Hi Forum, me and two cryptography professor BUIDLing a self-sovereign identity project with a focus on privacy, where you can verify your identity with third parties while preserving your privacy.
We're combining zkSNARKs with eMRTDs (NFC-enabled passports and national ID cards) to streamline KYC processes that often causes data breaches.
Essentially, we are building a consumer app where you can scan your passport and similar identity documents that have a contactless RFID chip inside. The contactless chip contains reliable personal information about you, including your full name, birthdate and nationality. This information has been provided by your issuing country, and will be used for third party verification by Credentials App. The contactless chip in your identity document is standardised as part of Doc 9303, Machine Readable Travel Documents, by the International Civil Aviation Organization (part of the United Nations). The information on the chip is digitally signed by the issuing country and has protection against cloning. We are providing the complex cryptography that is needed to verify the authenticity of information on the chip, thus providing a smart and simple way to verify the authenticity of the identity.
We are proposing a unique way to obscure sensitive information while verifying your identity, and this is made possible with zkSNARKs. This allows you to have complete control of your personal information without having to reveal it to third parties. With zero-knowledge proofs, we have a prover, who is the individual user, and a verifier, who is the third party that needs to verify an individual’s identity. In this case, all the prover needs to show a verifier is the value of X, without showing the actual information. All this requires is a proof of knowledge to verify that the individual is who they claim to be. This is a form of digital fingerprint that can prove an individual’s identity. The validity of the proof lies in using a cryptographic hash function that proves without a doubt that the identity is valid.
You can learn more about this on our blog post here:
https://medium.com/credentialsapp/zksnarks-emrtds-66387731871fWe would love to receive your comments and feedbacks!