This presentation covers blockchain and identity with a focus on privacy and governmental oversight/regulation/control

1. The Blockchain &
Identity -- Privacy
Issues and the
Implications for
Government Oversight
and Control.
Grant Fondo
Goodwin Procter LLP
gfondo@goodwinlaw.com

2. Our Current System of Identity
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• Pretty Awesome right?
• Different passwords for every darn website I use
• Security questions
• Driver’s license
• Photo Id
• Social Security No.
• Ask yourself
• Do you like it that Google knows more about you than your spouse?
• Does a bartender need to know where I live?
• Does Amazon really need to know my mother’s maiden name? My favorite
pet?
• Why do I need a driver’s license, a SS card, and a passport?
• How easy is it to buy a SS#?

3. The Gov’t Silos Information,
Usually Not By Design
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4. Estonia Model
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• Estonian ID card
• Identity for private uses
• Mortgage information
• Medical information
• Identity for public uses
• Tax information sent for tax returns
• Trains
• Citizens “owns” data, controls access
• Gov’t employee ID needed to access information, logs who
accesses information

5. U.S. Privacy Laws Protect Types of “Information”
Not You
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• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act – Medical
Records
• Stored Communications Act – email content
• Fair Credit Reporting Act – accuracy of financial information

6. Government’s Ability To Access Data
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• We don’t trust government – 4th Amendment
• NSA & Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act orders
• NSA given a “court order” for an internal NSA search engine to collect
billions of phone and internet records and contains the unfiltered private
information of millions of Americans.
• Riley v. CA (U.S. 2014):
• Historically police could search cell phones without a search warrant
• Smartphone searched – illegal search and seizure?
• S. Ct: SW needed to search a smartphone
• Phone equivalent to a person’s home office & more
• U.S. v. Apple
• All Writs Act
• San Bernardino killer’s IPhone 5c
• Gov’t tried to compel Apple to help it write software to disable a security
function

7. Government’s Ability To Access Data
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• Microsoft v. U.S., 14-2985 (2d Cir. 2016)
• Warrant issued for data
• Data stored in Ireland
• U.S. Government had no authority under the Stored Communications Act
(“SCA”) to use a warrant to access data stored overseas.
• Proper nexus for jurisdiction: where the data is stored, rather than the
location of the service provider or the data’s owner.
• U.S. v. Google (EDPA Feb. 2013)
• SCA
• Transferring emails from a foreign server so FBI agents could review them
locally as part of a domestic fraud probe did not qualify as a seizure
• Court: There was "no meaningful interference" with the account holder's
"possessory interest" in the data sought.
• “Though the retrieval of the electronic data by Google from its multiple data
centers abroad has the potential for an invasion of privacy, the actual
infringement of privacy occurs at the time of disclosure in the United States,"

8. Seriously, Do You Really Want A Digital Identity?
Your
Digital
Identity
CIA
Local
Sheriff
IRS
Depart. Of
Homeland
SecurityFBI
Treasury/
FinCEN

9. Digital Identity Would Make Things
Easier For You . . . And the Gov’t
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One-stop
Shopping
for the
Feds

10. And Hackers?
• Likely harder to breach . . . but
• One-stop shopping for hackers
• Foreign governments
• Criminals
• One mistake = big problem
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11. Why Do You Think It Is YourDigital Identity?
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• U.S. Government owns your passport
• CA owns your driver’s license
• Cannot sell your SS card

12. Certainly Benefits
• KYC & AML compliance savings
• Less Id to carry
• Blocking transfers to bad guys easier
• Transparency
• Easy to track transaction records
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