I feel like we need to change our direction in terms of "identity" all together.<p>We seem to be relying on an "identity" that is our name, ssn, phone number, credit card number, or all these different little bits of data clumped together. Too messy, too easy to steal, to fake, to easy to sell.<p>Maybe our identity is more like a bitcoin wallet. It's an encrypted clump of data that we only keep with ourselves, and ourselves alone. It could store money, confirm that we are who we say we are because it can have our picture in it, our names, our "numbers" for various things.<p>Then, when someone needs ANYTHING from us, be it proof of identity, money, or trivial info, we can send them a piece of useless information salted with something that they then return to us with the same salt to get back a confirmation, or money, or access to "use" our other numbers, but they never GET our other numbers.<p>If you want my phone number, you send a request to me asking for it. I get the request, confirm it, send back another piece of data to you. This is NOT my phone number, but something you can use to send to me again in the future when you want to call me, and then my number is dialed, but you never see it. At any time, I can wipe you off my safe list, and you don't have my phone number anymore. Same thing can work when paying for something, or proving I am who I say I am when getting a loan, buying beer, whatever.<p>Maybe this is ridiculous.