Slashdot Mirror
Illinois Tests A Blockchain-Based Birth Registry/ID System (illinoisblockchain.tech)
An anonymous reader quotes Government Technology:
The state of Illinois, which has six blockchain pilots underway, will partner with Utah-based Evernym for a birth registry pilot meant to individualize and secure identities... The endeavor, one of six distinct blockchain explorations Illinois began last summer with a working group, is expected to utilize the Sovrin Foundation's publicly available distributed identity ledger and expand upon accomplishments of the W3C Verifiable Claims Task Force, the state said... Recognizing that identity -- and, now, digital identity -- begin at birth, the state will explore using these technologies to create "a secure 'self-sovereign' identity for Illinois citizens during the birth registration process," it said in the announcement.
More from the Illinois Blockchain Initiative site: Self-sovereign identity refers to a digital identity that remains entirely under the individual's control. A self-sovereign identity can be efficiently and securely validated by entities who require it, free from reliance on a centralized repository. Jennifer O'Rourke, Blockchain Business Liaison for the Illinois Blockchain Initiative commented, "To structurally address the many issues surrounding digital identity, we felt it was important to develop a framework that examines identity from its inception at child birth... Identity is not only foundational to nearly every government service, but is the basis for trust and legitimacy in the public sector."
In the proposed framework, government agencies will verify birth registration information and then cryptographically sign identity attributes such as legal name, date of birth, sex or blood type, creating what are called "verifiable claims" or attributes. Permission to view or share each of these government-verified claims is stored on the tamper-proof distributed ledger protocol in the form of a decentralized identifier... This minimizes the need for entities to establish, maintain and rely upon their own proprietary databases of identity information.
Evernym's "Chief Trust Officer" sees the program as "a major contribution to the larger effort of solving the online identity problem."
More from the Illinois Blockchain Initiative site: Self-sovereign identity refers to a digital identity that remains entirely under the individual's control. A self-sovereign identity can be efficiently and securely validated by entities who require it, free from reliance on a centralized repository. Jennifer O'Rourke, Blockchain Business Liaison for the Illinois Blockchain Initiative commented, "To structurally address the many issues surrounding digital identity, we felt it was important to develop a framework that examines identity from its inception at child birth... Identity is not only foundational to nearly every government service, but is the basis for trust and legitimacy in the public sector."
In the proposed framework, government agencies will verify birth registration information and then cryptographically sign identity attributes such as legal name, date of birth, sex or blood type, creating what are called "verifiable claims" or attributes. Permission to view or share each of these government-verified claims is stored on the tamper-proof distributed ledger protocol in the form of a decentralized identifier... This minimizes the need for entities to establish, maintain and rely upon their own proprietary databases of identity information.
Evernym's "Chief Trust Officer" sees the program as "a major contribution to the larger effort of solving the online identity problem."
Wow, what an incredibly good idea. It seems to me like this is exactly what block chain does best.
Give Illegals the right to vote and government benefits if their identities can be verified? This is never going to happen!
I should a "Chief Trust Officer" of a US government would have better things to do than dabble in "blockchain".
Nevermind that for anything but currency a blockchain is nigh useless, because who runs the miners and what do they get for their efforts? It's exactly that bit that's the "magic" that binds it all together, and exactly that bit that's hardest to fill in at acceptable cost in anything but a digital currency.
That's a big problem, but I think the trust issues with the US government are way bigger. Even local ones, since if nothing else the general untrustworthyness of the federal government reflects very badly indeed on any local government.
There is no online identity problem, just a couple of power-hungry fascists who can't grasp the idea of anonymity or why it's essential to the internet. Without anonymity, you have no internet, just another government-approved propaganda outlet like TV.
Isn't blockchain mostly for transactions that will never be modified/reversed or are single well-defined actions at a point in time, like transfers of money or sales?
Information about people is complex. What if something about the birth record changes or needs to be corrected?
We already know the saying, databases are real easy to create, impossible to correct. What do you expect the ability of a government agency to properly administer some new technology like this will be?
Is this really needed?
Cities don't have the tight "everybody knows everybody" surveillance network of small communities that many people perceive as constricting and an impediment to progress. Identity is not important to most interactions in our lives, and there should be resistance against the government trying to track us everywhere.
What if you get your name changed or have a court order to have your sex changed from birth?
All the blockchain ideas are incredibly stupid. It's like a law of nature. Just take any idea, add "blockchain", "sovereign", "decentralized" and it becomes instantly trendy.
No, blockchain won't help you to establish your identity. It's your private key that you use to sign blockchain updates that establishes it. And if your key is stolen then it's game over for you - somebody ELSE will be owning your identity. Forever. With no recourse for you.
All realistic proposals (including the one in TFA) include key revocation protocols through some kind of central authority (i.e. government), at which point the whole system becomes indistinguishable from a simple centralized database.
Isn't this what Civic does? https://www.civic.com
You know, the one using the letters G, A, T, and C.
(I think I saw a movie that did this ... and nothing went wrong.)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
If the birth is verified and signed by an agency key then what happens when the agencies private signing key is inevitably leaked (probably via a USB key dropped on a bus or something). Presumably, that means that it would be fairly easy to construct a totally false identity.. You can't just stop trusting real identities that now are signed with an untrusted key?
You absolutely do not need to share your real identity with anyone. Until you can't get a job, sign up for a utility, get a phone, get a driver's license, get a bank account, or otherwise participate in society without doing so. But really! It's your choice! Not that it's legal for you to just go off into the woods on someone else's land. Or buy land without registering with your Real Identity. Or leave the country without proving your identity. Nope, no pressure. Do anything you like. Throw away your key if you want! No one is forcing you to participate. Your privacy is yours to starve with.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Isn't blockchain mostly for transactions that will never be modified/reversed or are single well-defined actions at a point in time, like transfers of money or sales?
And in the same vein of "Why?" :
- The whole purpose of blockchain is to have NO central authority, but a distributed public trust.
(customer A gives money to company B and no central authority is needed to confirm it, as long as both A and B use the bitcoin protocol)
- The whole point of a Birth registry is TO HAVE a central authority.
(in case of doubt, check the *official* birth certificate with authority XyZ)
So it seems even weirder to me. it doesn't seem very useful.
Information about people is complex. What if something about the birth record changes or needs to be corrected?
In theory you could still add "amend" records updating the database in the blockchain.
(Just like the "well-defined actions at a point in time transfers of money" can be followed by subsequent further "transfers of money" - e.g.: spending money previously received).
In practice that is going to be problematic, because some of this information is personnal - I would guess sex changes, in some jurisdiction : the person doesn't necessarily want that the history of past sex identities to be publicly known.
In a blockchain technological implementation, all the history NEEDS to be available for the public consensus mecanism to work.
In a authority clasiccal implementation, the authority might only provide the latest official version publicly and keep the access to the history restricted to the person (and medical personnel)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
In the UK, at least, it's normal for children not to have any kind of name until weeks after they are born. And when people change their sex they often don't want that information to be permanently embedded in any kind of public record. So I would have thought that a paper document or a standard government database would be a much better solution that any kind of "blockchain", however fashionable that concept may be.
is there an "online" "identity" "problem" to be "solved"?
Do I want to have the same identity with Google, Facebook, some crappy app provider, the birth registry, my neighbor, the business partner I've been sharing work for the last 15 years and that romantic acquaintance?
NO, ONE THOUSAND TIMES NO!
Even if it's as buzzwordy as "blockchain". No.
Blockchain. Blockchain, blockchain blockchain "blockchain, blockchain blockchain block-chain blockchain chain." blockchain. Blockchain blockchain block blockchain blockchain.
Isn't blockchain mostly for transactions that will never be modified/reversed or are single well-defined actions at a point in time, like transfers of money or sales?
I think a birth fits that definition rather well.
- The whole purpose of blockchain is to have NO central authority, but a distributed public trust. - The whole point of a Birth registry is TO HAVE a central authority.
No, the purpose is to be able to verify data. Centralization or the lack thereof is a side effect - possibly a useful one but a side effect all the same. There is no inherent reason a birth registry has to be centralized. It just has been because it was was the most expedient and reliable process at the time to do so at the time most birth registries were developed. If anything it would be more useful to have a decentralized registry of such public records if it could be done safely and reliably because it become more robust if you have multiple copies. I have family that had critical master copies of documents (birth certificates and military records) lost in fires because they were centrally stored with inadequate backups.
Now whether a blockchain is a good use for this specific problem is something I haven't given serious thought to but it's an interesting question. I've said for a long time that Bitcoin is an idiotic implementation of a currency by people who generally value ideology over evidence in economics. But the blockchain technology it relies upon is actually really promising for a wide variety of practical applications and is probably the most valuable thing about bitcoin.
or quantum encryption or photographic evidence or eye-witnesses testifying under oath.
People will still believe that Obama wasn't born in America.
Perhaps only if it was in the Bible (and in BOTH testaments and inscribed on the Ten Commandments and the Dead Sea scrolls) would they be willing put aside their prejudices (by the way, that word is derived from PRE JUDGMENT) to face reality. Why? Because these people, and I'll call a spade a spade here, are RACIST. (And I'm not even Black!) No amount of technology can conquer bigotry. :( So don't get your hopes up to high that blockchain will solve all your verification needs.
America (and the World?) has got a long long way to go before racism is eliminated. I'm not holding my breath for it :(
[...] we felt it was important to develop a framework that examines identity from its inception at child birth... Identity is not only foundational to nearly every government service, but is the basis for trust and legitimacy in the public sector.
The hell does this mean? Identity is the sum of things that makes any thing distinct from everything else. Not something that comes into being when you're born.
"Examine" it? Does this mean examining identity as a concept? Haven't you put the cart before the horse if this is the case? Or does it mean literally examining one's "identity" as though it's something physical that you can touch and trade and see? You can't because it's an abstract idea.
Also, there's not really any reason that identity (even in this bastard conception of identity) is especially necessary for government services. All you need is some way of distinguishing between individuals. There's no reason why it has to be the same "identity" as anything else. The need to collect taxes is interesting from this perspective but there are plenty of ways of doing that without the need to demarcate between individuals or discriminate on that basis. Whether they're good or not is, of course, a different discussion.
As far as "the basis for trust and legitimacy in the public sector," legitimacy comes from voting, not from identity. Yes, there is some kind of brand that you vote for whether it's the party behind the candidate or the candidate themselves, but it's the vote that counts here. Not the brand. It's a ridiculous notion that because somebody has a name, they have legitimacy. I wouldn't vote for somebody that thinks this way. I guess at least the trust part makes a bit of sense. Becoming a matter of public record means they probably think a bit about the things they're doing. Although again, this is more about what the person does and not who the person is.
I have to scratch my head every time something like this comes up because it feels like they've assumed things to be true or at least exist a specific way that I do not think are true or exist in those ways.
That isn't blockchain, it's simply a really long serial number...
government loves things like this because it promotes the abolition of anonymity on the Internet, how long will it be before your digital identity will be required in order to hook up an Internet connection?
Let's assume a technology like this works and becomes ubiquitous. Now when asked to provide your identity, it is 100% certain you are who you say you are.
How would law enforcement have a mole that isn't traceable to their real life? More importantly, how would Batman maintain an identity separate from Bruce Wayne?
You saw a movie about people tampering with those build in block chains, demonstrating they are inherently insecure. (I mean if it works in hollywood then it works in real life.)
In order to deal with things like the witness protection program & undercover police operations, governments would need to add birth & other false records every day at random times to provide cover identities for people 20~90 years in the future. Because of this, blockchained records would have a lot more false data than the current system.
Here's the big problem with big government blockchains: they do not depend on disinterested parties. In all six of Illinois' blockchain pilots, all of the hardware being used to hash the blockchains is owned by the State. There are no independent, disinterested actors in any of the blockchains being used.
They are basically creating only the illusion of integrity, but then that is their goal.
With the Bitcoin blockchain there is a reward for helping to maintain the ledger (chain) -- that reward being coins and transaction fees granted to the person successfully adding a block to the chain. Security is created by having lots of distributed computing power owned by different people that all have the common goal of maintaining the integrity of the system. The system can be compromised if a single actor controls more than half of the computing power, but since lots of different people are financially incentivized to prevent this Bitcoin has worked so far.
Why would lots of people work together to maintain a birth registry blockchain? What financial incentive would they have? If a single entity (say the government) controls over half the the "proof of work" power, then the registry is essentially centralized and really no different than a regular database.
In the case of a birth registry, it may be okay to be centralized. Having a chain of signatures which starts with a well known public key and is then used to incrementally validate transactions is a decent way to validate a data set. However you could just sign the whole data set with the initial key and be done with it, blockchain not required.
DNA enhancements to make a QR code appear on your hand...why not? Hell, Sweden is putting chips in your skin for your "convenience".
I identify as a different blood type?
Here is how we do it in Belgium
1) When you are born or when you become an official person you get a National ID. This is your date of birth, an increasing number and a control number.
That is you. However that number is NOT to identify you. It is to be used AFTER identification. If this would somehow be broken for whatever reason, you can get a new one.
2) You get an ID. Since forever when you are 12. This ID is used to well, ID you. There is a number of the ID. You can verify if an ID is valid or not on https://www.checkdoc.be/ If it is stolen or lost you call it in and it will be blocked right away. You will have to go to the police for a temp one if they stop you (e.g. when you where speeding) and you can not do anything where you would need an ID, like take a loan. You will have to get a new ID. That take up to 2 weeks.
The data on the chip can be read via open source https://eid.belgium.be/en Source is available for also Linux, so you can read the code.
That ID is to, well, ID you.
The downside is that you can not block what can be read. That means that if it is read, they can read your address and age. So they could spam you. As long as you not put it in every reader you see, scamming is a lot harder (never impossible)
The thing is that the ID is not unique. You need to replace it every 5 years. It can be lost or stolen. The fact that that is possible is a GOOD thing, because that means the procedure is in place that theft is an option. Having something in place that can not be (easily) changed is the issue.
Companies, once they have identified you, will use the National Number. But only after identification. At that moment it becomes easier to use. However when identification is needed (e.g. if you want to increase your credit limit) you will need your ID again to identify you.
So US, it is open source, use it as you please.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
DNA as a 'mark of the beast' works until you discover chimeric people. Genetic mosacism is a problem for determining identity. Depending on what you sample you get different DNA.
As creepy it is to think of babies eating babies in the womb, this is very common for domestic cats. Among felines some types of coat are not suitable for show just because they indicate absorption of a litter mate. The task of pure-breeding cats for show is to breed them. So you need to predict what the kittens will be before you start stirring the genetic pool. That is already hard enough with the complexity of cat genetics.
You can't predict anything when your animal or person is effectively a Frankenstein's monster built by nature (or God, or whatever.) Even re-running the birth twice is likely to produce divergent results.
Seems like both have issues. How do you actually prove who you are?
I'd like everyone involved in this project to imaging giving their grandmother a lifetime ID that can never be replaced that requires grandma to keep her private key, a 512-bit string of digits, secure from hackers, hard drive crashes, agencies with sloppy security, malware, malicious other people, ransomeware, a single typo in a long string of gibberish, back backup operational procedures, and misunderstanding the difference between her private-key, her public-key, her wallet, her address, her seed phrase, and her encryption password.
Actually they can do this right now. Tell grandma to buy $1 worth of Bitcoin and keep it safe. Good luck Grannie.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
A person who goes against the populous will be accounted for as divergent, and exiled from society only to toil in oblivion until they succumb to starvation. Anyone who tries to help will have a record of that help, and will be exiled as well. Acceptance of the populous will be mandatory if you want to survive...the end will surely be near.
My children's birth will not be registered.
with fancy nazi-like registry tech to me.
not unique, some identical twins have been found with variations at certain places in genome but not all are like that, and of course the whole genome is not used for DNA test
The state should not be jumping on the latest fad of blockchains but instead should stick with a tried and true technology like letters and numbers, writing, print, things that have been proven for thousands of years.
The problem with blockchain and such is that it is so new the probabilities are it will not be around for long.
How about block-chaining digital evidence in a criminal case?
-Bob-
The initial record could be parents, timestamp, location and so on, there's no reason a name couldn't be added in a transaction later that amends the original info much like the way people spend bitcoin they have previously received.