Melbourne-based ShareRing has been tapped as the primary digital id supplier to start testing its tech for the Australian authorities’s US$4 million verification know-how trials authorized late final yr to implement social media restrictions for underage customers.
The blockchain agency will launch a pilot program with faculty college students in Darwin, testing its self-sovereign id platform that enables customers to securely and securely present age verification whereas protecting management of their private knowledge.
Trials are set to start subsequent week as Australia appears to be like to implement new laws by December, banning youngsters underneath 16 from creating social media accounts, with platforms going through fines as much as US$30.7 million for non-compliance.
ShareRing’s use of reusable digital IDs helps handle privateness issues from Australians who’ve voiced in opposition to the chance of ID theft in government-run databases. These issues have been round since final yr when the laws was authorized for trial.
The tech “eliminates the necessity for repetitive verification whereas sustaining prompt trustless verification and a privacy-first strategy,” Tim Bos, ShareRing’s founder and chief know-how officer, informed Decrypt.
In contrast to standard centralized id programs, ShareRing’s blockchain-based tech helps take away potential single factors of failure or knowledge breach dangers if just one entity, reminiscent of a authorities, has management of the info.
It permits customers to confirm their age with out importing private paperwork, as a substitute sharing solely cryptographic proof, protecting knowledge within the person’s management, and lowering publicity to breaches from nefarious, would-be hackers.
Constructed on the Cosmos SDK, ShareRing’s tech gives a method to create customized blockchains, on this case to be used in serving to display screen out age-inappropriate content material on social media platforms by verifying customers, with out essentially exposing their private data.
Utilizing Tendermint, a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, ShareRing can course of registrations with effectivity whereas additionally permitting it to connect with different blockchains.
The corporate claims it has secured accreditation underneath the UK’s Digital Identities and Attributes Belief Framework and joined Choose ID, the UK’s first Reusable Digital ID Community for monetary companies.
Trials for Australia are being led by Age Test Certification Scheme (ACCS), an impartial evaluation consortium. ACCS will examine age verification applied sciences earlier than the social media restrictions take full impact inside the yr.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair
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