Is there a way to verify the identity of the sender of the transaction in ethereum?

Question

Is there a way to verify the identity of the sender of the transaction in ethereum? Like we have certificates issued by certificate authority do we have similar thing for the accounts on blockchain

Answer 1

It depends on how strongly you want to verify the identity:

If you want a person, who you already knew, to prove that they sent the transaction, it's easy: They can just attach a piece of data to the transaction containing their name, email address, date of birth and/or any other data you require. (preferably hashed, for anonimity)

If you want someone to use a transaction to prove their identity, to prove that their name is their real name as written on their passport, this is more complicated. Ethereum is decentralized, so there's no built-in way to do this. There are two methods that I can think of:

• They would have to publicize a photo of their passport on the blockchain. This is not advisible, as anyone could copy it and use it for identity theft.
• You would have to rely on a 'certificate' from a contract owned by a centralized organization which does the identity verification for you. Here are some projects you may want to look at:
  • https://tokensale.civic.com/
  • https://dapps.oraclize.it/proof-of-identity/

I hope this helps.