Privasea CEO touts biometric NFT tokens as secure proof of human-ness

South Korea’s Privasea have developed an app that securely protects biometric information through encryption.

The so-called “human proof” application is called ImHuman and it collects biometric data that’s encrypted with fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) technology. FHE is able to perform calculations on already encrypted data without the need to decrypt it, making it impossible to recognize user’s sensitive data.

Privasea CEO David Jiao in an interview explained what it all means. “ImHuman is an app that helps distinguish between humans, AI, and bots online,” he told Bloomingbit.

“Users can receive a Non-Fungible Token [NFT] that proves their humanity by recognizing their face in the app; users can register the NFT to prove they are human, and platforms can filter out bots and spam.”

Privasea has raised US$5 million in a seed round investment that involved fourteen VCs including Binance Labs and Gate Labs. Accumulatively, Privasea has achieved a total investment of US$9.75 million. The company is a Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network (DePIN) that addresses biometric data leakage.

The imHuman app is a so-called Proof of Human (PoH) technology that attests human liveness to protect digital presence from bots and AI impersonations, according to the company’s website. Users can validate their likeness through facial biometric to generate a unique NFT, which can be used as proof of identity.

“Our goal is for users to retain control over their biometric data, self-custody it, and still be able to verify themselves securely in Web3 without privacy concerns,” Jiao told Beincrypto.

Privasea are currently building the mainnet infrastructure and testnet, with the beta version of the testnet scheduled for release on Friday. “Users can participate in testnet beta mining to obtain the token ‘PRVA’,” Jiao said, adding that tokens will also be distributed to miners who provide computing power.

The token is releasing in the first quarter of 2025, according to Jiao, and that they’re negotiating with exchanges for the Token Generation Event (TGE), and that the plan is to airdrop 10 percent of tokens issued in the first year to ImHuman users. Jiao said their app has some 300,000 users already registered.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  data privacy  |  data protection  |  digital identity  |  funding  |  homomorphic encryption  |  identity proofing  |  NFT  |  Privasea  |  selfie biometrics