Tencent Cloud is joining forces with blockchain company ShareRing to launch a new digital identification system to streamline international travel amid the COVID-19 pandemic. As the South China Morning Post reported Tuesday, ShareRing will combine its distributed ledger technology with Tencent Cloud's services to create a blockchain-based digital identity management platform. Specifically, ShareRing will use Tencent Cloud’s optical character recognition and facial recognition technology to help improve its “self-sovereign identity app.” In its current form, the app can be used to book flights, hotel reservations, car rentals and a variety of other services. In a joint statement, Tencent Cloud and …

Chinese fintech Ant Group — which is now poised to launch what could be the world’s largest initial public offering — has announced a new platform via its blockchain business. Ant Group spun out from e-commerce giant Alibaba and is the parent company of China’s largest digital payments service Alipay. Ant Group’s blockchain business, AntChain, has today rolled out a new digital copyright services platform. It combines blockchain technology with AI to enable creators to securely authenticate and verify all kinds of original content — whether video, image-based or written material. The platform generates a unique, tamper-proof digital copyright certification …

Major financial institutions in Japan are moving into blockchain to streamline digital identity systems. Japan’s third-largest bank, Mizuho Bank, and local payment giant JCB are preparing to pilot a digital identity interoperability system based on blockchain technology. The new system will utilize a blockchain solution developed by Fujitsu Laboratories, Fujitsu announced on Thursday. The new joint initiative will allow the companies to verify mechanisms to securely transfer and link member ID information by multiple business operators. This data includes names, addresses and employers stored on a cloud platform built by Fujitsu. The pilot will also involve 100 Fujitsu Group employees. …

Blockchain firm HashCash Consultants claims that banks are "chief arbiters" of people's identities, and need blockchain technology to do it better. According to an Aug. 11 announcement, “accurate identification of an individual is central to banking activities which makes them the chief arbiter of people's identities.” Still, the current system is not without its issues: “The existing manual processes make identification time-consuming and susceptible to errors. HashCash aims to streamline the process by helping the partner bank create digital identities for the customers over a decentralized network, where the customer data will be recorded on an immutable ledger, eliminating any …

Busan, the second-largest city in South Korea, has launched an identification app that uses a public blockchain to verify citizen information. The app was developed by Coinplug, a Korean startup working within the regulatory sandbox of the Busan blockchain regulation-free zone. The developer used the Metadium blockchain and its Decentralized Identifier technology to power the app. Through this system, user data is stored on their devices, and only a cryptographic proof of the information is submitted to the blockchain. This strikes a balance between personal data privacy and the need to create tamper-proof records. Normally, the latter can only be …

A representative of LG’s information technology subsidiary, LG CNS, told Cointelegraph that blockchain-based identity systems could become the new standard for login functions. When asked about why the firm is pursuing the development of blockchain-based ID services, LG CNS said that it expects such systems to become “a hot topic for blockchain in the future.” The company also suggested that “maybe all login functions can be replaced.” As Cointelegraph reported at the end of May, LG CNS partnered with U.S. firm Evernym to develop blockchain identity technology. The two firms aim to jointly develop an international digital identity standard for …

Blockstack PBC filed its annual report with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, as part of its regulatory obligations resulting from project’s the initial coin offering, or ICO. The SEC report was published on April 29. It details some of the high profile deals made by Blockstack throughout the year, as well as a general financial statement of the company, whose entire revenue is derived from selling its tokens. Asian expansion and investment The company revealed to have made concrete efforts to establish a presence in Asia, where it also held a secondary token sale. This sale was filed …

While some global cryptocurrency exchanges move to expand Know Your Customer (KYC) rules, some major rivals claim that crypto platforms do not need KYC at all. Digitex, a Seychelles-based crypto derivatives exchange, will start removing KYC identification this week in response to a major user data leak that happened last month. Digitex will have no KYC identity requirements as of April 2020 Adam Todd, CEO at Digitex Futures Exchange, revealed the news in a public video statement on March 4, declaring that Digitex will have all KYC identification processes removed from its platform as of April 2020. Todd clarified that …

A major blockchain identification project backed by South Korean tech giant Samsung is being rolled out for first commercial use. South Korea’s NongHyup (NH) Bank has introduced a blockchain-based mobile ID system developed within a tech consortium established by major local firms including Samsung Electronics and LG Uplus. According to a Feb. 25 report by South Korea’s news agency JoongAng Ilbo, NH Bank is jointly implementing the new ID system with South Korea's largest wireless carrier, SK Telecom. NH Bank held a blockchain ID card demo with 20 executives According to local reports, NH Bank president and CEO Lee Dae-hoon …

Blockstack PBC announced on Jan. 29 the completion of its “Milestone II” that unlocked $6.8 million from its 2017 initial coin offering. The project claims to have on-boarded one million verified users, an achievement that some in the community did not believe. Cointelegraph conducted an analysis of blockchain data to see if this claim could be confirmed. The importance of the milestone The Blockstack initial coin offering (ICO) was conducted in November 2017 through the CoinList platform. It was notable for being “SEC-qualified,” meaning that it had stronger reporting obligations to the regulators and implied that it was not at …

The Republic of Azerbaijan is planning to complete a project of blockchain-based digital identification system by the end of 2019. Farid Osmanov, director of the information technology department at the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA), says that the new system will be adopted in the first quarter of 2020, local news agency Trend News reported on Nov. 6. “Transition of the CBA to open banking” According to the report, the CBA executive introduced the plans speaking at the fourth International Banking Forum. Osmanov reportedly highlighted the system’s prospects in terms of security of personal data transferred to credit organizations as …

A consortium of major South Korean firms partnered to launch a blockchain-based mobile identification system in 2020, English-language local media Korea Times reports on July 14. Per the report, the participants are financial services firms KEB Hana Bank, Woori Bank, KOSCOM, mobile carriers SK Telecom, KT, LG UPlus and technology behemoth Samsung Electronics. The aim of the partnership is reportedly to develop a self-sovereign identity system that does not require any intermediaries, which would enable individuals and organizations to control their identity information in online transactions. The service aims to allow users to store personal information such as resident registration …