We have a lot of concerns around the web about our privacy being eroded, and I'm one of the people who are really concerned about this stuff.
However, in many cases it's beneficial to be able to demonstrate that you are unique person and to let your counterparty know and verify your data.
For example, when you want to get a loan. Or when you want to do business with someone, like hiring freelancer. Or when leaving feedback about contracts held or broken.
Currently, it's almost impossible to establish unique identity of people online, however, this problem can be solved with blockchain technology.
Here's how this could be done with blockchain.
Each user would have to submit a proof of work to establish that the profile is hard to generate. For example, someone could send .1 BTC to an address and submit that address and proof of ownership as proof of uniqueness (note that in my idea, the user retains the ownership of the money, however, his profile will become invalid should he choose to move that money). There is no reason to be only limited to BTC, or for the developers to pre-set the exact value that is needed to establish that the profile is hard to generate. I think that free market is going to take care of that.
Next, the user could submit to the network his data encrypted with asymmetric encryption. The users would be than able to share with each other public keys needed to verify data and leave feedback for each other. You could, for example, leave feedback about someone stating that you know that person personally (or through doing business with him, or not at all), you certify that you didn't leave similar feedback for any other profiles owned by him, and that he lives by the address whose encryption is published on the blockchain. The strength of your feedback would be defined by the strength of your profile.
I’m thinking about this for some time now, and I’d love to hear some ideas or suggestions