IDbox – Cost efficient device for self-sovereign identity

Um hello everyone. Um so today I'll be talking about something called um ID box. Um ID box is uh it's a project for non-profit and building a foundation for identity in developing country. Um so I will try to stay high level cuz it's I don't have that much of time to go very technical aspect of the project. I would rather prefer telling you what I've been doing what we've been doing in developing countries around identities.

Uh first about myself, I'm a developer entrepreneur and I've got a master in electrical engineering and master in computer science and I've been building different projects around fintech, transportation, energy, um all kind of project. Um and then I will tell you why I'm I'm telling you all of this. Um so the main problem worldwide already people a lot of people already mentioned this problem. But you've got 1.5 billion people in the world that lack uh official identification.

And we're talking about countries where they don't have internet, you don't have electricity, and you don't have smartphone. So if you think about all these different startup that try to solve the identity problem by building a very fantastic uh smartphone application, um for those people it's it's not relevant because they don't have a smartphone so they cannot really use the application. Um so we we're building we're using we're starting to use blockchain and we're building all these kind of crazy application but still those people they cannot really profit from the the new technology. So, I've been for the past 9 months, I've been trying to build something that developing country could use in order to first create a unique identity and then access to different services. And the main goal is having a device that don't really need internet, don't need a grid electricity, and doesn't require smartphone.

Um so, and the people can use it by having either analog phone or by having a smart card. And also it has to be has to be cheap, so everyone can actually buy it. And the private information from the user is not saved into central database like the Estonian government is doing or like the Adhar project from India. So, I'll quickly show you a video what I've been doing. The video is a bit it's 9 months old, so the project involved but you know, I didn't have time to edit the video, so I'm not sure if we can play it.

ID Box is a cost-efficient device that enables people within developing countries to create a unique identity. The ID Box device is composed of a Raspberry Pi, SMS chip, fingerprint recognition, and a solar panel. By combining these components, it allows us to create a secure identity based service that will revolutionize the way that developing countries participate in a range of activities. From Papua New Guinea to Ghana to Samoa, we are able to ship the device to any local area even if they don't have power or the internet. The devices, which cost less than $50, are hosted in a range of centralized areas like schools, churches, banks, and coffee shops.

People use their SMS phones to text the ID Box device to create a unique mapping of their phone and fingerprint, creating a personal ID. Once someone has created an ID, they don't need to use the box again unless they want to assign their ID to a new phone. Across the country, millions of people do not have an ID. This is John. He has recently heard about IDbox.

Using his phone and the local IDbox, which is located at his nearby church, he is able to create a unique ID. He sends an SMS to the IDbox to activate the registration process. He puts his finger on the fingerprint scanner. The box then encrypts the fingerprint using an advanced encryption process and then sends the hash of the fingerprint by SMS to the blockchain attached with John's phone number. If the identity doesn't exist, it then creates a new identity on the blockchain and sends a confirmation message to John on his phone to confirm his new unique ID.

With his new identity, John is now able to view his balance, history of transactions he has made, and to securely transfer money to other people who have created a unique ID. Each time John wishes to make a transfer with other active users, his unique ID is verified against the blockchain. He is quickly notified of his transactions on his phone. He can also participate in voting systems, healthcare registration, and ownership of land. Thanks to IDbox, John's engagement with these activities has been revolutionized.

Um so, this is was the video from 9 months ago. Um so, you can think about all the different problem is not possible today with a private key or unique key from a fingerprint. Well, it's not actually entirely true if you stay to your very local village and uh you uh you use like kind of like fuzzy logic extractors and all this stuff. Uh that's what we've actually been doing in uh two different place in the world. Um that was the first implementation of the IDbox.

Looks like a bomb, but it's not. So, basically it use IV's sensor. You got the phone number on the bottom of the box. Don't text it. That was my mistake.

I put the phone number, but now I had I had to delete it because people were sending me SMS. And you've got a SIM card on the right hand side. So, basically the SIM card can be bought from anywhere in the world. So, you ship the box to This is the idea. This is the main idea, basically.

You ship the box to any local area, and then they just have to buy a local SIM card to have either internet communication or SMS for communication. And then the solar panel charge the box cuz you don't have electricity. And you can also add a password and information on the on the screen. Then I built this new version. That was the new version of the ID box, version one I called it.

I went to Papua New Guinea to run a proof of concept. That was using private private database through four three different institution, the Central Bank of Papua New Guinea, the microeconomy loan, and mobile mobile mobile providers. Uh But the problem is this kind of box can be very easily hacked and people can perform like if they try to copy a fingerprint from someone and then try to create a new identity. So, then I I Sorry, I forgot to remove the stuff. Then I raised quite a lot of money from private grants, not ICO.

Um And uh So, with the money I was I was quite a reasonable amount of money, but this is was my new desk. So, I moved from my desk desktop to my living room. And I built open source 3D printer. So, basically the idea was to build kind of open source open source the entire project and build a everyone can actually build the ID box to create a unique identity. Um, so I design and I put the file online so everyone can actually download them and can they can play with the the ID box.

That was version So, version one on the top. And actually I'm I'm the first one. I mean, ID box is the first one to create a first 3D printed a Java card that everyone can print and modify and then can save like a personal token inside from a a daily fingerprint template. I will show you why it's uh it can be used for. Um, so that's the that's the new ID box.

So, you got a Linux distribution system and a screen inside rather than having a just Raspberry Pi cuz Raspberry Pi for for people they're not very technology they don't really you know, interact often with screens and technology in a very remote area. So, you do you have a screen and you can do different kind of you can access different services. So, you can you can unboard yourself so you can create a unique identity. And you can have you can use the box as a voting system or send money or receive money. So, if you if you remember the previous presentation, they were talking about how costly it is to receive money for those people in the village.

Most of the time they have to travel a 6 hours into the capital to receive money from the son who for example works in Australia. So, the son send money to to Papua New Guinea to Western Union. Western Union most of the time charge 30-40% and then the person to the village has to travel to the the the the the capital 6 hours. Cost them about 100 um 100 um the local money over there, which is almost the money they would receive for their son from their son. So, it's uh it's a complete disaster.

Uh but this you can use as a getaway for receiving money using an Ethereum card. So, you've got the SIM card on the side. You got the solar charging port. Um you got uh charging port, so people can actually sell electricity to other people in the village. Why is it important?

For people over there, they've got analog phone. But they don't have system to charge their analog phone. So, they need to travel 6 hours to the the top of the mountain and find someone who carrying very huge battery system, and then they buy the electricity. With this system, a local shop, they can actually buy the box and then sell the the electricity back to the people in the village. And it's a modular modular box.

So, basically what what it is is you can increase the security or if if you're talking about a big village, then you you you worry about collision into creating your private or public key, uh then you can add iris sensor and blood sensor. You can add different um biometric system. So, using the multimodal biometric authentication system. The at the end of the day, the private key obviously is never saved because you own the private key. That's the main idea of the project, and you can encrypt either you can sign um whatever you want like authentication system using your your own body.

Um So, Nick Johnson is over there. So, I created I I talked to Nick Johnson and few people from uh from the Eastern Foundation like Gavin also other people from Swarm you know etc. So, I built this first ID box card uh with the help of Nick. And so, basically we've got like but the entire village now has got the card. So, I can send you the unique public key of those people and you guys can actually send them money without passing by Western Union.

So, it's direct money from them, which is very quick. And I've been working on something new. So, ID box other wallet using a new Java card applet and using NFC and fingerprint. The USB token, I put it there cuz it was cool, but it's not actually functional. Um and the idea is to basically use this card to sign transaction because those people they don't have smartphone.

So, the ID box will transfer the template or the the private key to this card and then the user can actually put his fingerprint on the card and then sign a token transaction and then verify to the box that it's a real person. Uh the proof of concept, so I'm going to talk about this one. This one is really cool. So, we we decided to go to Papua New Guinea. I'm not sure if you guys know where is Papua New Guinea.

It's on the other side of Australia between So, you got New Zealand, Australia and then a little bit further you got Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea, why Papua New Guinea? If you look at the statistic, Papua New Guinea is probably one of the biggest country in the world where the people don't have the identity. It's about 90% of the entire population are not registered. So, they don't exist.

So, that was a big a big challenge. If we can build the ID box over there, if we can create identity in this village or in this country, then ID box can work can work everywhere. So, we went there. It's about 5 hours. We got a little bit stuck on the way.

Like it was like 5 hours. And so, imagine those those people. First, they don't have a car. If they have a bike, it's probably impossible for them to go to the the capital and then get funded, get the the money from their son from Western Union because they got to travel 6 hours. Sometimes they take the bus.

I let you imagine what the bus would do in this uh on this road. So, the village it was very fantastic. We um it's called La Lorraine. You can look online. And we visited uh people from the village and they were really um So, for the main was very interesting because they can sell electricity back to the people into the village.

So, they got incentive of buying the box because they want to um if you can sell electricity by charging the box, then people are more um they want to carry it. They want to take care of the box. Uh And then so basically what it does you create you create your biometrics, send it to the card, and also the public key of first the Ethereum card is linked with your phone number and linked with your public key of your biometrics. And it's a village of 150 50 people. So, the collision into the village is not very high and you use also GPS-based location system.

Well, I know like proof of presence or proof of position is not very uh it can be hacked. But if you add all this kind of uh biometric into the system, then you can make 100% not 100% sure. You never 100% sure. But that the person that was created was unique. And this is the local shop the man.

So, you see we actually done first transaction. Uh so, this woman uh received Ethereum from the son who's in Australia and they went to the local shop to get the money. Um Uh coming So, I'm looking at the time. Uh coming features. Um so, I've been looking into what we've been looking into uh zero knowledge proof um Uh so, making cuz the main idea about identity which is very difficult to build is you want to build a unique identity system, but at the same time you don't want to share your information.

So, it's a bit complicated. You You want to make sure I mean any service for businesses like bank, insurance, and all these kind of big companies, what they want to do what they want to know, they want to know that they want to be 100% sure that the person they're dealing with is unique. That's the main idea. And they don't really care about your information. The only reason why they actually get your information, they ask for your information is for them to make sure that you are unique.

But if you can provide a system first if we can make sure that they are unique, then there's no need for them to get to take your identity. So, I'll be looking into and also talking with Fabian as well like he's building the identity tip protocol into the Ethereum which is fantastic. So, you also like system where you can add multimodal biometric system like fingerprint, iris, and blood sensor. I'm saying that remember that this information is not saved anywhere. That's the main idea.

So, only the daily key and the public key is saved. And then you always need to go to the box to sign transaction. Well, if you use the only the fingerprint with your card, then you can use the card. But you cannot use iris or or finger blood sensor. I've been looking into something called Well, actually I think we are the first one trying to do that, but it's called I called it named it identity AIM.

It's basically like an ATM but more like for identity system. Um And the road map, so we've done version one, version two. Um Done Yeah, we're planning a second phase of the prototyping PNG. So, we got big institution over there that following the project. I mean actually part and partner with the project.

Got central bank, all the mobile provider, um insurance, micro micro loan, micro credits. So, you can all those different application can obviously be used by the ID box. Um So, it's for non-profit. So, if you guys are really interested in trying or helping or partnering, if you're also building something with identity, it would be cool. Um I think I've got time for a few questions.

And if you want to So, this one is a non-profit project. And if you want to come this afternoon for I'm building a flying carpet. So, it'll be a different discussion, but that's it. That was the ID box.