Identity Upon Request: From Centralised Databases to Decentralised Trust - Softcover

Vernier, Estienne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3696382744 ISBN 13: 9783696382742

Verlag: BoD – Books on Demand, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

Every person who holds an identity document received it the same way: by applying. By standing in line, filling out forms, and paying fees - to receive a document that says less about them than any friend could. Identity upon Request asks why. The book makes a single, falsifiable claim: the people who already know you - your family, your doctor, your employer, your neighbours - hold more identity knowledge than any government database, and modern cryptography can make that knowledge verifiable, portable, and private without any central authority. In the proposed system, trusted people attest to facts about your identity. These attestations are cryptographically secured on a chip card you control. When a verifier checks you - say, an age verification - the card produces a mathematical proof that the attestation exists without revealing your name, your date of birth, or who attested. No central database. No data leaks. No surveillance. Twelve chapters build the case: from the history of identity documents (parish registers to facial recognition), through a trillion-dollar economic audit of the current system, the condition of 850 million undocumented people, and the catastrophic record of identity systems turned against their own populations (Rwanda, Nazi Germany, Apartheid South Africa), to a complete technical architecture for a decentralised alternative - published under CC-BY 4.0 so anyone can build it. The book engages the strongest case for centralisation - Germany's Personal Identity Card, the World Bank's ID4D programme, the development argument for biometric databases - and shows where even the best versions fall short. With three appendices (technical architecture, economic methodology, paternalism audit), many footnotes, and a full bibliography. For policymakers, technologists, civil society, researchers, and anyone who has ever stood in line at a government office and wondered why.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Estienne Vernier writes on the intersection of cryptography, public administration, and human rights. Identity upon Request is the product of several years of research across surveillance studies, economics of government infrastructure, and decentralised identity systems. The technical architecture described in the book draws on the author's background in applied cryptography and protocol design. The pseudonym reflects the book's thesis: identity is disclosed at the holder's discretion.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: BoD – Books on Demand
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 3696382744
• ISBN 13: 9783696382742
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 192
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Books on Demand GmbH; bod@bod.de; ; Überseering 33; Hamburg; 22297; Deutschland