What Is Proof of Personhood (PoP) and How Does It Work?

TL;DR

• Proof of Personhood (PoP) confirms a user is human (and not a bot account).

• Challenges of PoP include privacy, scalability, and accessibility.

• Proof of Machinehood (PoM) offers an alternative solution that verifies machines are legitimate participants in online systems.

The digital age has brought us incredible advancements, but it has also opened doors to new security challenges. One critical concern is the proliferation of fake identities, also known as Sybil attacks. These attacks involve a single entity creating multiple accounts to manipulate online systems, skew voting results, or gain unfair advantages. Here's where Proof of Personhood (PoP) emerges as a potential solution.

What is Proof of Personhood (PoP)?

PoP is a mechanism designed to verify an individual's humanness and uniqueness in the digital realm. It acts as a digital identity cornerstone, ensuring "one person, one vote" in online systems, particularly those built on decentralized technologies like blockchains.

How Proof of Personhood Works

The main proposed approach for PoP involves biometric verification:

Techniques like iris scans implemented by World can be used to establish a unique human identifier.

Why Do We Need Proof of Personhood?

The need for PoP arises from the vulnerabilities of traditional online identity verification methods. These methods often rely on easily faked credentials like email addresses or usernames. PoP offers several advantages:

• Combating Sybil Attacks: By ensuring one person has one identity, PoP prevents malicious actors from manipulating online systems through fake accounts.

• Fair and Democratic Governance: In decentralized systems like blockchains, PoP helps ensure fair voting and resource distribution based on unique human participants.

• Enhanced Security: PoP strengthens overall security by making it more difficult for unauthorized entities to gain access to systems.

Proof of Personhood Use Cases

Proof of Personhood is a method that has been employed since the early days of the internet to enhance security and its applications can also be extended to the Web3 space.

1. Identify Verification: Proof of Personhood can be utilized to verify the identity over digital platforms. It prevents fraudulent activities on the internet and creates a secure environment.

2. Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs): PoP verifies voting rights and ensures fair decision-making within DAOs, which are community-governed online organizations.

3. Universal Basic Income (UBI): UBI is a concept used to mitigate or reduce poverty to some extent by providing monetary benefits to lower-income people. PoP can be used to distribute UBI fairly and securely, preventing fraudulent claims.

Challenges and Limitations of Proof of Personhood

While promising, PoP faces some challenges. Some of them are:

• Privacy Concerns: Biometric verification raises privacy issues, and social network analysis can be intrusive. Maintaining a balance between security and privacy is crucial.

• Scalability: Implementing PoP for large-scale systems requires efficient and secure methods that can handle a high volume of users.

• Accessibility: Ensuring PoP is accessible to all individuals, including those with disabilities or limited resources, is essential.

Emerging Issues with Traditional Identity Solutions

Traditional identity verification methods like usernames and passwords are becoming increasingly vulnerable to frequent data breaches exposing large amounts of personal information and making it easier for attackers to create fake identities. Further, reliance on centralized identity providers makes individuals susceptible to data misuse or manipulation as well. Thus, it is important to come up with innovative and unique solutions to authenticate identity in a digital landscape i.e., Proof of Personhood.

The Evolution of Identity Verification in Blockchain

Traditional identity verification relied on physical documents and centralized authorities. While digital technologies introduced biometrics, concerns about data security and privacy remain. Today's systems using usernames and passwords face frequent data breaches and lack interoperability.

Blockchain technology offers a paradigm shift. It empowers individuals to control their identities through Decentralized Identity Management (DID). Data is stored on a secure, distributed ledger, minimizing the risk of breaches and manipulation by centralized entities.

Furthermore, blockchain's immutability ensures data cannot be tampered with, ensuring trust in online interactions. Users can selectively share specific identity attributes to enhance privacy, potentially using zero-knowledge technology. Blockchain-based identity solutions can also employ standardized protocols, allowing for seamless verification across platforms and eliminating the need for multiple credentials.

Proof of Personhood (PoP) is one example of how blockchain secures identities. PoP is expected to create a future where individuals have greater control over their digital identities and participate in online systems with greater trust and security.

World's approach to PoP

World has implemented Proof of Personhood through iris biometric data scanned via orbs which are then converted into iris codes.

These codes are split across different node operators via the Anonymized Multi-Party Computation (AMPC) system. To prevent collusion, Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) can be implemented for each operator to ensure execution integrity via its tamper-proof nature.

Learn more about how Automata further secures World's AMPC here.

FAQ

What are the main challenges of implementing Proof of Personhood?

The main challenges include balancing privacy with security, ensuring scalability for large-scale systems, and guaranteeing accessibility for all users.