Zuckerberg Considering Blockchain ID For Facebook Login

In an interview with Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that he’s “potentially interested” in using blockchain technology for Facebook logins, and that the tech could help the process of allowing access to data by third-party apps, according to a report from The Verge.

Facebook has recently been shoring up its blockchain team, led by David Marcus, who used to be the VP of Messenger. The team is trying to find out how to best use the technology on Facebook. Earlier this month, Facebook acquired Chainspace, a blockchain company that researches the tech and develops smart contracts.

Facebook is also considering making its own cryptocurrency to facilitate payments. However, this is the first time blockchain has been specifically referenced in terms of Facebook’s login and data sharing procedures.

Zuckerberg explained that authentication was a part of blockchain technology that he was potentially interested in, but admitted that the company hasn’t yet found a way to make it work. He said the potential system would replace Facebook Connect with “something that’s fully distributed.” Through that proposed system, users could limit the amount of data they share and choose the apps to which they want to grant access.

“You basically take your information, you store it on some decentralized system and you have the choice of whether to log in in different places and you’re not going through an intermediary. There’s a lot of things that I think would be quite attractive about that,” Zuckerberg said.

“For developers, one of the things that is really troubling about working with our system, or Google’s system for that matter, or having to deliver services through Apple’s App Store, is that you don’t want to have an intermediary between serving the people who are using your service and you,” he continued. “Where someone can just say hey, we as a developer have to follow your policy and if we don’t, then you can cut off access to the people we are serving. That’s kind of a difficult and troubling position to be in.”