How Much Identity Management with Blockchain Would Have Saved Us? A Longitudinal Study of Identity Theft
The use of blockchain for identity management (IdM) has been on the rise in the past decade. We present the first work to study the actual, large-scale impact of using blockchain for identity management, particularly how it can protect Personally Identifi
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and K. Suzanne Barber
The Center for Identity, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA {razieh,sbarber}@identity.utexas.edu https://identity.utexas.edu
Abstract. The use of blockchain for identity management (IdM) has been on the rise in the past decade. We present the first work to study the actual, large-scale impact of using blockchain for identity management, particularly how it can protect Personally Identifiable Information (PII) to curb identity theft and fraud. Our insight is that if blockchain-based IdM protects PII, it can reduce the number of theft and fraud cases that take advantage of such PII. At the Center for Identity at the University of Texas at Austin, we have modeled about 6,000 cases of identity theft, and PII exploited in them. We utilize this model to investigate how three real-world blockchain-based IdM solutions (Civic, ShoCard, and Authenteq) could have reduced the identity theft loss over the past 20 years if they had been universally used. We identify which PII protected by blockchain is more critical. We also suggest new PII to include in blockchain-based IdM. Our work paves the way for the design of more effective blockchain-based IdM or any other new line of IdM for that matter. Keywords: Identity management Self-sovereign identity
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· Blockchain · Identity theft ·
Introduction
The blockchain technology has found a variety of applications beyond cryptocurrency, from insurance to the Internet of Things. One of these applications is Identity Management (IdM), the framework that identifies, authenticates and authorizes users in order to control access to resources. Many concrete blockchain-based IdM solutions exist today, ranging from successful startups to open source projects and foundations. One of the most prominent goals of IdM, when utilized to manage Personally Identifiable Information (PII) (such as email addresses, passwords, fingerprints, and driver’s licenses), is to protect PII from identity theft and fraud. Identity theft and fraud is the fraudulent acquisition and use of such PII. According to the latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice published in 2019 [8], c Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 W. Abramowicz and G. Klein (Eds.): BIS 2020 Workshops, LNBIP 394, pp. 158–168, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61146-0_13
How Much Identity Management with Blockchain Would Have Saved Us?
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10% of all U.S. residents reported that they had been victims of identity theft in 2016 with a total loss of $17.5 billion. Blockchain-based IdM solutions offer user control, decentralization, immutability, transparency, security, and privacy for the PII they manage–added properties that can prevent identity theft and fraud. The actual effect of these solutions on the landscape of identity theft and fraud, however, has not received the attention it deserves. We present the first work to examine the large-scale effect of this new type of IdM through the lens of a longitudinal study of close to 6,000 cases of identity theft and fraud, which took place ove
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