Self-Sovereign Identity

For commercial services, no. There's a new W3C standard named DID that's much better for this. Using DIDs and a trusted authority, you can prove you're a real person without having to reveal your identity. You can even choose which verified data to reveal (e.g. age). But I guess some large entities would have to push it into the market for it to become widely used.

Check out "self-sovereign identity" as a starting point. Sometimes those others are used to cut down on spam or as age verification, but if you just need to identify someone, it's more flexible.

Smart ID cards? That's so last century. People have been replacing cards in ther wallet with apps on their phone.What you need is CONTROL OVER YOUR OWN IDENTITY. YOU SHOULD HAVE DIFFERENT IDS IN DIFFERENT DOMAINS.It is You who should choose to tell domain A that you are X on domain B. Tracking you across domains and cross-correlating databases shouldn't be as easy as looking for the same ID!You should use devices under your control to store private keys that let you aut

Try looking into SSI (self-sovereign identity) and verifiable credentials - the use-case you are referring to.

I haven't worked out the cryptographic mechanisms but my ballpark assessment is that it should be possible to work out a mechanism that protects your identity up until you accept to exchange exposure for ability. The business model is probably more of an issue, as you pointed out.Oh BTW, it doesn't have to be a legal identity, I think. It could be some kind of identity that you build, it costs something and can be identical across platforms. The "costs something" doesn&#x

The technical mechanisms for maintaining a stable identity already exist. Why aren't people using them?

Maybe it's time to issue everyone private keys where the public key is your "SSN" and it is signed by N people you know to verify identity

It's a nice idea, but what can I pay for now? Does it rely on a centralized notion of identity?

It is not like you have a perfectly verified identity in the first place. There are no photos or biometrics that could uniquely identify the person in the absence of the things like address or phone. Most websites do not verify identity but the provenance of the user (is it the same person?). Establishing actual identity is just more difficult and mostly unnecessary.

I wish you best of luck, but I'm afraid this is a pipe dream. You can't tie a real person/institution to an identity in a privacy preserving manner which is what's required here. This is fundamentally a social problem and I'm afraid no technical solution exists. Technical tools may help, though.