Mastercard files blockchain identity verification patent
The credit card company’s patent pertains to a system for distributed storage and storage via blockchain.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has released a patent application filed by Mastercard late last year seeking a blockchain method and system for identity and credential protection and verification.
“The identity of an individual or other type of entity is a valuable piece of information,” Mastercard revealed in its published patent filing. “The identity of an entity may be important for a business deal, contract, payment to be made, purchase or other type of transaction or interaction between multiple parties.”
An entity may be required to provide proof of their identity as part of a transaction or other interaction.
“Traditionally, such proof has often been provided via government identification, credit cards, business cards, correspondence, etc,” Mastercard said. “In these instances the provided proof may be inaccurate (e.g. an individual may no longer be employed but still retain business cards for prior employment) or may be entirely fabricated in such a way that may be difficult to identify.”
The credit card company’s patent pertains to a system for distributed storage and storage via blockchain for protection of identity and credential data and the verification of such data. The patent proposes a semi-private, rather than public, blockchain structure because it would only allow authorized nodes to access system data.
The blockchain will keep a “growing list of data records hardened against tampering and revision.”
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