South Korea Is Leading the Path to the Blockchain Age

This week South Koreans rejoiced on news that the loathsome 공인인증서 digital authentication certification would be abolished after 19 years of sloppy issuances, clumsy integration, and nonsensical requisite peripheral ‘security’ installations. Make no mistake, Koreans have found little comfort in the digital authentication certification used as a digital identity authentication system for government services and filing taxes which must be obtained at a local bank.

In this parody video that is all-too-reminiscent of real life, a man laments the difficulty of applying for and utilizing his digital authentication certification. He complains about needing to download one peripheral security program after another and login to each of them… it even requires Active X. After every download, he needs to login again to the service he wished to use in the first place, only to get sidetracked by a mysterious error message or requirement to login to another site or service. He is so fed up that he calls his bank to explain his issue only to have the bank tell him there’s nothing they can do. All the while, a girl sits nearby and chuckles at his hardship which she herself surely has gone through as well.

While it is funny to watch someone so precisely pinpoint in parody all the many issues typical users have with the system, it’s no longer acceptable in this 3rd decade of the 21st century to have to put up with the problems. Tech companies in Korea realize this and have been developing and launching their own potential replacements for the digital certification authentication system for the past 3 to 4 years.

These new services, known as Digital ID, or DID, promise the functionality of their predecessor with an array of improved features for convenience and even greater security including the integration of blockchain and biometric measures. Furthermore, replacing digital certification authentication with blockchain-based DID at the national government level would put South Korea firmly among global leaders in a number of fields including cybersecurity, blockchain integration, and fintech.

Kakao

The first apparent applications of DID in South Korea came in the payments and settlements field. KakaoPay, PayCo, Samsung Pay, and others utilize their own proprietary DID services that verified users’ ID. For example, one single login is required for users to use the entire suite of Kakao apps including KakaoTalk, KakaoPay, and KakaoTaxi. These apps are so integrated that one can make a payment to an individual through the messenger seamlessly and summon and pay a taxi driver with the ease of just a few taps all while being logged into one platform. KakaoPay can also be used for domestic and international transfers as well.

KakaoPay is based off of Kakao’s bank. It is branch-less banking but active users are on the rapid increase, topping 30 million by the start of 2020.

A valid user concern of the Kakao suite is of security and anonymity. How can users ensure that their personal data will be kept safe on a central server in a country which has a poor track record of cybersecurity? Kakao’s answer is blockchain and DID. Recently Kakao formed an ID Card TF team of 27 people under Taeksoo Kim, Kakao’s CSO. The DID service will allow users to seamlessly verify payments on the Kakao platform with a single log-in.

This could also reduce financial barriers facing users who may be required to prove minimum available funds on both financial services by not requiring them to provide such redundant proof with a cross-platform certification service. The best-case scenario for broad blockchain adoption is having it operate behind the scenes with as little friction for the end user as possible. A blockchain-based DID service offered on a platform that the vast majority of Koreans already use every day would cause little to no friction but would markedly improve the user experience.

Digital Drivers License

Digital drivers licenses via DID have been in development in South Korea for some time as the need to eliminate counterfeiting of ID’s has increased. A consortium of ISP’s including LG U+, SKT, and KT are nearly ready to launch a private beta version of their digital drivers license next month. In cooperation with the national police and highway patrol with the blessing of the Ministry of Science and ICT and KISA, they will assign a hash number on the blockchain to each applicant’s license. Officers will be able to verify the information with the hash number.

A driver’s personal information is not stored on the blockchain since that itself would be a potential for a security breach. Instead, the hash on the blockchain would have to match a hash on a central server at the national police and highway patrol. The integration of DID here is most intriguing since users of the aforementioned ISPs are already using it whether they realize it or not.

The ID authentication app used by these ISPs is called PASS. South Korean users are already using this app to verify their identity on various websites to login, create accounts, and verify transactions. It is similar to 2FA applications like Google Authenticator or Authy but more comprehensive in that it has access to the user’s identity.

Once the digital drivers license service is publicly launched, a user’s hash and visage may be all they need to legally drive in South Korea. Such capabilities beg the question ‘Why can’t this be used for other national government services?’ That simple question’s relevance is magnified by the fact that DID is being implemented by local governments in South Korea as well.

The digital drivers license would put South Korea light years ahead of other national governments. The USA federal government thought they were ahead of the pack by implanting RFID into their passports that literally anyone with a reader can scan. drivers license’s protected by a blockchain and biometrics won’t be easily read by anyone.

MyID Alliance

DID has become such a hot topic in the South Korean tech and blockchain scenes that ICON, one of the largest domestic blockchain companies, started the MyID Alliance with the explicit goal of integrating DID via blockchain in as many services across the country as possible.

The alliance is heavily funded and so far has the right partnerships to make their goal of maximum DID services integration a real possibility by as early as 2021, according to their roadmap. Without a product yet for demo it’s hard to say exactly how their version of DID would work. It can be said that they are rather ambitious in expecting crypto exchanges, banks, and online shops to all use the same DID service on their respective platforms.

With some of the top tech security companies in South Korea working to ensure the system’s security and access to potentially every single individual in South Korea through banks and online shops, there may be little reason to reject the adoption of such a service at the national level to replace the digital certification authentication system.

Naver

Naver is the most-used search engine in Korea. It can rightfully be compared to Google in many respects. The unicorn startup expressed its ambition to expand the usefulness of its ID verification app ‘Naver Notice‘ as the national accredited certificate system.

It is a mobile electronic notice service that allows Naver users to receive electronic documents and registers of public and private (financial institutions, etc.) through the app. On the 13th of this month, it was approved by ICT regulation sandbox for bills sent by private institutions such as insurance companies and mutual aid organizations, and its utility was expanded.

Naver is planning to make it possible to check the civil defense convocation notice issued by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the pension payment notice issued by the National Pension Service through the Naver Notice Service.

Truly the end of the digital authentication certification system in South Korea could and by all rights should usher in the Blockchain Age as part of the 4th Industrial Revolution. We are at the end of the Digital Age; it is time for the Blockchain Age to come into existence.

Telegram Channel- https://t.me/TheNewsAsia
Telegram Chat (partner) – https://t.me/cryptodakurobinhooders
Twitter – @TheNewsDotAsia
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/groups/chains.asia/
email – hello@thenews.asia
Bitcoin donations appreciated- 1EH7PHMt8rDD8eM8sarTpP7BaqVN8DVi7P