Civic launches tool to ease Web3 onboarding and sign-ins

Civic has launched a new onboarding tool for developers that acts as a gateway into the company’s customer digital identity and authentication management system.

The new Civic Auth works as a single sign-on solution that works with existing or newly created digital wallets, and delivers a familiar user experience even for novice Web3 users, according to the announcement. Users connect their existing wallet, or enter an email, passkey or Google account, and if they do not have a digital wallet, Civic Auth creates one for them.

This approach reduces friction, the company says, and eases onboarding of users new to Web3.

Once the wallet is connected, Civic verifies the user’s personhood and government ID, which enables Sybil attack prevention and AML use cases. Civic introduced FaceTec’s face biometrics and liveness detection for proof of personhood in late-2023, and is now up 925,000 Passes issued.

On-chain gating and smart contract execution can be implemented to enhance privacy protection and security, and user’s digital identity can be reverified at login.

“Civic Auth, in combination with Digital IDs, Passkeys and reusable documents will help make sub 3 second verifications a reality,” Civic CEO Chris Hart told Biometric Update in an email. “This will prove to be a huge win for businesses faced with 40 percent abandonment rates during verifications today.”

He cautions that the benefits of reusable identity must be weighed against the possible need to delay processes to differentiate between humans and AI.

“By introducing Civic Auth, we’re enabling developers to meet people where they are in their Web3 journey. Now applications can serve their users with a flexible identity platform that will allow them to zip around the ecosystem,” says JP Bedoya, Civic’s chief product officer, in the release.

Looking ahead to more AI

“In 2025 the verification process will be transformed by AI and smart contracts, enabling a risk-monitoring approach that’s both more thorough and less intrusive,” Hart says in the emailed response.

“We expect to see automated biometrics and/or government ID checks become the norm, not the exception for both regulated use cases and for applications that can be vulnerable to bot or Sybil attacks.”

Increased use of AI agents will necessitate robust identity verification and authorization frameworks, he says, to control what they do, particularly in financial transactions.

And threats posed by generative AI will separate those who “choose solutions that are state-of-the-art in both biometrics and document verification” from those who do not.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  Civic Technologies  |  digital ID  |  digital identity  |  identity verification  |  reusable digital ID  |  single sign-on