blockchain-based identity projects reach critical mass in terms of user adoption, they could help get more decentralized services off the ground.
The topic is privacy, identity and blockchain. So I made it easy. How and why is the blockchain a solution to the identity? Privacy problem? Why is this a, an adequate tool for providing privacy for identities?
Well, it could be adequate, but it's, it's not that easy because of course you would find almost contradiction in the terms, right? Privacy and blockchain, blockchain is fantastic tool or some blockchains, but at least historically it's a public ledger and that's what makes it strength. But if you start to talk about customer data or personal data, both then, and not just because compliance or GDPR compliance, but just by default, then you would think that data are on the chain, which kind of make it completely public and not really private.
So, and that's a challenge that if you want to use blockchain for consumer data or any kind of solution around personal data, you have to address, that's what we address withSo. And that we've been working on since six years.
And, but it wasn't that obvious. So that's the short answer. Okay. Maybe we could pass the same question on the other three. Okay. Back to you then the fourth. So guy Yep.
You, yeah. As Didier said, the, there is a contradiction in terms blockchain is for blockchain to really work public permission as blockchain decentralized would be the, the way to go, but committing personal data onto that is a complete no, no. And doesn't make sense at all.
So the, the development would be around technology that would keep the, the data fully anonymized. And, and can we then meet compliance to bring the mainstream and blockchain together?
That's, that's something that block pass is looking at. We just invested 600,000 pounds into Edinburg and AP university, which is run by professor, bill Buchanan, OBE. Who's one of the main cryptographers in the world. And we are developing with him some zero knowledge proof technology, which, which will go towards meeting those, the issues of, of, of where public keeping, keeping privacy on a public blockchain. We're able to move towards that.
So that's, that's, that's what we're looking at. Okay. Yeah.
To me, this is all about trust. Blockchain is one of the technologies that are gonna shift us into potentially shift us into a world of radical transparency, which will tend to be a good thing. It'll be disruptive, but trust around, you know, you would never put data on the blockchain, but you put transactions on the blockchain, that point to data and, and why it's important to, to sort of rebuild a new interaction with our customers and other stakeholders around trust is that we are collecting data types of data that we've never collected before.
We're about to collect in entirely new categories of data like effective data. So Amazon's top priority right now is to know how you feel when you're on any page, cuz they want to know which page make you happy and which ones make you frustrated and which ones make you sad. So that's a whole new class of data. That's incredibly surveillance. So we need to be able to trust who we're dealing with, what entities they are from the graph that the diagram that was up there and we need to be able to trust what's what data's being collected, who has access to it.
And then ultimately who owns it where we want to go with this is that the, the, you know, people, users, customers are the end users of and end controllers and end owners of their data were just not there yet. Okay. Well just like Nathan says blockchain, there are more than one blockchains it's blockchains for, for technologists like me, it's a set of tools that gives a set of attributes. We wanna apply those attributes in the right way. It's like a database, you know, not all databases are the same. Some databases provide different attributes. Blockchain provides all the attributes.
I think Didier mentioned most of the ones that are important for managing identity. And it's just one of the tools. It's one of the tools that we're using. I think we've already mentioned cryptography and serial product knowledge proofs, absolutely important to this, but everybody wants to talk about blockchain and that's probably why we're here gathered today, but it is only part of the solution. It's it's good old technology.
If you like, it goes back to the days of the ledger and that's sort of three to 5,000 years old technology, but it is a ledger and it's a useful thing in identity to help who you are. Okay. If we understand that on the blockchain, blockchain, there is no actual data, but transaction data, what else? Or first of all, what else is needed for such a solution?
I, I understand blockchain does what I understand blockchains, but I just described, but where will the actual personal information reside? Where will it be kept? Who will be the owner in the technical term? I assume that I should be the owner when it comes to legal terms or, or ownership and privacy terms, but where do you expect data actually, to be stored and to protect be protected? You mentioned taking away the honey honey pot, and this is something that really clearly resonates with me, but where will it be from maybe different for the solutions?
Me again, my, my belief is that it's very important that there isn't one solution. So nobody could should set up on a conference and say, this is the solution. The point is that that part of the identity systems should be a competitive environment because that we're not all talking about the same set of individuals, not talking about the same requirements for companies. We're not talking about the same requirements for things. The standards will help us provide a variety of solutions in the same way.
As I know the mobile phone market, not all phones are the same and there are different ways of doing it. Our approach is most certainly you don't put identity on a mobile phone, either the secur security just can't come up to long term requirements. You gotta build it as well for the future identities for life, might your dog and identities for life. And that means you gotta build a system that provides longevity and that goes beyond quantum computing. And it goes beyond probably, you know, the sort of 10 to 15 years that might your, your systems might normally be thought to build for.
You've gotta build a roadmap that provides the flexibility. And that's why there's not one, one solution for all. Yeah. I think our, our data, our personal data's already spread in a zillion places online. It's just that we don't, I don't think anyone even has any, any understanding of how much data different companies have on us. If you just sort of start telling up everything you do on a week, it's a monumental amount of data.
No, one's gonna have a server in their house and how's all their data. So our data's going to continue to be spread around. I think the difference here is creating a very clear structure of who owns that data and who has access to that data, wherever it may be. Your data's still gonna be at Google and Facebook and your, your, your bank and your hospital and, and all those other places. We just need standards that don't yet exist about what to do with it. Data who owns it. I also think you have to put that in the context of digital economy, cuz that's what we're talking about here.
And, and, and the challenge of that digital economy. And one of the major challenge is trust how you build trust because behind a keyboard, you can be anything. I can be a tall blonde blue eyes person, and it works until it's important for me to show or for the vendor to eventually base some transaction on these data.
So the, in the digital economy, it's not just the data itself, it's also the value or the weight of that data, the trustability or reliability of that data. That's important.
And, and it's not just general data. It's also, of course, when you come at the core of your identity and that's where it starts and that's proof of who you are, et cetera, it's pretty complex or has been pretty complex until now to, to move into the digital world and get into a zero proof economy or trust.
And that, I think that's one of the potential gigantic potential of what a combination of blockchain and other layers, because I agree with Paul, it's a toolbox and we can use that, but many other things will allow to really distribute that trust economy and make it efficient for vendors because it's not just a potential protection for individuals that's important. But also again, we are an economy that means you need vendors on the other side and it's that dialogue or that ecosystem that needs to be fully integrated. Yeah.
We are looking at a solution currently around the phone, which Paul said was something that he didn't want wasn't looking at, but it's early days. And the, the overall conversation that's come out of blockchain is that we can now move our thinking from centralized stores, which we know don't work cafe Pacific last week, 9.4 million individuals, data Richard is airways 400,000 CBC numbers. That's quite, that's quite good. Good. Yeah. So we can start to move away from decentralized stores of data.
And of course, what is out there already exists and it's fragmented and it's, it's, you know, there's multiple, multiple data stores of our identity out there, but we can start to build new paradigms and we can build new blockchain networks that we can navigate with decentralized identity held by the individual. And that's, that could run side by side with current mainstream centralized data stores.
And we can start to offer individuals the choice of moving into different services and networks that have a decentralized identity system, which is it's not perfect, but we're moving towards, and it is, it is quite complex, but we're moving towards the, the, it's all about the way we think, how can we imagine a future where the user is driven and, and sometimes incentivized, but to, to hold first of all, their identity and then some form of data crypto asset on top, which would be their behavioral data, which is just Hoover up right now by the current, the way the internet works, web 2.0 and I'm, I'm, I'm intimate towards something which is called web 3.0.
So yeah, it's blockchain or decentralized DLT, decentralized ledger technology enables this conversation. And that we, I don't think we've quite as an industry decided exactly how, where it's gonna sit and how it's gonna be accessed, but we've got the ability to dream. That's the main thing. That's where I would say regarding, and that's involving location of data is that it's, you can create no eco at least ecosystem.
And, and, and so afterwards, the, an economy where you don't need to own a data in order to use it as a vendor. And that's, that's the major shift I think, in, in, in the parting where before, and or still now people think that it's based on the huge collection of data and ownership, which generates tremendous threats and, and problems now, because it's distribute, you can keep the data where they are, where they capture and it's extremely fragmented. But what you do is you, you create the connection, let's put it that way. Okay.
So I did not mention that if there are any questions in the room, just give me a sign and I will integrate you in the discussion. I will ask one more question, and then I will go around and pass the microphone around so that we get a bigger discussion. I wanted to focus on, on this person to person communication aspect. So this real meshing of, of, of identities without having an airline or a bank or something else being involved, how, how do you consider a way to get there so that I can transfer money to you without a bank involved?
How, how can I offer a service to you without a service provider or an intermediate being involved? How can that scale up to, to a person, to person mesh, which is lots of different connecting vers then?
Okay, well, our opinion is that we've got quite a job on providing an alternative identity solution. There are ways of doing, providing all those services now, and they're all the distributed models are, are very interesting and have huge potential.
And, and I think actually already have shown their potential. One of the great things about Bitcoin, which is one of those, the B word that you're not meant to talk about when you're talking about blockchain, but it, you know, you can't deny it's a very well tested system, Bitcoin itself. And the Bitcoin blockchain is incredibly well tested by both, both good actors and bad actors. So we got a fairly good idea that there is something substantial in terms of its reliability as may have problems, but it has reliability and, and security.
But then one of the things that all those other alter those other use cases require in, in our opinion is a very sound identity, and part, the problem with all these systems that are being built is that you're not quite sure whether I am transferring money to you or to somebody who's pretending for you. So if we can solve that, for instance, provide KYC to, to exchanges, to provide a knowledge that I have, that when I transfer money to somebody in Australia, it's actually gonna get to that person in Australia.
I think that's actually a great tool for all those other services to be, to be developed from that's. You know, we, we have to put a scope on this somewhere and we, we believe that it's a, there's a great use case that can get adoption. Once you've got adoption, then, then you can start dreaming about what else you can build from that, that, those basic services.
Yeah, I think what you, we talked about identity and privacy, but what you mentioning here is customer relationship. What, how does, how do we communicate now with customers and, and blockchain? Any blockchain is, is really transaction based. So it's it's, and that's very efficient. Now we considered that was not enough in order to create an environment where you could eventually communicate peer to peer, of course, vendor, to individuals, individuals among et cetera.
That's why in our solution, we provide an additional layer, which is a pure peer tope network that we rebuild, which allow real full sta communication layers. And that's of course, with all the protection protocol, et cetera, but that allow to a better depth in terms of the service and the application you can build upon. Yeah. Outside of the physical realm, me talking to you right here and or me giving you some cash, anything digital is gonna have to require a third party period would not be possible without third parties.
Even if I hook up my Bitcoin wallet, offline hard ride Bitcoin wallet to yours, it still requires the Bitcoin blockchain to be a third party. And in that case, it's an autonomous one, which is good, but anything more sophisticated than that, like some of the applications that we're talking about are always gonna require a third party. So the answer isn't to try to get rid of those third parties, it's how to convert them into festival platforms. Question. Yes. Have a question about the DLTs there's not data.
Blockchain is very promising and has delivered a lot already, but I was wondering, what do you think about other DLTs that offer things that blockchain cannot yet like speed, more reliability things like hash graph, for example. Yeah.
We, we thought getting too technical. You, you mentioning some challenges that mainly public blockchains are facing. One is scalability of cost pricing is another one.
I mean, cost it's another one of cost and that's all and performance. And that's all based on the consensus. Mainly it's not on the architecture, it's more on the consensus. The consensus is kind of governance of the transaction and kind of it's part of it. And so the it's it's, that's why you, in, in addition to new blockchain architecture, you see new consensus coming. That was one of our main concerns because our customers or clients are banks and insurance mainly, and they need high performance and definitely scalability.
When they get out out of the sort of sandbox where we test the things, then we need to deploy. And that's, that's why we couldn't save the, the, the pain to come up with a new consensus that would address these. And that's very important. I think we you'll see more and more consensus proposal that address these two, these two challenges. But apart from what we are discussing from the technical point of view, the picture of privacy and identity data, don't, that's not really change when, when you change the underlying infrastructure, right? No. Right.
Because the focus today is on privacy and identity. So I just want to make sure that it's, it's a different technology. It offers other benefits, speed, cost, but does not change the principles and the standards maybe that are below There. It's like having a conversation about, should we continue to use TCP I P as a web protocol or move to another protocol? It's not at the same level. Just want to refocus. Okay. Then I pass on to you. Sure.
I, I just wondered whether you could elaborate on what limit us in the use of blockchain for a all applications that need identity are in particular about the connection of this string that goes into represent you in the ledger system and the person or the entity themselves with regard to the person, most government, I now the identity, these biometrics biometrics ledgers, but still the connection between these ledgers and the block chain based central ledgers is I'm asking whether you see it as the weak point or the, or could you just elaborate about what is the weak point?
If not that that's not the one. Yeah, that's a very good question.
The, as I said earlier, the it's not just the data, but also the credential about this data that makes the economy or viability of a system and governments in many cases or government agencies are credential providers. So in, in a system that we are actually piloting in not gonna close where right now, but we're piloting a system like that for a government and banks and individuals.
The that's where you go for the zero knowledge proof is that the, the government becomes database, which is the most reliable one in most case will provide kind of a status space yes or no, on a query that goes against a data that's declared by an individual or bank or any kind of other institution. So that's how they can eventually link. And that's the status will come on the ledger, not the data itself, right.
And then the timestamp, if you want to, and the origin or whatever you want to put in there, that's how you can combine these touchy situations where go most of the time, don't want to share for tons of reasons. Yeah.
There, the solution we are developing is that what we offer is a, is kind of a empty Porwal. And within that Porwal is we could say a curation of verifiers and verifiers could be established Oracles. And a government is definitely an established Oracle. So we can query the database as to whether passport is stolen, lost, or deemed not usable. And then there's other established stores that we can use to create clear Oracles. And from the, that the yes, no query we can create and hash a verification, not the data.
And then that's that that's a way to move forward and, and create more integrity within verified identities. And that, that can range all the way from human notaries, all the way to machine learning on, on machine readable, elements of driving licenses and passports, et cetera. Cetera. Okay. Thank you.
I, I collect one more question and then we will do a Roundup. Hi, Brin Robinson Morgan from the UK post office. When we talk about Bitcoin, the Bitcoin ledger is there so that I can prove ownership of that Bitcoin. And if I spend that Bitcoin, so I give that Bitcoin to you, that's recorded on the ledger and now you become the owner of it.
So it, it all makes perfect sense with identity. I told you that I'm Brian Robinson, Morgan, there's no need for any third party involvement. There there's no need to actually store any of that information on a ledger because I'm not transferring ownership of my identity to you. I'm just telling you who I am. So how does using a ledger, whether it's decentralized, centralized on a mobile phone, wherever you want to put that ledger, how does that increase? My privacy, Who wants to start out? Yeah. Talking about Bitcoin.
That's wish I brought it up now Bitcoin's 1, 1, 1 instance of a blockchain. DLTs, there's what over a thousand different instances of, of blockchain. So first of all, Bitcoin's not particularly adaptable in, in, and therefore it's gonna be hard to see how it's gonna keep up with any changes that come forward. Maybe it doesn't need to change, but the whole point problem, one of the questions was about the different ledgers. This is a really dynamic area. And the fact that Bitcoin is a very effective way of moving value from one account to another account.
And that you hold our account safe by keeping the, the key to that account safe. That's, that's a pretty good system and it works. What is that gotta do with the identity?
Well, it would be good if the key to your, your wallet was at your option linked to your identity. And at the other end, you know, you might want to actually only PA pass Bitcoin or any other kind or any other value to people who you're confident you're passing it to, as I mentioned earlier. So it's not a solution for everything.
Sometimes people want be anonymous, but I wouldn't use Bitcoin to be anonymous by the way, you know, a lot of people who have tried that are sort of sitting in jail right now, so Bitcoin's not anonymous, but if, if Bitcoin like systems or Bitcoin itself would like to link itself to an identity. So we know we're traveling, passing value to then that's the option of the person like me that would want to do that.
If I want to pass it for somebody who wants to stay anonymous, well, that's probably gonna be a limitation in terms of regulation at the moment, some really useful things can't be done with the Bitcoin because regulations stop it. And of course people can ignore regulation and there are parts of the world that don't have that regulation. So go to those parts of the world or ignore it.
You know, that's, that's really up to you. I think take the consequences, but linking through to an identity is actually quite a useful thing for most people. And there are people that don't wanna do that, which is fine. And that's where anonymous and private use of, of an identity comes very important as well. Okay.
Any other, Is that, does that sort of start addressing, cause I, think's a huge question. Yeah. Just to give you an example of, with one of our clients, it's an insurance company and specifically in the life insurance or death insurance. And so they have several products in, in their portfolio. And now we put in place a process where you can require quotes on that spec on one of the product they have, or even put them in, in parallel.
And which means that in order to have a real quote, especially for life insurance, you have to disclose quite a lot of things that you don't quite like to see going on on the web after that. So the way for process, you can declare a few things.
I mean, quite, quite a few things and doesn't matter if it's, it, it can completely be anonymous. Doesn't matter if you're George Smith doesn't matter. And so you go into detail into your health, et cetera. And that query is to the system cannot be tracked back to your IP, et cetera, etcetera. So it goes into the, the system it's treated by the algorithm of the vendor and comes back with quote to you.
The, and the ledger is there to certify some of the data that you, that you declare, not all of them, because nothing is not completely, very fireable, but most of them enough for the insurance company to say, okay, the trustability or availability of the, the, the, the data that are coming to me is that an insurance company do risk management all the time. So for them it's reliable enough to say, okay, I can go back to you with a, a good estimate of how much it would cost, et cetera.
So, which means that if you agree after that and come back to me and say, I accept, then first of all, only gonna capture the information that I will really need for the transaction itself. And I will have had a, no need to invade your privacy if you decide not to go for that, that proposal. And then it's, they don't capture the data. It's just a back and forth on the verification of these data. Some of them central on the ledger, some others not. And then a risk calculation from the insurance company saying, okay, I trust you enough of what I see is trustable enough.
So I can give you back that insurance, that quote, Okay. I, I just transferred, transformed this question into the final question. So if there is any other statements you want to add to that, yeah. Blockchain sort of turns private privacy and identity on its head or flips it inside out. So a blockchain is absolutely transparent. Everyone can see everyone else's transactions, which has never been done before. Right? So I can tell that it's you and your transactions, as long as someone hasn't stolen your public key and your passwords, which is another problem, I just don't know who you are.
And so that's a point of obscurity. That's really helpful to some people, but the moment I need to touch another network, which is sell my Bitcoins at an exchange, or download that those dollars or euros or pounds into a bank, the moment it touches those other networks because of regulations.
Now, those actors can see my entire transaction history. They know everything because it's always been there all, all along. So we need to start thinking about privacy and identity in new ways as a result of this, it's not as clear cut as we've been used to in, in the past. Okay. Thank you very much. We have to close down here. I think these experts will be around later on, especially during the lunch break. So please make sure that you have more time for questions and catch them if you can. It was a really interesting discussion, sometimes technical, very visionary.
Thank you very much for your time.
