Data Cooperatives for Identity Attestations
- Thomas Hardjono ,
- Alex Pentland
Abstract
Data cooperatives with fiduciary obligations to members provide a useful
source of truthful information regarding a given member whose personal
data is managed by the cooperative. Since one of the main propositions
the cooperative model is to protect the data privacy of members, we
explore the notion of blinded attestations in which the identity of the
subject is removed from the attestations issued by the cooperative
regarding one of its members. This is performed at the request of the
individual member. We propose the use of a legal entity to countersign
the blinded attestation, one that has an attorney-client relationship
with the cooperative, and which can henceforth become the legal point of
contact for inquiries regarding the individual related to the attribute
being attested. There are several use-cases for this feature, including
the Funds Travel Rule in transactions in digital assets, and the
protection of privacy in decentralized social networks.