 Hi, I'm Dazza Greenwood and welcome to the fintech connect flash talk on Identity and personal data as an asset class. So for all you folks out there in internet land I'm gonna say go ahead and use hashtag We were taught it was a hashtag fintech connect and I'll glance down to see if there's questions or something when we get to the discussion Can you report? Yes, and this is being recorded to all righty Let's face it our digital identity and personal data are important economic and practical Resources, so let me break that down Economic resources probably what you're expecting because I'm talking about this is an asset class. So, you know folks are Sure familiar with assets generally and you know they come in two varieties There's you know, you could say there's tangible and intangible on property properties and it's fundamentally legally what all assets are Intangible property, I don't know why it just that we don't really have very sharp taxonomies yet for dealing with it And all of its in all the sophistication which it presents especially now in a digital economy Like we know how to do customer list. We know how to do software patents. We can do a few things under gap and IFRS European accounting standards a little bit more sophisticated, but in fact we're it we're behind in In terms of how to conceptualize the economic Object type of a digital asset digital property But it's not just about that. It's actually also a practical resource, which is so interesting So I guess that's why it's an asset. It's a you know, it's a Identity and data are useful practical Tools and and and vehicles for expressing oneself and for interacting for transacting really increasingly for living in the digital age and you know Do our education through you need to log in almost all government transactions health care on and on and on our identities are how we Interact and they're that's increasingly digital and then the data that we have, you know customer medical records or you know Banking data or geolocation data from our phones On and on the the email interactions online. This is we all know it's valuable, you know for marketing and for For other purposes, you know law enforcement comes up Epidemiology being able to do early detection on on outbreaks. It's remarkable what what can happen the value of what can happen, you know with productive use of personal data and It's increasingly values valuable So that that first sentence is our digital identity and personal data are important economic and Practical resources So here's why I want to say resource. Um, I could have said asset I could have said property. These are all important things to talk about but I wanted to highlight the our word because I think it's worth Thinking about I think it's worth on spotlighting that All on the digitally for the most part the most these assets exist Somewhere online that you can actually address and you can discover you can access through a network They are addressable you could say and so the simple way we always think about like that I always think about Finding and clicking to have a look at you see how you're nodding really well the way the way I think about this is I click on a URL and It takes me to the thing takes me to the movie takes me to the white paper takes me to the sign-up list takes me to the information so the What is at the other end of that rainbow is a it's a thing of value and It's described as a resource because a URL is a uniform resource Location or locator and if you think about what a resource is if you paint me will appreciate this I think it's a nice way to think like everything isn't considered a Resource necessarily I guess in theory anything could be a resource, but it's something where it's it also covers natural resources it covers We resourcefulness it covers a lot of things that aren't always in the shape of a physical encapsulated You know very definable piece of property resources can also be systemic as well as objects Resources a very nice word and it really helps to capture what's unique and what I'd like to be taught what we are talking about now with respect to this new emerging asset class of digital property Okay Could I ask you to hold it just for a second and then actually because I want to give you a ticket all right So your name I think was Andre. Oh, we can eat So let me just fix that first of all. So Andre Your number one and then just give me like one word that encompasses what you're going to say. Yeah, it's about Resource why are is like a good word, right? Okay. All right, so that's your ticket. Okay. Um So I don't forget and you don't forget We don't want to be cheated of that resource. Okay, so but I do want to kind of plow through this and I get to general discussion Your number one and so I ended that with ever increasing value And so exactly how valuable these things are right now It's a little bit hard to say you talk to valuation people and it comes up at time at bankrupts here If you're trying to sell something but the precise worth of And value and even the usefulness of these things is very it's early days. And so this is still very dynamic But whatever it is, I want to say it's of it's important It's of like discernible cognizable value And it's increasing like these are things I am certain that we can say And that's why it is we're talking about it Let's go a little further. Um So, uh, okay ever increasing value I regret having said that like not perpetually ever but you know, it's It's increasingly. Okay. And now we go to the next thing and we're going to dig in now. So Personal identity involves more than money can buy so I have to say that because um Um We're not going to talk about this in a fintech thing, but I just want you to note that unlike personal data um identity is Also something that's essentially related to a human being. There's an ineffable quality of it that is not Doesn't show up on any um radar. That's purely economic You know, so, you know, you could look at it spiritually you can look at it politically You can look at it socially you can look at it any which way you want But there's asked dimensions of it that are absolutely essential And that uh go beyond fintech. And so when we look at solutions that will work um to um to ensure people have digital identities and tools and accounts and processes that that operate correctly that are you know, um That support and reflect digital identity and allow us to have it and do what we Want to do or we're supposed to do it that to consent to things to Consent to be governed is part of what we do like some things that are very Hard to quantify but are very important and are at the bottom of our stack of our social compact um They're not all economic But it is also part of an emergency asset class. So it's there's a very definable Come on in. This is the guy I was telling you about And you're just right come on in Hey, I've been talking about you welcome, um Christian Smith colleague friend and um And an indicted co-conspirator on a prototype that we've been cooking up Um for that we're about to get to so I'm really really glad you're here Um, so I was just talking about I was just doing the um sandy pennlin foundations of like a world economic forum Data personal data is like the new oil. It's the oil of the new economy. That's it and it's emerging asset class um, so Thriving industries exist to collect track and trade this information Um, well businesses and legal models respecting the rights and expectations of all stakeholders Including you as a consumer But also as an investor and as an owner as an operator in many roles they have not Evolved to keep pace. That's why we're having to stock right now. And so if you you know, there's very sophisticated ways uh business models for um ownership of real estate very um very complete and you know, well settled um rules that like uh more for example could talk about um expertly for um Say property and bankruptcies like we know exactly how um a lot of property is Like especially tangible assets what's going to happen if you apply the like rules of secure creditors and other rules It's fairly well settled. So there's always ambiguity at the edges but by contrast it's really um Early early days when we look at this critical resource of our identity and our personal data And the worth of it. So in business models and industries and you know, really rely upon these this access to this data to to operate and use of of the of systems and services by which identity is expressed and and used and yet um, I don't know if we break the words down again, uh, the it's um legal models um with respect to the rights and expectations of all the stakeholders So which legal models Are there like well, there's always like people think about copyright and think about licenses people think about um privacy law um, but in fact really like a whole Serious look at just basic property law, you know from the magna card formula like the first year of law school Like you know, what happens when you lose it like but there's pretty well settled rules for lost property and like how it You know goes it what what are the different property rights that you have to your personal data and What which ones could you get a collateral interest in it? Which ones could you sell like I can write a poem that's just one type of personal data I can sell it if I want I could rent it I could um Destroy it is a core right. That's one of the ways you really know who owns something um We don't agency is another major one principle and agent like who's the principal and who's the agent christian? Can I talk about this sometimes with respect to um? Let go open id connect and token systems and that with blockchain identity um in general one would think if it's your identity and you would use it to you know consent to something or to um sign something or to You know just to be you That you would be the principal I would say and that you could maybe ask other people to do things on your behalf like would you Notarize this for me or would you you know perhaps you can delegate authority that sort of thing that would be an agency law If you put the weight in a lot of nozzles for it because it's quite ambiguous It's more like it's something that we're um renting or that we are leasing or that we're um being privileged on some ambiguous gift in return for advertising bases to utilize so that just agency law is a big one and there's uh So many other fundamental errors. So the basic legal frameworks And um, I would even say the roles Um and the relationships with respect to these things Have yet to um be defined Not so moving forward. Let's come to the good stuff. Um, so we've got some ambiguity But meanwhile the rise of smart phones, which is really key um smart homes and smart cities Among other things, but these are just have to frame the talk somehow So I wanted to just focus on those things. I think you know get our heads around Um, they're in a sense of kind of forcing the issue and so they have um catalyzed and they're also accelerating um questions of ownership and and um and um and rights and obligations, but also just valuation um and Um and they're giving us some uh context within which we can start to um Answer I think some of these questions and in fact we will have to so um Now The special now there's a sort of catalyst and accelerator upon the catalyst and accelerator of the web And and mobile phones and it is blockchain Um, and so while this is still a little bit over the horizon Um, it's not so speculative. It's premature to talk about and it's something that Should be understood because not only does it um Um raise some of these questions. It also may provide um the beginnings of ways to to um resolve to resolve So quick question. How many people here? Um Kind of know enough about what blockchain is so that you find yourself it like explaining it sometimes to people You have to raise your hand question Because I've seen it. Okay. That's like And so how many people like nope. That's not me. I don't explain blockchain to anyone Okay, so most people have Some sense of blockchain. So I won't go into it. Um afterwards. Let's talk about it. Um, but um I want to say frequently blockchain is a lot of the talks today are talking about um cryptocurrency Really important. Um, I'm not talking about that Something about the ledger that underlies and and enables um Cryptocurrency bitcoin ether and others Is is uh independently very useful. It is itself a great resource That we could actually that number one it has identity You get a blockchain wallet and it has a key pair public private key pair that you get. Um, and you have um an address therefore that you can um Be found at and that you can transact from Handy stuff more to the point Did you hear that word ledger? It's also this blockchain. I want me to look at is it's a ledger I would consider maybe a log, but you know, it's it's an authoritative record of transactions Oh goody like isn't that what we need I've been here for digital assets I think so. Um, and it's furthermore. It's it can be a shared authoritative record um, that's Rare, maybe not in like a joint venture or in some tight, you know partnership or extended enterprise context or under a legal regime for a registry or something um, you know land registry or you know collateral registry, but a general shared ledger Wow, I'm just thinking about all the days of like uh settlement and reconciliation at the end of the day and looking at everyone's books all the coordination costs and just look checking the ledgers of other partners and what happened that could That we had a trustworthy shared authoritative cryptographically awesome um publicly verifiable um ledger so With that in mind Let's go forward in the sentence I keep losing my place. It's so small It's not a good blockchain. Oh smart contracts. I don't want to talk about that and mass automation Okay, um, I'll just finish the sentence. Um offer new Modes for control methods for valuation and mechanisms for exchange of key rights to these new asset types All together then we have the rise of smartphones smart homes and smart cities accelerated by blockchain smart contracts and mass automation Offer new modes for control Methods for valuation and mechanisms for exchange of key rights To this new asset type. I should probably say these new asset types because identity and personal data are kind Blend, but they're kind. I think of them as different things You can discuss that so um, the reason I broke it down that way is one of the things I've noticed is I've been trying to get my hands around um Legal frameworks and workable, um economic and other models for ownership and just management fundamentally of personal data is um, it's unlike, you know, a physical book or I don't know like this This marker um when you exchange it, you know, it's not so Easy as like I just gave just a bob But it's more like we're changing rights to resource And so this isn't unfamiliar. This is all Precedented, but it's just helpful to note what's different and maybe to begin to Understand a road that we can go down to find perhaps workable solutions. So for example on um, like on a Like a cargo vessel like it could be, you know tens of millions of dollars. Um and Very detailed little rights Um that parties can have would have and obligations with respect to that ginormous piece of property Um, you know, there could be many many many companies in different consortium companies that different contingent rights to it and rights in bankruptcy and you know, rights for you and payment rights to You know space on the vessel and you know all kinds of stuff governance rights We're like mate, you know, go bearing the cost and and the rewards of you know, pair mate on and on and on and on And I think it's incredibly complex um And so like exchanging rights to things is is critical And you know, one of the first things you learn in law school is like ownership Isn't really a single monolithic thing. It's really a bundle of rights Um, and so that's really a very point critical Insight with respect to this new asset type So, um, that's why I put it that way. Well, let's move on Where's that scent? Oh good. I'm so glad you're here christian. So we will Catalyze and focus discussion around an applied identity anchor scenario An anchor scenario exploring the um legal validity admissibility and enforceability of blockchain based digital signatures To grant orb folk consent and authorization for electronic transactions How shall we do that? Just with our words because we don't have very much time and we're not really set up to do the demo But um, good news is that um, if you go to the That url there, um, you can actually see the whole demo in its glory and splendor Christian and and a colleague providing it to um digital federal credit union and you could get the code on github but instead let's just I'll just talk You threw it very quickly and then I lost christian to keep me. Um, um, just Don't be shy about correcting me technically. Um, thanks. So fun. So what we have done So did you notice that when I was talking about what's interesting about blockchain? I said that you get a wallet And an address and then I started saying Funny technical sounding things about key pairs And things like that remember that so let's take another look at that and why did I talk about that all the It's sort of a different level of abstraction is very technical. The reason I wanted to foreshadow that is because There's a lot of good cool things you can do with the cryptography and the hashes and the merkle trees And there's a lot of interesting sets of capabilities with blockchain, but one of them that struck me Like the first time I heard about it as something that sounded like wow I want to explore that uh and under license prototype is that You there's an automatic generation of a of a key pair a cryptographic key pair public private keys and um what what when I learned about that Remember the information security committee days in like the 90s like a bomb and ABA digital signature guidelines when I learned about that it was all about digital signatures and and and encryption um, so pgp um is a good example of of a Open source implementation of public private key cryptography that would download um Some software and generate a key pair and you can actually digitally sign email or documents you can encrypt things and the basic thing to know about it is anything encrypted with one of with say the Decrypted by the corresponding public keys when you generate a key pair You might publish or print a directory or send widely your public key And then if you were to say sign something with the card from your private key If people can verify it or basically Um with the um corresponding public key, they know it must have come from you maintain Like um maintained it like a private your private key um And if you encrypt something and they decrypt it you then you people can decrypt it with Really what you do is you would find someone's public key And if you wanted to encrypt something so long they could see it you would encrypt it with their public key And you can know only they could decrypt it because one more time anything encrypted Decrypted by the corresponding key like that's the big news about public private key cryptography Well, what well here's the thing is it's not easy key management is tough the security challenges It's the software is not easy to use. It's not widely integrated. We just still don't have them We don't have flying cars and we don't have public private key cryptography that's usable yet or do we Because if I encourage anyone who hasn't done it to download a bitcoin or ethereum wallet, um And see how easy it is to um get an address and in fact to conduct transactions Well, there's a key pair buried down in there and so it occurred to me and and I think others That could we just use that to let people literally sign things A signature that that actually would be with a key pair that's their own key pair Not one that's maybe locked into my adobe software locked into a vendor service or part of like a server to server Transaction with my employer or with a social network But a key pair that's actually associated with the individual That's cool turns out. The answer is It's not so easy, but you can do it and eventually after much suffering we did Uh, and so um when I say we I really mean christian and his team at mit And then we also had a slightly different approach with them with a bitcoin library that um That's some other some students. So there's more than there are ways that you can Identify and and utilize within the wallet um or to extract if you dare the Private key and then to use it in a different way. Um, and so we did that And um, you can see the demo and then what we just to try it. We we postulated a promissory note on a mortgage So we imagined an a mortgage origination scenario Where there's a lot of things to sign at the closing and we just imagined that the that the um borrower and also the creditor and also the title insurer and also the um, you know The verification employment and verification insurance that the parties basically could use keys that were associated with them for all the various signatures on that transaction And all the other transactions connected with that and just to see how that would look Turns out it looks beautiful um, really beautiful um for lots of reasons among them is that actually you can I'm sure and you can verify it properly. It's not buried in public in PKI certificates, which I don't know if anyone's ever tried to deal with those but You can't that's ASN one of coded like, you know, they're subject to these It's so hard. Like you just it doesn't even make any sense. This is piece of cake in the way christianstein did it They actually made it way better. Uh, I mean we're bringing json Serialized and it's really nice stuff so let me so the reason I'm highlighting that is because um What we decided to do in this room actually in other places around the fourth floor on tuesday nights as part of um legal hack night is uh with legal hackers is um to to test um the boundaries of this method for digital signature with a key pair that is really Owned and created and generated by the person signing themselves. It's aligned to an individual Um who has identity and who owns their personal data. Um, let us say um uh By um By going a little further than we did for like the credit union mortgage origination demo and instead we postulated. Okay What if they signed a um bill of sale for a used car? uh used car of like a little bit more than um the than the threshold for small claims court So I cannot remember what that is like ten thousand bucks or whatever it is and there anyway So we postulated that and then we postulated something went terribly And like either like a you know, I got the car But you didn't get the money or like I gave you money I didn't get the car something like that some version of the deal tanked And the reason we did that was trying to kind of control everything else should be as normal as possible Like a retail typical transaction like suffix county superior court The sort of thing that you see all the time with like settled rules of procedure and evidence settled Contract law settled as much as we can settle And then just change one little little thing What if we used a digital signature? um, that was blockchain based from a key pair that That was actually associated with those individuals Well, what we found is that um number one as we tracked through The rules of evidence um for admissibility and some other rules. It looked like a lot of what was required to prove Um, you know authenticity of the data and and that it had changed in a certain time To do attribution under uniform electronic transactions act and things like that Actually look like a really good fit for the capabilities of the technology ways to actually start to Collapse and reduce and um steps that otherwise you need to get like an expert witness to testify about you know, how I Business records in the business and you know chain of custody and to proof loss because we have this publicly verifiable distributed ledger um Uh, it also can serve as like a date and time stamping service and can show integrity of the data and can be You know, as I said attributed or tied to individuals from their key pair has a lot going for it The other thing we learned when we started I thought that we'd be done with this by now, but when it came time to make Pretend that we're entering into evidence we had some litigators chris and I and others Witness examination to lay the foundation for admissible and evidence and then we asked questions like okay, and so can you explain? You know further judge really like what is public private key recovery? Like what is the blockchain? What is just the basics of it and then like oh man? This turns out that we need to now work on how to simplify it and describe it in understandable ways But um, so I'd say um, we're so we're going to continue doing that. So this little Anchor scenario of using just the signature component is part of a Probably another month or two of work and then it'll culminate in like a partial mock trial We'll we'll go through the ceremony of entering into evidence and have some objections You know kind of wrap it up and do a blog post or something But um, I believe what we can say right now Is that um, this is a great example One type of capability that blockchain makes available that can be utilized as a tool and as a mechanism by which people can express Ownership of something like you could sign like a title Usually by which you can express a grant or of authorization or rights to maybe access or borrow something with a digital signature and by which we can have you know cryptographic publicly verifiable evidence of When and when authorization was granted when it was revoked Um, and and the data hasn't changed Yes, I'm just gonna just throw up there for your consideration and discussion Could be the sort of things that we would need um that at it's at wide scale, which Uh and outside of a single like vendor solution or a single, um, you know, um Um siloed kind of solution That we would need in order to successfully transition to this new Era this digital era for a property and identity. So Yay, let's go on Um, what are the key issues? options and opportunities Here are that prospectors Opportunities um for I hope I said for next Where dammit I lost my place option good opportunities for innovative fintech products services and markets Arising from this new digital asset class of identity and personal data and the tools around it. Um And I'm not going to opine on that because actually that's my question for you all Uh as as a um as a launching point at 639 into the discussion period So I just for the record um, and we are recording this Two places I was told to start at 610 and then we go 10 minutes late So I believe that we're at the 30 minute mark and we're doing great Um, and so with that, uh, let me just ask is do I need to turn off the recording now for the discussion? Does anyone want me to turn it off? If anyone I invite anybody that wants me to turn this off It's just oh, I guess you guys are in sorry, but it's just kind of facing this way um Just tell me in advance And if you don't like don't say your name if you don't want that in there or say your name If you want to get all the credit for your amazing contribution question This is the type of support Um, so with that um, thank you for your attention and like let's launch into the discussion And then actually we have a ticket and then I think you're next and so um first It's um Andre and you have a you had an insight about why the word resource is so good. Yes It's me sourcing. So it's a source of something which It might um Does not have a value inherently It gets value as it's being used So as your resource things it gets value in fact The value of it changes depending on how That's really insightful. I'm just going to write that down So and so and english is not your first language I take it Yeah, so this is really awesome. So re s o u r c e Which kind of gets us into some of the land use and some of the broader more, you know, almost like infrastructure or like environmental like a systemic low Dimensions of this concept of resource Thank you. Um, and I think uh, you wanted to launch us into discussion land hit it. So I'm looking at it like a big compliance officer perspective. So What if a person I'm not talking about the person who's all in and using blockchain for all these transactions easy to verify that The French case where it's their the first time user How does the bank compliance manager know like what that user signs a bunch of things and that says that wasn't So there's that's one question. Yeah, and then what stops the another person from opening multiple accounts And just forgetting which ones they you know, just error forgetting which ones they sign which one But just broad Great um, so I think the Like the Point of inquiry was um as we look at the identity aspect of blockchain. I mean think about it in a financial services context Wait a minute, but what about what about the extra time? We're flying cars 610 Oh darn it. Oh, thanks. Okay. Yeah, we're not doing good or we're doing so good that where it's all over Um, so um, let me just I don't have so the question was what do you do? In a sense, I'd say like how good What are the issues for identity and what happens if someone repudiates? They're uh, they're signature on what happens if they have multiple identities Maybe from money laundering or who knows what terrorism or something nasty, right? anybody so So part of it is that you know one of the things we looked into You know in the early parts of this is that Your identity has to be verified, right one way to think about it. So the sovereign identity Yeah, I think you totally control Right and nobody has to attest that it's really you right and it is identity that has to be verified, right Whether it's government see whatever it is, right, you know We're not in that world yet where the dmv would digitally sign your id Say it's really you right, but that world is Coming right or passport office does the same thing, right and says oh, yeah, that's really our will is right Um, eventually we will Will be there right now. It's just a matter of in part of the thing but identity Yes, people always have multiple identities right that you at work that you at home That's you and your club is you and your other situations right part of it It's a ui ux thing in terms of how easy It's still one wallet, right? But it's about how easy can I switch between different ideas when I need to When you're doing your gulping gamer came online or whatever that's a different idea Just just a quick pause to make sure you're tracking. I think and then you but I think you were actually I think everything you said is covers most of what is it Damon said but then I think when you said what if you had multiple you forgot that also sort of covers What if you actually had multiple different wallets and completely like an air gap between them is part of the question as well Sure, and I think part of it even now by some of what they'll perform on other things, right? So he's even away now using Uh different structures on the web to say this idea is the same as this idea, right? There's a way to say this person is his twitter this facebook This instagram mic so that you could have a place these that when google does the search He goes, okay. I know that all these ideas are related to this one person um, so could could I um andy ask for um Were they saying the senate like uh For what or defer like would you like um pause for one sec? Because I want to ask christian, uh, what is the method that that you're currently exploring technically um to connect um say like A key pair like a blockchain address for example the person to say like a singular role such as like A person at a bank that has been undergone. You know your customer and and other things you had some ideas. So what were they? so we're working on the idea You as a person could have Oh, sorry, we're working on the idea of attestations and attestation exchange networks We're gonna have third parties, uh, give cryptographically verifiable Assertions about you. So one of those could be for example bank or financial institution who's done know your customer type activities To say this is really this person's public key will verify this And they may not even disclose your identity They may just say we'll fair we'll vouch for this public key that we know who this is And maybe there's some kind of legal recourse where uh, we're getting to the lawsuit then they're obligated to disclose your identity But otherwise it's And other things like privacy preserving background checks where you could have maybe the clerks office issue an attestation saying This person really does not have any felons and convictions Versus giving away their whole criminal history, which could be extensive But all misdemeanors and yeah, um, thank you Christian. Um, so um, Andy and then I think we'll have to wrap All right. Well, I just wanted to say that this this idea that you're not going to know when the person is the same person Or who it is is sort of a point in time It's sort of a fantasy that we have but we're not we're going to have to give up because pretty soon computer's going to know Exactly who you are and most of the of many of the banks I know what they're coming to call an authentic idea that will actually When they point your identity into the global wallet You know take a picture of your driver's license or something and they check that for duplicates And there's lots of ways for checking for duplicates. So Actually, we're moving not eventually but very very rapidly in a situation where you're not going to be able to back out of your identity So, um, everybody that's thinking about this. So I'm just know that there's some good ideas And that we're in a place where there's money on the table. There's need. There's pain Um, and so there's opportunity for prospectors and there's also challenges And so there you go with a quick overview those who you want to learn and talk more We're doing future law class for the first time in mit you can sign up and audit if you like We have a hundred person room. That's not very filled right now at the media lab on tuesdays. Um, you sign up at mit.edu forward slash law um, and Thank you very much. Um, see you online