Proving YourSELF: Privacy and Identity Verification in the Age of AI

Privacy is experiencing a renaissance amongst both the general public and the broader crypto community. More than ever before, people are beginning to realise the importance of privacy and the need to be selective about what information they share with the world.

Overall, the public is becoming less willing to share their personal information online, with 70% of UK residents in this survey saying they hide their personal data online. Many Americans feel the same way and are showing concern about how the government handles this information.

This is a telling sign that the world is changing and realising the value of this data.

Web3 giants like Facebook and Google partially attribute their success to the detriment of user data, which is used for advertising at the expense of privacy.

This paradigm is perfectly encapsulated by the saying: If you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product.

Or rather, our data was.

With the rise of AI, we now face an additional dimension of privacy concerns.

These include the ever-increasing prevalence of deepfake videos, with examples of victims being scammed out of over $25m, increased identity fraud via AI-generated fake IDs, and increased credential phishing and data deanonymization.

The recent Coinbase data leak is another example of these.

What happened to us? Privacy used to be one of the key pillars of the ethos of initial cryptocurrency users.

A return to the origins is possible, thanks to the latest developments on zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs.

In this article, we introduce Self Protocol as one of the projects providing these identity verification solutions. Self Protocol offers ways to protect one’s privacy through proof of humanity, a root of trust based on passports and various government-database-backed IDs, and a process that reveals selective attributes using ZK technology to verify user identity.

This next section showcases how Self Protocol works and the interesting features they’re working on or have already implemented.

These will allow dApps to determine who is and isn’t human, while users can protect their identity by displaying only specific bits of information without disclosing details.

What is Self Protocol?

Self Protocol is building a privacy-first, open-source identity and mobile-first protocol that uses ZK proofs to secure user identity verification.

This means users will finally regain control over their identity. Instead of having to share all their identity information, they will be able to disclose specific binary information on a granular basis that needs to be proven.

This means you can prove who you are using key attributes such as age, citizenship, and other identifying information without revealing any other personal information to third parties. This can apply to an establishment that needs to verify your identity or that you are over 18: why would they need to know where you live or whether you are married?

In practice, this works quite straightforwardly.

First, it begins with registration and verification. Users start by registering in the Self app and scanning their passports (European ID or India Aadhaar ID) RFID chip. Self then uses ZK proofs to verify the authenticity of the data onchain by checking it against the public issuer’s information.

The data is accessible only on the user device, and is never seen, stored, or owned by Self.

This process links your passport to your unique identity, ensuring that no duplicate information exists and preventing fraudulent activity.

With this link now in place, users will have complete control over what they disclose to third-party applications. Through the Self Apps, users can now share specific proofs with dapps that require information.

If said application requests specific identity proofs, you can reveal the required information while keeping the rest of your passport data hidden. For instance, anyone could provide Aave information indicating that the user is not on the OPAC-sanctioned individuals list and more.

These ZK proofs can be checked onchain via Celo or offchain, with no user data being stored or accessed. This means that there are no centralised databases to access or be perceived as honeypots by hackers.

At a broader level, this will allow protocols and dapps to separate verified, real human users from bots, leading to a variety of interesting use cases.

From Theory to Practice

Crypto has always had a distribution problem, especially with airdrop or incentive campaigns. There are often stories of users gaming the system, using hundreds of wallets to pretend they are multiple users, when they are really just one.

This is called a sybil attack, and is one of the many reasons why token distribution is broken.

Self can be used to prevent users from using multiple wallets to claim disproportionate rewards by requiring them to prove their identity on a single wallet. This ensures Sybil resistance by tying rewards to a single real person rather than a network of connected wallets trying to game the system.

Self has implemented this already with Aave on the Celo blockchain, where users can earn double the yield on their USDT or ETH by verifying their humanity via Self.

The Self Pass can also be used on outside platforms. By requiring proof of personhood, Self can improve social media platforms as well, adding humanity checks to profiles, eliminating the blurred lines between bot accounts and real people.

Another interesting application yet to go live is the possibility of using government IDs for wallet recovery. This could significantly enhance wallet security and protect thousands of users from losing money to socially engineered hacks.

If Self Pass can be used as a failsafe to prevent hackers from transferring money out of compromised wallets, then you would see fewer of these attacks.

Social engineering scams account for over 40% of all crypto security incidents this year, as more and more criminals are targeting human behaviour rather than technical exploits. Over $2B in funds have been stolen in 2025 alone due to hacks and scams.

While it would be difficult to parse out the percentage of stolen funds attributable to social engineering, it’s enough to highlight the potential savings that Self and other ZK solutions could deliver to users.

A Look at the Future

Privacy and AI continue to be the most talked-about narratives, and Self’s solutions to the many issues we face on both fronts should become increasingly useful as more users flock to a future built on proof of humanity.

To get that future, Self needs to expand and develop with millions of users in mind.

As part of their initiative to attract users, Self also announced a points season, letting users earn points for the following:

• Verifying their humanity/identity by setting up a Self Pass

• Creating an attestation for eligibility on Aave/Velodrome pools

• Confirming age for a gated Lemonade event

• Verifying any unique characteristics for the Google Cloud Celo testnet faucet

With ZK proofs finally cheap enough to use in production, users have a strong ally in preserving their privacy. Initiatives like Self are already live and can be leveraged not only to protect one’s privacy but also to access beneficial conditions as a real human, whether in the form of higher yields or otherwise.

While many are still reluctant to move forward with their passport verification, we expect the next couple of years to drive a strong boost to this, mostly due to the growing use of AI and the consequent importance of differentiating real users from bots in a privacy-preserving manner.