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Personhood Credentials

Personhood Credentials (PCs) are designed to verify that someone is a unique human without revealing personal details, helping platforms balance trustworthiness with anonymity. In an age where AI can defeat CAPTCHAs, bots are increasingly used to impersonate humans, leading to fraud, misinformation, and online spam.

Why Are They Important?​

  • CAPTCHAs No Longer Effective: AI systems are capable of bypassing traditional human verification methods, like CAPTCHAs.
  • Anonymity with Trust: PCs enable people to remain anonymous while proving they are real, unique individuals, making online spaces more trustworthy without sacrificing privacy.

How It Works​

  1. Issuance: A trusted entity verifies that the person is a unique human and issues a credential, which does not require the individual to share personal or sensitive data.
  2. Presentation and Verification: Users present their PCs when engaging with services or platforms to prove their personhood. Verifiers check the credential's validity without needing to know the user's identity.

Example Use Cases​

  • Preventing Online Fraud: Social platforms can reduce fake accounts and bots without requiring users to reveal identifying information.
  • Enhancing Polling or Voting: PCs can verify that each vote comes from a real person, while ensuring voter anonymity.
  • Digital Communities: Online forums and comment sections can prevent bot spam, improving the quality of discourse by requiring PCs for participation.

Benefits​

  • Privacy: Users maintain privacy, sharing only proof of their uniqueness as a person, not personal identifiers.
  • Trustworthiness: Platforms can trust that users are real individuals, reducing spam, fraud, and malicious bot activity.
  • Scalability: PCs allow for large-scale, trust-based ecosystems without centralized databases of personal information.

In summary, Personhood Credentials offer a practical solution to the growing issue of bot impersonation and online fraud, enabling secure and private human verification across various digital platforms.