Inderjeet Kaur took over 150 driving tests for other drivers, across Swansea, Carmarthen, Birmingham, and London. Craig Butfoy overstated his flying experience to become a pilot at British Airways. Imagine how their actions threatened public safety.
These cases of identity fraud, though relatively obscure, point to much a bigger problem of identification and authorization facing us today. Traditionally, it's been pretty challenging to prove that a person is what they claim to be-pilot, driver, account holder, digital wallet owner, etc.
The internet has evolved to worsen the problem with a wider digital identity attack surface. Particularly post-COVID, as internet-powered systems and processes become increasingly central to almost every aspect of our personal and professional lives.
Gamium strives to resolve this crisis by creating the Internet Identity Layer. It aims "to make the Internet a better place where people can feel more connected, trusted, and in control of their privacy," according to Co-CEOs and Co-Founders, Alberto Rosas & Alejandro Rosas. They have thus launched Didit, an identity and financial protocol designed to revolutionize online interactions, enhance security, and streamline user experiences.
The Devil's two horns: Verifying and managing identity
Identity fraud can take various forms: account takeover, bonus abuse, bot attacks, matched betting, card cloning, multi-accounting, etc. The list is practically endless since attackers utilize technological progress to constantly devise new, more sophisticated ways. But irrespective of the method, identity fraud causes massive financial, credibility, and resource loss for businesses.
Over 80% of financial services organizations face authentication-related breaches, according to Vanson Bourne. This implies an average cost of $2.19 million, while companies worldwide are expected to spend over $58 billion on KYC/AML compliance in 2023. Thus, the cost of identity fraud and combat measures are both expensive for businesses.
Consumers, on the other hand, usually have over 100 passwords for different accounts. Managing them is naturally an ordeal-no wonder users get locked out of 10 accounts per month, on average. Moreover, perhaps hoping for easier management, millions of users reuse the most popular passwords, i.e., some combination of 1234567. This paves a rosy path for attackers.
For these reasons, among others, more than 89% of financial industry leaders and decision-makers are convinced that passwordless authentication is the way forward. Besides robust security, they believe it'll also ensure a rich user experience. But while most commentators find it easier said than done, the Rosas twins leverage blockchain and cryptography to build solutions for a passwordless world.
Twins on a mission to transform digital interactions
Alberto and Alejandro are twin brothers who started programming when they were twelve. Both pursued their love for mathematics, acquiring Master's Degrees from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UTC). They worked extensively in Silicon Valley, thereafter, mastering AI and AI-based systems.
The Rosas twins thus witnessed the digital identity crisis upfront due to their professional vantage point. They saw AI's expanding capability before Chat GPT became a buzzword for heated debates, realizing that it could soon be impossible to tell human internet users from 'intelligent' bots. Adapting the robust nature of our diverse but unified social identities to digital identities emerged as a viable way out.
This set the brothers on a mission to transform digital interactions with Gamium, and specifically, Didit. The platform utilizes available and emerging technologies to establish an interoperable, decentralized, and user-friendly identity management and authentication ecosystem. It bridges service providers and users, putting them in control of their digital identities, and helping them feel more connected and secure.
Didit enables businesses to easily identify users, streamline the onboarding process, access rich user data with their consent, and enjoy flexible payment channels. Likewise, consumers no longer require multiple passwords-they can take their identity anywhere simply by connecting a crypto wallet. This helps them remain in control of their data, besides seamlessly using one identity across the internet.
Embracing Web3 with the Internet Identity Layer
Didit features an array of accessible APIs and SDKs, offering businesses and consumers a hassle-free way to become Web3-ready. That too, while eliminating identity fraud and theft using cutting-edge tech innovations.
Whereas most existing identity solutions are closed systems where users need specific digital wallets to create identities, Didit introduces a wallet-agnostic environment. This reflects the Rosas brothers' idea that wallets must compete with each other to offer the best services to consumers. So Didit users can connect any digital wallet per their needs and demands. And they get platform access by simply signing a digital transaction from their connected wallet.
Though easy to use and elegant, Didit empowers users to effortlessly authenticate, transfer data, and complete financial transactions with only a few clicks. It's like a digital passport fostering more efficient internet usage with a single identity compatible across websites, apps, and real-world scenarios. Most importantly, identity information never leaves the consumer's crypto wallet, which minimizes the risk of attacks and fraud.
Didit arrives when global regulators are introducing stringent digital identity safeguards and compliance norms, such as eIDAS 2 in the EU and the Digital Identity Act in the US. It thus stands at the intersection of massive market opportunities: reusable digital identities, predicted to cross $266.5 billion by 2027, and digital identity solutions, reaching $70.7 billion during this time.
Web3 is the future and providing the missing identity layer is a critical contribution to its formation. With the identity crisis resolved, let's embrace the internet's next iteration, i.e., the user-centric, decentralized, privacy-prioritized, and community-oriented web. Because thanks to Gamium's Didit, it's now possible to experience the One Internet with One Identity.