Entry, please – but first let us scan your soul?
You want to take part in something. An event, an online access, a vote, a restricted area. Nothing dramatic. And yet it always starts the same way: a form, a copy of your ID, date of birth, address, sometimes a selfie from three different angles.
Not because you want to do something forbidden – but because you want to be allowed to do something.
Somewhere along the way from opening a door to collecting data, something slipped. Because the real question would be simple:
Are you authorised?
Instead, it is almost always: Who are you – and please be as precise as possible.
That is convenient for systems. For people, not so much.
KYC – an old way of thinking with a long memory
KYC, “Know Your Customer”, grew historically. Banks, authorities, platforms – all of them wanted security. So identities were collected. A lot of them. Centrally, permanently, reusable.
Identity became the entry ticket for everything: paying, voting, participating, accessing.
The problem is not the intention. It is the effect.
If identity is used as the key, it has to be shown again and again. And whoever stores it accumulates responsibility – and risk. Data shadows emerge, profiles grow, trust is replaced by control. Not out of malice, but out of habit.
KYC is not wrong. It is just too often the only tool in the box.
The shift in perspective: KYR
KYR – Know Your Rights – turns the question around.
Not: Who are you?
But: What are you allowed to do?
Imagine it visually:
A key instead of an ID card.
A ticket instead of a CV.
A stamp that says “Access granted” without telling your whole story.
KYR checks permissions, not personalities. It is interested in rights, roles, and access – not names, addresses, or faces. And that is exactly where the paradigm shift lies.
KYR in the IE ecosystem – without technical jargon
In the Infinity Economics environment, this idea becomes tangible. Not as theory, but as everyday practice.
You want to take part in a DAO vote? What matters is whether you are entitled to vote – not what your name is.
You want to access a protected area? What counts is whether you have the right permission – not where you live.
Accreditations, service access, participation: all of this can be verified without collecting identities.
The ieTrustCenter serves as the framework of trust. Not as a surveillance authority, but as a calm referee in the background. It confirms rights – without exposing people.
One place instead of many copies – data sovereignty instead of data tourism
An often overlooked issue appears where KYC becomes particularly uncomfortable in everyday life: data storage.
Every time you identify yourself, your personal information travels to a new place. A bank here, a platform there, a service provider in between. Each system stores its own copy, often permanently, often multiple times. Not because it wants to do harm – but because it is built that way.
The result: your verified data does not exist once, but many times. Distributed across different databases, with different security levels, access rights, and lifespans. The more often you have to identify yourself, the larger your digital footprint becomes – and with it the attack surface for misuse, errors, or leaks.
KYR thinks differently here as well.
Verified personal data is not scattered, but stored in a single place, under your control. It is not copied, passed on, or stored again. It stays where it belongs: with the owner of the data.
The system does not check the data, but the result of the verification.
Instead of repeatedly sharing your information, only one thing is confirmed: This permission is valid. Nothing more.
This turns data collection into data sovereignty.
Many insecure copies become a controlled source.
And the constant feeling of having to reveal more of yourself is replaced by certainty: you decide when, for what, and to what extent something becomes visible.
KYR does not reduce responsibility – but it does reduce unnecessary distribution. And sometimes that is exactly the difference between trust and a bad feeling in your stomach.
Freedom through limited disclosure
Data protection is not an add-on here. It is a side effect of good architecture.
When systems only check what is necessary, the rest remains private. Trust does not arise from permanent observation, but from clear rules and clean separation.
KYR does not protect you from responsibility. Those who have rights also carry them.
But it does protect you from unnecessary disclosure. From the feeling of having to give away more and more of yourself just to be allowed to participate.
Self-determination begins where you can decide what you show – and what you do not.
KYR and KYC – not an either-or
One thing is important: KYR does not replace KYC across the board. It puts it in its proper place.
There are situations where identity matters. Contracts, legal obligations, specific checks. That is where KYC belongs.
The difference lies in the attitude:
KYC asks: Who is someone?
KYR asks: What is someone allowed to do?
Both can be voluntary, context-dependent, and combinable. But not automatically, not always, and not everything at once.
IE 2.0 – a quiet conclusion
Freedom does not arise from anonymity alone.
It arises from controlled disclosure on equal footing.
IE 2.0 stands for a system in which trust is proven – not enforced.
Where permissions are sufficient when identities are unnecessary.
And where you are neither more than what you want to share – nor less than what you are entitled to.
Sometimes a key is enough.
The ID can stay at home.
The blog article “Digital Sovereignty: Why We Need to Stop Asking for ID” explores this perspective in more depth.