Civic: Identity For The Future

I started my crypto journey back in June of 2015 when I first found out about Bitcoin. After about a week of consuming as much information on the topic as possible, I decided to buy a small fraction. Now it's 2018, I don't like where Bitcoin is going, but am fully bullish on STEEM, and find Civic to be a great blockchain app that already works.

Civic was founded by Vinny Lingham and Jonathan Smith. Vinny is an entrepreneur and founder of Gyft, one of the first sites to allow it's users to purchase items with Bitcoin. His experience reaches over a decade in the e-commerce realm, and now aims to solve the identity theft issue using a blockchain.

Jonathan's expertise comes from fifteen years as a banking and technology advisor. Through his security intensive and complex working environments, Johnathan adds his skills in leadership, delivery, and innovation to the identity theft battle.

Identity verification is slow and expensive by today's standards. With the internet on every device, there should be a way to speed up the verification process while keeping it secure. Civic aims to bring the world secure and low-cost access, in an on-demand fashion, to identity verification.

Currently, each time we go to an institution that needs to verify our identity, we have to start from scratch. It does not matter how many times we have done so in the past with other companies, if we are new to the company we interact with.

Civic already has a working identity verification product that is available worldwide. Civic won Best New Startup award at the K(NO)W Identity Conference 2017.

The Civic app already works, and works well. Many people using it while setting up a new credit card or other similar task, have noted the speed with which the app responds. Within seconds of applying of the identity check, people report getting an alert on their device asking if it was them. This radically reduces the chances of having our identity stolen.

Civic Has Reached Its Goal Of Selling $33 Million In Digital Currency Tokens.

Civic’s Ecosystem

The Civic ecosystem is set up to incentivize the only trusted Identity Verification (IDV) providers. This includes institutions such as banks and utility companies. Any IDV trusted entity can verify the details of any personal (me or you) or business entity for the Civic ecosystem. Once this verification step is complete, the information is added to the blockchain.

These same IDVs will be able to set a price for the verification service they provide using smart contracts. This leads to a strong and decentralized IDV service, unlike what we have today. Since no one company can get "hacked" and have all the data leaked, the cost of "Know Your Customer" (KYC) can be greatly reduced.

With KYC on the blockchain, not only will the price of business be reduced, but there will also be fewer inefficiencies, allowing both the security and privacy of user information to scale up greatly. This is both a benefit to the company in need of the information, as well as the customer as it improves the overall experience of KYC.

Civic’s Token (CVC)

As with any blockchain based service, there is a token that may be bought and sold on exchanges. Civic did hold an ICO to kickstart their development and fund promotional interactions. A third of these tokens are held by Civic, another third are up for sale on exchanges, and the final third is used in the ecosystem as payment to the IDVs.

When an IDV validates a person's information for another company, the IDV receives their desired amount of Civic Token (CVC). Users can also earn CVC when they provide the information needed on their account within the ecosystem.

All categories of participants can utilize CVCs for identity-related products and services provided by Civic and third parties through the ecosystem.

Secure Identity Platform

Civic mixes the decentralized blockchain and mobile device biometrics to provide a form of multifactor authentication. No need for a username or password, nor do we need yet another app or a physical hardware device to store all of our 2FAs.

The Secure Identity Platform (SIP) uses this mix as the authenticator for both websites and mobile app logins. Instead of typing in a username and password, all we need to do is open the Civic app, enter our pin or use the fingerprint scanner, then scan a QR code. That's it! I have used this to access sites already such as WikiHow and the new Prism exchange by Shapeshift.

The keys used in this system are both generated, encrypted, and stored on the user's device. This allows for websites to not have to worry about a breach where all the user information is compromised. One place I would love to see Civic implemented is as a replacement for the LastPass master password. That would remove the weakest link in any password managing system.

While this service may sound similar to Facebook Login, Civic’s Secure Private Sign-up (SPS) and Secure Private Login (SPL) offers both privacy of data transactions and greater trust in user identity. SPL provides a better user experience and multi-factor authentication without weak passwords, password reset vulnerabilities, or the hassle of legacy two-factor authentication.

New accounts are created through the Civic app itself by providing the requested information. This is unique to the device it was created on and, in the event that a new device needs to be used, a simple email to Civic support will allow you to reset your account's linked device. That is, of course, after some verification.

Identity Theft Protection

Civic also has built-in identity theft protection that is proactive, rather than the traditional reactive approach. They do this with identity theft monitoring.

While the concept of identity theft monitoring is nothing new, where Civic excels is in their speed of alerting the user. Instead of getting an email with information to call to verify identity or purchases, or a phone call we may not answer due to an unknown number, the Civic app alerts you with a yes or no question, allowing you to say no before the identity thief can cause any damage.

While Civic is free to use, there is a standard plan that costs about $30 USD per year. With this plan, the user gets this monitoring service. They even have a one million dollar fraud coverage for all users! Sounds like $30 USD a year is worth the peace of mind knowing you can stop a thief in their tracks rather than filing for that one million USD.

Civic became the first company to turn identity theft protection into truly warning you before the identity theft truck hits you. - USA Today

Thanks For Reading!

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