Exclusive: Humanity Protocol to Expand Into Hardware for Biometric Digital ID

Founder Maps Out Campus Enrolment Plans, Mobile Dongle Launch as User Base Passes 500,000

Humanity Protocol has already surpassed half a million users, and is working with partner universities to set up on-campus registration systems to get more unique individuals onto its blockchain-based digital identity system. What’s more, the company is working on biometric hardware to make it easier to sign up for its platform, which requires a palm vein scan.

The news comes by way of founder and CEO Terence Kwok, who revealed the plans in an interview on the ID Talk podcast. Asked if Humanity Protocol would establish dedicated enrolment centers to sign up users – an approach that has been taken by World (formerly “Worldcoin”), the Sam Altman-backed web3 digital ID project that relies primarily on iris scans to register users – Kwok outlined a different approach that would potentially offer more convenience to interested registrants.

“The way we think about it is actually partnering with a lot of sort of different places where people naturally congregate,” he explained. “Like, an example would be, universities… So we’re in discussions with a number of different universities all around the world on this.”

The universities themselves may benefit by having a new way of automatically verifying whether a given person did indeed attend a given school. Humanity Protocol has been talking with some university partners about “the ability for them to actually issue graduation certificates and transcripts directly onto the blockchain”, eliminating the paperwork required for future verifications of graduates’ attendance.

Humanity Protocol is exploring further real-world use cases of its digital ID system in the areas of event access. “We are actually also going to be working with conferences, events, to roll this service out,” Kwok said, explaining that for attendees, “instead of having the ticket be a QR code or piece of paper, it’s issued as a credential on Humanity Protocol.”

As for Humanity Protocol’s hardware, that could emerge even sooner. Humanity Protocol already has its first batch of palm-scanning devices on hand, and has been demonstrating the technology. According to Kwok, Humanity Protocol is “planning to actually start rolling them out in December, January, and February,” aiming to establish a global network of enrolment devices, at least some of which may be stationed at its partner universities.

In 2025, the plan is to follow that up with the launch of personal enrolment devices “that you can plug into your own phone.” These dongle devices will have a small form factor, making biometric enrolment and validation even more convenient and personal.

If the startup appears to be sprinting ahead with its expansion plans, its pace reflects the rapid growth of Humanity Protocol’s user base. It saw 25,000 users sign up within 24 hours of the launch of its testnet, and according to Kwok, its user count surpassed half a million just a couple of hours before his ID Talk podcast appearance.

That rapid adoption is cause for optimism as Humanity Protocol seeks to compete against World, which has established an international presence over the past several months. “They’re at around, I think, 7,000,000 people after a year and a half,” Kwok said. “We’re at like half a million after a couple weeks. So yeah. We’ll see.”

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November 6, 2024 – by Alex Perala