Yoti and LedgerState today showcased at the World Economic Forum how governments and other organisations can capitalise on evolutions in blockchain technology to store personal data of their citizens and customers.

Yoti, the digital identity platform, lets people create verified digital identities through their free smartphone app. The app uses facial recognition technology and a security team to match facial biometrics to approved photo IDs. These digital identities can then be written to a private ledger using an evolution of blockchain technology called Hashgraph. Hashgraph uses an asynchronous process, meaning it is not reliant on the proof of work systems required by a synchronous solution like public blockchain solutions. This speeds up the process and makes it more suitable for identity and payment platforms.

The proof of concept showed how an individual can verify themselves to a government database and then have additional attributes attached to their identity by an approved official. This could be sensitive information like a tax code or a health insurance number. Those details are then written to a secure, private distributed ledger that can only be accessed by approved officials. This gives governments (and indeed other organisations) the ability to take advantage of the benefits of blockchain technology and its immutable records without having to compromise speed, cost effectiveness and efficiency.

Robin Tombs, founder and CEO of Yoti said: ‘Yoti can work well with first and second generational public blockchain technologies like Bitcoin and Ethereum for some elements of our identity platform, like KYC. However, third generation technologies like the Hashgraph can handle the requirements of a global identity platform authenticating millions of users each day at the required low transactional costs. Most consumers will currently tolerate a KYC Verification completing in a minute or two, but not for log in or payment which need to be almost instantaneous. Permission-based networks leveraging new asynchronous protocol technology like LedgerState’s use of Hashgraph, let Yoti take advantage of the many benefits of a distributed ledger solution whilst not compromising on the effectiveness of our identity platform.’

Nino Vang Vojvodic and Damir Yandrich, founders of LedgerState said: ‘Now there are finally tools and systems available for governments to grant a higher level of Sovereignty to their citizens. Early implementers will gain significant advantage when it comes to attracting the best talent and people to their citizenship or residency.’