Whenever you move — your physical movement is constantly tracked. Whether you use Google Maps to navigate your arrival in Paris or New York, hail an Uber back to your Airbnb, or post a Facebook for friends in a restaurant after a conference. However, there’s a complete lack of user influence and conscience over how this location data is stored and used. In fact, Google, Uber and Facebook are harvesting enormous amounts of data based on every interaction you have with their services. At uPort and FOAM we ask the question: how can we regain control over our movement and location data and how can we link it to our identity in a safe way? A combination of FOAM’s proof of location protocol and Ethereum’s identity protocol uPort provides a solution.

How can we regain control over our location data and link it to our identity?

At FOAM and uPort, we believe people should own their personal information, controlling when and with whom they choose to share their location. Our team is committed to solving this, building spatial protocols, standards, and applications that offer a higher level of security and more resiliency than conventional geospatial technologies. uPort is a self-sovereign identity system that allows people to own their identity, fully control the flow of their personal information, and authenticate themselves in various contexts — both on and off the blockchain.

FOAM + uPort

uPort integrated in the Spatial Index. Sign up for the private beta here.

FOAM has recently integrated uPort into the private beta of FOAM’s visual blockchain explorer, the Spatial Index. The uPort integration means you can now use your uPort identity wallet to deploy spatial smart contracts and sign transactions, also known as crypto-spatial coordinates, directly through the FOAM web application

uPort used to deploy a crypto-spatial coordinate directly through the Spatial Index

This is the first step of our partnership with the shared goal of giving users self-sovereign control over their location-data.

With our recent work on the crypto-spatial coordinate standard and Spatial Index visual block explorer, we introduced some of the essential components we will be using to develop FOAM’s core project, a decentralized protocol for proof of location. FOAM’s proof of location protocol empowers a permissionless network of autonomous radio beacons that can offer secure, synchronized location services independent of external centralized sources such as GPS.

FOAM’s partnership with uPort will give future users the possibility to store proof of location certificates directly in their uPort wallet as a self-sovereign log of location attestations.

Proof of location allows users and autonomous agents to privately record authenticated location data at times of their choosing. Users can then reveal personal information at their own discretion by presenting a fraud-proof presence claim.

Future Use Cases

Combining a decentralized proof of location protocol with a self-sovereign identity platform creates a range of incredibly exciting use cases. Our teams are really excited about this potential synergy and look forward to supporting our community’s enthusiasm to build on top of the FOAM Protocol. Below, we’ve outlined a few potential use cases for your consideration. We love to think simultaneously practical and big.

Proof of Attendance

At uPort we’ve been issuing proof of attendance attestations for conferences and meetups we’ve presented at around the globe. An attendee simply scans a QR code we present during a presentation to prove his attendance. However, we’ve seen people take photos of this and share it on Twitter, enabling anyone to technically attend. If we can combine a proof of attendance with a geospatial location we solve this problem. Location specific voting

Alice could vote with her uPort ID’s in local policy referendums or government surveys without the need for official documents or centralized authorities. In a refugee context or with undocumented individuals this could be extremely interesting. Location specific oracles

Adam’s answer has more weight if he can prove that he is at the location in question. Let’s assume he’s at the horse races and is the first one to update the results in real time. Geofencing for Crisis Support

Cindy and Andrew’s home is severely damaged in a cyclone and is in need of food supplies. With a verified location within the affected area, they can automatically receive tokens for relief. Machine identity with location attestation

Grace orders a self-driving car on her ride-share app. Location verification allows her to be sure the car she ordered is the one in front of her, and the car, can verify it’s her too. Insurance

Sarah and David get an automatic refund on flight ticket when the flight doesn’t show up on time by proving they were at the airport.

Where we are in space and time is an incredibly powerful indicator of our actions, habits and intentions. All this data is currently being aggregated and controlled by centralized services. By combining location data and identity on a decentralized protocol we can circumvent these systems and create entirely new economies. We can create a world of user generated and owned location data that is trusted, interoperable and incentivized. FOAM is pioneering new token economies on location data and uPort will liberate individuals to take full advantage of this.

This blog post was co-authored by the FOAM and uPort teams.