A growing issue these days as crypto gains a bigger presence is that of identification.
With increased government regulations, and implementations of KYC practices- that’s know your customer, it seems that the days of anonymously investing in ICOs are behind us, if you’re a U.S. citizen.
But it’s more than just wanting to be anonymous, there is resistance to these requirements to identify ourselves because… who actually enjoys giving out their personal info? And to have that associated with blockchain technology, a technology that permanently stores information is all the more reason to be apprehensive about this.
But if done correctly, blockchain tech can help alleviate this situation in some ways by at least bringing security in the form of encryption to your sensitive information.
There exists in this world an entity called Equifax, it’s a consumer credit reporting agency that stores very personal information of millions of people. Information like names, birth dates, social security numbers and driver license numbers.
You may have heard about this before or recognized it from the news when its database was hacked in the Spring of this year, but they didn’t release this information until months later.
It is very much a centralized authority and quite frankly, with that amount of sensitive information it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.
Here’s a distributed, blockchain based solution that has the potential to replace things like Equifax.
Today I’m focusing on Civic.
This one is all about securing your sensitive identification information in a way that gives you at least a little bit of peace of mind if you ever need to verify your identity or other aspects of yourself.
Now just as a personal disclaimer, I am not a fan of any use of mobile devices when it comes to securing anything like personal identity or when cryptocurrency is concerned.
You can use their app to scan your documents, and Civic or a “third party verifier” then verifies that the content is valid. Your information is encrypted for security and you’ll then be able to pick and choose which information is shared to whichever entity is requiring your verification. For sure this can help make the verification process much easier than having to take multiple photos of your drivers license for each time you need verification, but I am curious to know exactly who this other “third party verifier”, so if anyone knows an answer to this, go ahead and leave a comment down below.
So in a way you’re centralizing your own verification information for your convenience, but with the distributed aspects of Civic, if your information or someone else’s information is somehow compromised, that incident is compartmentalized and will not lead to the entire network getting compromised.
In addition to making verification easier, Civic also provides identity theft protection in the form of:
One thing that really caught my eye that is listed in the “Coming Soon” section of their website is that they are planning on adding “black market monitoring”.
So many times cryptocurrencies are thought of as black market currencies that is only good for using on the dark web, it’s cool for me at least, to see this kind of effort as a precautionary measure to help prevent ID theft.
The memberships being offered at the moment include the free membership which currently offers the $1 million theft insurance. And there is the standard membership which will cost you $2.95 a month which offers more credit monitoring options and the 24/7 support line.
Additional Reading/Sources:
Equifax Hack
Equifax Website
KYC Explained
Bittrex Dealing with More Regulations
How-To Verify Identity on Crypto Exchanges
Civic Website