Reddit CEO weighs biometrics, passkeys for proof of personhood

There are various terms for the increasingly important ability to know if a real person is behind a virtual identity. Both “proof of personhood” (PoP) and “proof of human” (POH) have their advocates.

Steve Huffman, CEO of Reddit, has a different name for it.

“This idea of humanness, human verification – what I call ass in seat,” Huffman says, in an interview with TBPN. “Like is there actually a human using Reddit right now – regardless of the tooling you’re using.”

Reddit is weighing identity verification methods to combat its bot problem, and biometrics look like a good option. Huffman calls Face ID, Touch ID and biometric passkeys “the most lightweight way” to verify what may be called AIS.

In the passkey model, “a human has to touch or do or look at something,” he says. “That gets you pretty far” toward verifying that an end user is real.

Reddit’s model depends on anonymity, so Huffman is clear in stating that the platform wants to know if a user is a person – but not know anything about that person. He says there is an increasing need for firms that can provide a version of that service.

Reddit has previously floated the idea of enlisting World and its World ID for PoP.

Proof of humanness tied to larger discussions about digital selfhood

While some contenders have been steadfast in pursuing a biometric-based method for proving humanness, others have expanded the scope of their vision: Humanity Protocol recently pivoted toward verifiable credentials, and has been pursuing use cases in event ticketing following its acquisition of Moongate.

Reddit, meanwhile, is among large platforms navigating the global wave of online safety legislation imposing age assurance requirements on social media. Last month, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) fined Reddit 14.47 million pounds (about $19.55 million) for “serious failures in age assurance under UK data protection law.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital identity  |  passkeys  |  proof of personhood  |  Reddit