At present, our identity is in pieces and strewn all over the internet. Think of how many accounts you have. Amazon, Google, Facebook, Instagram, to name just four. This is how things have evolved, and in some ways mimics offline life. Many of us have accounts at different shops, and perhaps more than one bank account. But the difference is we all prove our identity in the same way, with some kind of identification document. There are some places, like Capitec, where biometrics is part of the process, but this is rare. Meanwhile, you’re still required, when trying to prove your identity, to dig out your ID or passport. At a border, someone will peer at your picture and then compare it to the person standing in front of them. And then they stamp it, slowly filling up the book, and when it’s full, you have to get another one, proving your identity all over again. But this is the way it’s always been, and, to be sure, these documents are said to contain a whole lot of information we have no sight of, even though it’s our identity. It’s thought that over a billion people are without proof of identity.

Banks the world over have to ‘KYC’ their clients. This stands for ‘know your customer’, the local variant of which is laid out in the regulations of South Africa’s Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA). All banks are required to collect your details — that ID document again — as well as your proof of address. And that’s all fine, I suppose, but if you have another bank account, at another bank, you’re going to have to go through the whole process again. There’s no way a bank can ‘reuse’ your KYC details, and they wouldn’t dream of doing it, such is the regulatory framework. But imagine if they, and all the other businesses and, say, healthcare providers, the world over, could. Your identity, it’s also thought, would be more secure.