A protocol designed to use zero-knowledge cryptography to verify identities has landed on the Aleo blockchain, a zero-knowledge privacy (ZKP) network.
The protocol, called zPass, allows users to upload identity documents offline to privacy servers and share anonymous “proofs” with organizations. This means that these companies do not have to store this data themselves.
Users who generate their own proofs can then control exactly who they share their information with and how much personal data they want to reveal.
Alex Pruden, CEO of Aleo, told Blockworks in an interview that zPass represents the implementation of a research paper on zk-creds.
“The idea of zk-creds was to take a US passport, turn it into a digital document and then use that document for age verification,” Pruden said.
Pruden explained that with zPass, a two-step process ensures individual identities are securely verified. First, the issuance of the data in the chain is based on the existence of a physical document, and then it is the ability for each individual to manage their own privacy keys that generate the ID.
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“The most important part of what zk-creds and zPass do is issuing the identity, and the identity is the document that is based on a real-world physical document,” he said.
John Reynolds, a product manager for Aleo, noted that existing zk identity systems either rely on centralized proof systems or are decentralized but not private.
“Many zk identity systems use a centralized proof system or have centralized sequencers – we have created a custom [layer-1]“We have the ability for users themselves to act as provers, they can generate proofs, send those proofs to Aleo, decentralized validators can validate those proofs, and the Aleo blockchain won’t push all this overhead verification to third-party systems,” says Reynolds. Blockworks said in an interview.
On decentralized identity solutions, Reynolds said users can be tracked because they are not private and information is publicly available in a database.
“They may not be able to see all of your information, but they can see who you share it with and how often you share it with them, and therefore can target you,” he said.
At launch, zPass will focus primarily on providing zk age verification and creating child-safe spaces online, Reynolds said.
“We want to create a space that supports children and prevents them from being exposed to potential predators [predatory] content,” he said. “So our main goal [for now] is to lean on age verification.”