Decentralized, user-owned ID propounded by DFend founder, platform launched by Zetrix

People should have full ownership and control over their digital identities, says Chris Smith, DFend founder and CEO, sharing lessons learned from his experience with digital identity theft in a recent Web3 ID Coalition webinar. To help people do so, Zetrix has launched a decentralized identity platform that leverages the security verified credentials can provide.

Privacy Pandemic author shares lessons from his experience of digital identity theft

Decentralized digital ID expert and CEO of Identity.com Phillip Shoemaker interviewed Chris Smith, CEO and Founder of DFend, on how his experience of recurring digital identity theft led him to advocate for better protections for identity, in a recent webinar from the Web3 ID Coalition titled “A Global Pandemic of Identity Theft: Aligning Technology, Business & Policy To Fuel a Future of Personal Data Ownership.”

In the interview, Smith explains how someone he was in a romantic relationship with managed to hack into his iCloud in 2018 and continually compromised his “digital life and identity” over the course of two years, a story he outlines in the book Privacy Pandemic. This experience ultimately led him to found DFend, a company that uses behavioral biometrics for digital identity attack detection and response.

Smith had to step down from his leadership role at Civic and liquidate all his crypto, as evidence of continual attacks put his company, customer data, and his decentralized currency at risk.

While someone was actively pursuing Smith in particular because of his particularly high-profile, high-value connections, virtually all of us are at risk of having our digital identities stolen.

An Apple-commissioned MIT study found that as many as 2.6 billion personal records have been compromised by data breaches that have taken place in the past two years and 98 percent of organizations have a relationship with a vendor who has experienced a breach in the last two years.

One way to mitigate these attacks is through decentralized digital identity, which allows for individuals to share only the necessary information from their credentials. “There’s more information about who we are on an iPhone or Android device than in our house,” said Smith. With the amount of information you can glean from your device, “you should only have to share what is relevant.”

Zetrix and Beitlou launch decentralized digital identity and mDL services

Zetrix, a layer one blockchain platform from MY E.G., the Malaysia e-government app, has announced the launch of its digital credentials platform, in partnership with Guangxi Beitou IT Innovation Technology Investment Group Co Ltd (Beitou), a China-owned enterprise.

MY E.G. said in a statement that the service will initially be offered to China nationals to obtain digital versions of their national IDs as W3C compliant verified credentials on Xinghuo International, China’s public blockchain platform.

Beitou IT integrates into China’s national police and transport department databases. By giving document holders the ability to share select information from their digital IDs, “it protects raw user data from being shared unless absolutely necessary, thus reducing the possibilities of cyber attacks,” said Zetrix Founder TS Wong.

It also ensures that the documents are authentic. China recently cracked down on an illegal birth certificate network that sold documents to register fake identities for kidnapped and trafficked children.

The platform will also facilitate collaboration between Malaysian and Chinese transportation enterprises.

Article Topics

Beitlou  |  blockchain  |  decentralized ID  |  DFend  |  digital identity  |  mDL (mobile driver's license)  |  Web3 ID Coalition  |  Zetrix