Privado ID, formerly known as Polygon ID, today announced its spin-off from Polygon Labs in an effort to meet global demand for digital identity and reputation solutions that work with both onchain and online data. Privado ID’s protocol-agnostic design, from the team behind the Iden3 Protocol and PolygonID, is posed for expansion beyond the Polygon networks.
Unlike traditional systems, Privado ID’s technology leverages decentralization and private interaction to reduce cost, complexity, and counterparty risk.
With Privado ID, individuals control data about themselves, and can even use it to receive benefits or information directly from apps. This approach simplifies the process of proving humanity and uniqueness, verifying compliance, distributing incentives, managing ecosystem development, and interacting with tokenized assets.
Privado ID is actively establishing strategic partnerships with onchain and institutional organizations alike. These include notable proof-of-concepts (PoC) with several multinational banking and financial service companies, aimed at establishing the technical groundwork for interoperable and compliant identity frameworks. These frameworks are designed to be reusable among institutions, apps, and smart contract interactions.
The PoCs also explore leveraging Privado ID’s verifiable credentials (VCs) as the access control point for permissioned financial transactions. For example, VCs can be used to ensure only eligible participants engage with certain decentralized finance (DeFi) primitives, such as liquidity pools, expanding the scope of compliant institutional DeFi access. Similarly, these VCs can serve as proxy proof of personhood, qualification, legal status, and more to manage nuanced access to services based on user identity.
Privado ID has also integrated with the Verax attestation registry, on the Linea zkEVM Chain developed by Consensys. Paving the way for unified, crosschain identity, Privado ID enables Verax to resolve a wide range of use cases, such as sybil resistance, making it more difficult or expensive to create and maintain fake identities. This collaboration establishes a framework for interoperable identity that lowers the cost of discovery and coordination with composable trust. Apps can bootstrap user reputation at onboarding with tools from Privado ID and Linea that engage verifiable data from diverse sources.
Robust and privacy-preserving digital identity solutions are now big business. According to Javelin Strategy & Research, the cost of identity theft and fraud in the US alone reached an eye-watering $43 billion in 2022.
The rise of AI-generated content exacerbates the problem daily, making it increasingly difficult to discern real from fake content and threatening the integrity of information online.
This phenomenon is especially significant in the biggest election year in history, with seven of the ten most populous countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, India, and Indonesia, holding national elections. Numerous deepfakes have already targeted many candidates in the lead-up to these crucial votes, with the proliferation of these threats being described as “mis- and disinformation on steroids.”
Privado ID’s identity tools can establish the authenticity and source of digital content, mitigating risks posed by AI-generated misinformation. Privado ID uses cryptography and zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) to enable individuals to prove their age, qualifications, and other traits without revealing sensitive personal information. Privado ID also supports W3C identity standards that interoperate with traditional data systems and can integrate with any EVM-compatible private or public blockchain. Privado ID’s tech stack will be capable of supporting non-EVM chains in the future.
The Privado ID executive team includes co-founders: David Schwartz as CEO, and Antoni Martin as COO. Additionally there will be two non-executive cofounders: Jordi Baylina, Polygon co-founder and a key figure in the development of Polygon zkEVM, as technical advisor, and Polygon Labs co-founder Sandeep Nailwal as growth advisor.
“Privado ID’s identity infrastructure empowers everyday people and lowers the cost of trust across industries,” said Antoni Martin, co-founder of Privado ID. “We believe that Privado ID’s technology, with its emphasis on privacy, user control, and interoperability, will revolutionize how individuals, agents, and organizations find each other and interact in connected spaces, lowering the cost of trust and mitigating the risks of identity theft, fraud, and misinformation. Our commitment to remaining protocol-agnostic aligns perfectly with the idea that unified data is essential for blockchain interoperability and enhancing user experience, both of which are crucial for the success of Web3.”
To stay updated on Privado ID’s developments, please visit: https://www.privado.id