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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.
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?
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.
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?
Anytime that I see a company based out of Utah having anything to do with recording information from Birth of just about anybody, I have to check and...
Yup, "Evernym" is run by a bunch of nutty Mormon Missionaries. It took me all of a minute to find this out; they are hardly secretive about it.
Be very very Afraid...
Mormons are not to be trusted in these matters.
Exactly the opposite. Someone will get ahold of the state's key and suddenly millions of Guatemalans will be us citizens born in Illinois and eligible to vote.
lol really! so saying vested interest do not want to verifying identity makes me a troll! OK ;) Right out of the PC correct playbook.
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 ]
Hmm... last time I checked the side of The Party pushing for national ID was the democrats and the republican side was strictly opposing it.
Did something change since the prez election?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There are other systems besides proof of work (mining) which aren't so intensive. Proof of stake and proof of Authority don't require mining. I don't know enough about them to go over the pros and cons, but proof of stake is suitable for use on mobile phones. There are block chain voting initiatives using it.
Did something change since the prez election?
Everything changes after presidential elections; good becomes bad and bad becomes good, depending on your pov. You must be new here.
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.
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 :(
That isn't blockchain, it's simply a really long serial number...
The party pushing national of is tepunlicans and has been for 12+ years now. Or did you forget that realID is a republican plan? And it is liberal states that refused for most of the last 12 years to implement it. Also it is republican states that want to prove identity to vote. Forget that all states make you register to vote months in advance anyways.
Republicans are all for a religious police state. As long as they are the ones In Charge of the religion and police. Believing otherwise is hypocritical. Then again republican are hypocritical.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
... Someone will get ahold of the state's key and suddenly millions of Guatemalans will be us citizens born in Illinois and eligible to vote.
Thats the exact thing which would be very very hard to forge even for someone with write access, because they would have to insert those birth records at the right point in the timeline of the chain and then recalculate the resulting hash from every db transaction after that, and then get a bunch of other independent chain operators to all agree that all those entries being inserted now, from 20-50 years ago are legitimate.
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".
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.
Why? Mormons are obsessed about lineage. Lineage is a big deal in their dogma.
But how does that 'corrupt' this technology? People who are automobile enthusiasts often are involved with developing new automotive technology. People who are bicycle enthusiasts often are involved with developing new bike technology. This is nothing different.
Are you trying to stir up anti-Mormon sentiments? Is that the thrust of your comment? Because people do that to be anti-Muslim or anti-semetic, too.
Problem is the implementation of ID laws. After experiencing how the right wing fucked up our voting ID requirements here in Canada, I'm a lot less pro voters ID.
This blockchain idea sounds just as easy to fuck with, just make sure the internet is slow in various parts of town on voting day. Imagine the lineups as each voter waits for the blockchain to be verified over dial-up speeds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
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
I'd hardly call Louisiana a "liberal" state.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
My children's birth will not be registered.
Good luck with that. At least here in the US it is pretty difficult to get though life without a birth certificate (which is a registration).
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-
Not sure why I'm bothering to respond to a crazed A/C, but... Are you Mormon (or Ex-Mormon)? You sure seem to have a rather unhealthy fear of what someone else believes. "Forcibly convert"? Like a Voodoo doll from a comedy where they're going to go "ooga booga" and force something to happen to someone?
Hey, if Muslims want to dig through my family records (which are a fairly sad collection; maybe they can find some long-lost rich relatives for me!) and go through some ceremony and call me Muslim after I've been dead for 100 years, more power to 'em. Heck, they could dig my remains up and give 'em a bath, for all I care.
I don't see how the Mormons' concern for their ancestors, though uncommon in Western civilization, is any weirder than what a lot of other religions, particularly Christians, claim. If I understand correctly, Catholics & Orthodox churches believe in infant baptism, and if the baby dies before it's baptized and given its last rites, it's going to hell. Other groups lack a formal ceremony like that, but require a verbal profession of a belief to save you. Mormons say that baptism's required like Catholics, but it's like they consider baptism more of a "checklist" item and instead of damning you because you didn't do it yourself while you were alive, they'll just do the neighborly thing and take care of it for you, so that then you can have the option to be "saved" if you want, and if you don't, that's your business. Rather than forcing you to do something, they feel that they're giving you freedom that you otherwise wouldn't have.
I've had people of various religions -- Christian, Jew, Budhist -- offer to pray for me on occasion, and I've never been offended by it, or creeped out because they thought their particular brand of religion was going to help me out more than another, but rather I was glad that they cared enough to expend the effort in my behalf, and enjoyed learning more about them in the process. If I knew they were praying, burning incense, etc. behind my back in my behalf, I'd be just as pleased. If I found that they were praying that I'd die a thousand horrible deaths, I'd just snort and wish them happiness. To me, this is no different. As for the family research, if they can get it anyone can, and I can think of a lot of people that I'd be more nervous about what they'd do with my genealogy than some religious group.
I do like the Parmesan cheese idea, though. Next time I eat spaghetti I might just have to declare it a Pastafarian baptism event!
It's really the tin-foil-hat crowd portion f the right that believes the government is out to get them, and it's not a big portion.
So, that said, if it were passed, would the left agree to requiring ID to vote? Seems like a possibility for compromise.
Just another day in Paradise
"Republicans are all for a religious police state"
You might want to exit your echo chamber and actually talk to some before stating opinions that are clearly bullshit.
Just another day in Paradise