LifeWithBlockchain: Convenience and Data Safety - The masteraccount

 Pain Point - The Story

Last week I wanted to set up a new bank account and I was able to do everything in 10 minutes on my smartphone (great!). During the last step, I had to verify my identity, which was done by an external company. You have to show your ID card to an employee during a video call. Apart from not being able to connect to the service for 30 minutes because of a bad internet connection (at home through WLAN), I was a bit doubtful about presenting such an important document to a stranger through the internet who even takes a photo of it. I am not able to control what happens with my personal information.

The idea - The masteraccount

Of course, I just could avoid the situation I just described by using a regular commercial bank, but rather I'm imaging a platform where I can upload specific personal data and login into all online services. It would be like a decentralized version of WeChat with data protection and control.

For example, right now if you want to use a car-sharing service, you have to upload your driver license and after a couple of days, you are free to go. With the masteraccount, you only have to confirm your documents once and the service just gets a confirmation but no data is revealed. This would make the process faster and more secure.

The technology

The personal data gets uploaded by the user and is then saved as a hash on the blockchain so that nobody can reveal the personal information. If necessary, an oracle can confirm the validity of the data. When I sign up to a service, they just compare the hashes and get a confirmation that all the data is right.

Thank you for reading my post!  #LifeWithBlockchain 

Special thanks to Pascal Mehrwald (@pascalmehrwald), Benjamin Pabst von Ohain (@benpvo), and Prof. Dr. Isabell M. Welpe for offering a course on blockchain at the TUM and inspiration for all the ideas.