Fujitsu Launches Digital Identity Solution

To make online transactions more secure, Fujitsu Laboratories has created “digital identity exchange technology.” The blockchain-based technology allows businesses and individuals conducting transactions online to confirm the identities of other parties, while also gauging the “trustworthiness” of credentials, Coindesk reported.

The company said in a press release, “A trustworthiness score is attached to each user by weighting factors including how many trusted users evaluate them highly. Even if a user colludes with a third party to improperly raise their evaluation, the graph-structured relationships will reveal information such as the weakness of their relationships with other users, giving the system the potential to identify misrepresentations.”

The technology is said to mutually evaluate a transaction’s parties and examine transaction data from the past to look into the relationships between them in addition to others who have transacted with them in the past. In essence, it comes up with a rating and reputation for each party and makes a record of the evaluations on a ledger that is distributed. The company said that the technology will enable more online services that are secure along with the advantage of functions that are “user-friendly” like graphics that offer visualizations of user relationships.

Fujitsu also noted the need for such a solution: “With reports of fraud and instances of people falsifying personal credentials like work history and professional qualifications growing increasingly prevalent, ensuring the circulation of high-quality, reliable identification data poses an urgent challenge to users and businesses alike,” the company said.

In separate blockchain news, Fujitsu was launching a blockchain rewards system designed for retailers per reports last June. The idea behind the system is to tokenize coupons as well as points and store the transactions in a decentralized way. Fujitsu said in an announcement at the time, “With this service, users can collect digital points or stamps by reading QR codes located in specific areas with smart devices, and then exchange them for coupons and other benefits.”