The Omnitude Identity (OID) is one of the cornerstones of Omnitude’s push into real-world applications for blockchain. Its principles revolve around making online transactions more secure for both data and customers while benefiting businesses through a joined-up system of privacy, data management, storage and ease of interaction with customers.

This is the first article in many about the myriad of applications that the Omnitude Identity (OID) can undertake with little or no integration headaches. Let’s break down just a few of those advantages for a start.

Single sign-on and a self sovereign identity

We are all far too familiar with the process of signing into websites, remembering passwords and entering data such as delivery address and banking details every time we log in. It’s true that many websites hold and store this information for us making the process easier over time, but each site and vendor has their own system and holds this consumer data in their centralised databases, which is privately managed and maintained.

With a single sign-on to the OID any consumer need only use this system once to access any website that supports OID. This means that their data is held securely on the distributed network of our blockchain, not within centralised business data silos. This creates a world where the consumer themselves can allow what data is required to be released to each vendor on a permission basis. This creates a “self sovereign identity” where the vendor no longer needs to know the shipping address in its entirety – that piece of your data can be solely released to the courier. The benefits to the consumer are not only convenience but also privacy and integrity of their digital identity.

Well so far so good, but what about the vendor? Why does that have a benefit to them? Consider the cost of safeguarding those huge centralised silos of data, ensuring compliance with data laws, and ongoing maintenance and the like. These can be punitive costs that cripple businesses holding them back from developing forward facing IT systems.

Then there are the processes and resources required to onboard new customers and verify those identities.

And we haven’t even touched upon the reduction of ongoing fraudulent transactions that haunt the eCommerce world like a bad dream.