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."

Comments

"The online identity problem"

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

How about using the built-in blockchain id system?

[fahrbot-bot]

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.)

Also: central authority

[DrYak]

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)

Re:why? why?

[AmiMoJo]

I've been trying to imagine what a society where identities are disposable would be like. On the internet it's easy to change your identity, you just create a new account. Bans are basically impossible, all they can do it make it slightly harder but never impossible to generate a new identity and carry on using the service.

The benefit of being able to change your identity at any time is that you can move on from mistakes, or reputation bombing, or keep different parts of your life (work, politics, family) separate. There has been a lot of talk about how politics should not result in you losing your job lately, for example.

That would mean that punishments would have to be temporary and only affect one identity. At the moment, even after you come out of jail your criminal record follows you around, so we would have to change our idea of what prison is - a place for rehabilitation, that you come out of when you are no longer a danger to society.

Of course generating a new identity has its down sides. You start with no reputation, no credit history, and people who know you remember your previous incarnations.

I think it's worth speculating about, if only to better understand how poorly we manage identity now.

Central vs decentral

[sjbe]

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.

Re:Central vs decentral

[jediborg]

Here is the main problem I see with using the Blockchain for identity purposes:

1. 1) Government Introduces fancy new blockchain identity system
2. 2) I take your Government-issued-id, social-security-number (stolen via already used methods) and maybe even your fingerprint that I lifted from your coffee mug
3. 3) I take your 'records' to the government office, register your info in the blockchain, and get the private key sent to myself
4. 4) I now have control over your blockchain-issued identity. I can use this to conduct identity theft, getting credit cards, wellfare, car loans, all in your name
5. 5) Now because the blockchain is 'immutable' unless all the miners on the blockchain are government owned, no one can 'correct' the entry I have control of your identity and no one can change it! bwahahaha

The ONE SINGULAR benefit of centralized government control of this database is that I can go to a judge and say 'this guy isn't me, someone stole my identity, and I think that someone is Jim'. Then the judge can have jim brought before the court, have him tried of identity theft, and even if jim doesn't get jail time, the judge can have the government documents modified so that I am now in control, I can use the law to have the credit reporting agencies correct their reports and scrub the entries created by JIM because I have the judicial verdict to show them

Re:How about using the built-in blockchain id syst

[Gussington]

That isn't blockchain, it's simply a really long serial number...

Re:why? why?

[Gussington]

I've been trying to imagine what a society where identities are disposable would be like....

I think it's worth speculating about, if only to better understand how poorly we manage identity now.

People have already thought about it which is why things like this are happening, I helped implement one here in my state.
When dealing with the govt, you can create as many online 'identities' as you like. You then choose if you want to use the same identity across all agencies, or use individual ones for each. Blockchain merely makes this a whole lot easier to validate your reputation. Regardless of your 'identity' used, the other party can choose to transact with you or not based on reputation (rather than govt issued ID which really isn't that reliable).
Ultimately an identity is just a reputation, and only blockchain technology can give the most reliable way to validate this.

How we do it in Belgium

[houghi]

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.