Balancing Privacy and Accountability in Blockchain Identity Management

Damgård, I and Ganesh, C and Khoshakhlagh, H and Orlandi, C and Siniscalchi, L (2021) Balancing Privacy and Accountability in Blockchain Identity Management. In: Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 17 - 20 May 2021, Virtual, Online, pp. 552-576.

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Abstract

The lack of privacy in the first generation of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc. is a well known problem in cryptocurrency research. To overcome this problem, several new cryptocurrencies were designed to guarantee transaction privacy and anonymity for their users (examples include ZCash, Monero, etc.). However, the anonymity provided by such systems appears to be fundamentally problematic in current business and legislation settings: banks and other financial institutions must follow rules such as “Know Your Customer” (KYC), “Anti Money Laundering” (AML), etc. It is also well known that the (alleged or real) anonymity guarantees provided by cryptocurrencies have attracted ill-intentioned individuals to this space, who look at cryptocurrencies as a way of facilitating illegal activities (tax-evasion, ransom-ware, trading of illegal substances, etc.). The fact that current cryptocurrencies do not comply with such regulations can in part explain why traditional financial institutions have so far been very sceptical of the ongoing cryptocurrency and Blockchain revolution. In this paper, we propose a novel design principle for identity management in Blockchains. The goal of our design is to maintain privacy, while still allowing compliance with current regulations and preventing exploitations of Blockchain technology for purposes which are incompatible with the social good.

Item Type:	Conference Paper
Publication:	Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Publisher:	Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Additional Information:	The copyright for this article belongs to Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH.
Keywords:	Blockchain; Crime; Cryptography; Privacy by design, Anti-money laundering; Current regulations; Financial institution; Identity management; Illegal activities; Novel design; Tax evasions, Cryptocurrency
Department/Centre:	Division of Electrical Sciences > Computer Science & Automation
Date Deposited:	16 Feb 2023 10:41
Last Modified:	16 Feb 2023 10:41
URI:	https://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/80534

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