Episode 013: 05‐09‐2024 Big Tech Can't Solve Identity Crisis
- Host: Mike Schwartz, Founder/CEO Gluu
- Guest: Jeffrey Schwartz, Founder / CEO Dentity
- Co-Host: Rizel Scarlett, Staff Developer Advocate at TBD
How digital identity can empower consumers to build trust online, and why we can't rely on Big Tech to solve the identity crisis.
The internet was born without identity, which has a number of significant consequences. More than 25 million people in the US have been victims of identity theft, there are unspeakable abuses of anonymity, and it’s very difficult to create counterparty trust with peers online. As the internet brings us closer to strangers outside our circle of trust, consumers are left with inadequate options to create trust with strangers online. They can do nothing, rely on fake social media profiles, purchase public records data, or rely on the platforms for their safety and security. Seemingly, the last option seems most efficient, but in practice, consumers can’t rely on Big Tech or the social media giants to verify their users, or even prove if they are human. This “crisis of identity” has never been more acute, which keeps us coming back to the same question: why can’t we rely on the platforms we use every day to verify their users?
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Pew Research Center: Americans’ complicated feelings about social media in an era of privacy concerns
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Idris Elba makes case to verify all social media users, not just public figures
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A Beginner-Friendly Illustrated Guide to Verifiable Credentials
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What is the business problem that "Dentity" solves?
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Why is "counter-party risk" a new consideration for the gig economy in particular.
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Aren't the gig platforms like AirBnb providing identity proofing, security and reputation.
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What's the difference between Dentity and Id.me or Clear? Maybe they are centralized, but I thought the technology doesn't matter, as long as they are solving the business problem? Why is storing data in a wallet in the person's browser or phone better then storing it on the server?
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How has the rollout of Dentity to the AARP community progressed? I met a Microsoft engineer who asserted that presenting a QR code results in >50% dropoff. Is your solution simple enough for grandma and grandpa? In the Pew Research you referenced, only 37% were even on social media.
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In 2016, the Pew Research actually suggests Americans trust Big Tech more then telcos or the federal government. But now that Gen Z are adults, has that changed?
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In the gig economy, peer-to-peer marketplaces, and online dating, individuals are rightfully worried about being scammed. AI will only make things worse. So the "crisis" Jeff sees is that consumers need to know that they are interacting with a real person.
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Dentity is growing it's membership 10x per year: 20k, 200k, 2M... that's impressive. But the unique selling proposition of decentralized identity is largely irrelevant to the users or the relying parties. What they seem to like is that fact that Dentity does a good job at document verification and liveness detection, with good usability at a fair price.
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Mike is not convinced that decentralized identity will do much to decrease the blast radius of privacy breaches because even if you make a verifiable presentation, the RP may still store information about you, and they may do a bad job protecting their infrastructure. Hopefully what we're seeing is that at least passwords won't be included in that breached data.
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When SSI technology is able to mainstream may be years, or it may be decades. No one really knows. The EU's adoption of a wallet-based citizen credential will hopefully accellerate adoption. Today, most people don't know what a digital wallet is. And even if they did, they'd probably want it backed up in the iCloud.
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People trust phone manufactures more then they trust social media companies. Could Microsoft / Google / Apple enable peer-to-peer counter-party trust? Yes... and people would flock to it. But will they prioritize this use case?
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Jeff pointed out that the opportunity cost to society for our inability to foster online trust is huge. How many more cars would be sold online? How many more people might try online dating? How many more handy-people would find work? Not solving this crisis also has a cost.