Identification vs Identity - The Critical Difference And Why It Matters...
12 March 2026
THREE MEN WALK INTO A BAR…
Three men walk into a bar - a builder, a plumber and a bricklayer
They sit down at the counter
The first man introduces himself - “My name is Bob”
The second man introduces himself - “My name is Bob”
The third man does the same - “My name is Bob”
Each orders a beer…
The bartender pours a beer for Bob
But which Bob should he serve it to?
The problem seems trivial, but it exposes something important - knowing what someone calls himself does not tell us who the someone actually is
And that simple problem sits at the heart of every modern digital trust system…
So, who of the three Bobs gets the beer - Bob the builder, Bob the plumber or Bob the bricklayer?
In truth, it really doesn’t matter
But it matters enormously when one Bob attempts to fob himself off as another ‘Bob’ in order to access the other Bob’s bank account
At that point, every identification method - in spite of all the KYC friction and all the frustration that’s involved - is almost certain to fail
Only an appeal to Bob’s actual identity will ensure that his identity - and his bank balance - is not compromised
Determining who someone actually is without having to know anything about the someone, is what QiD uniquely does…
QiD…
By neuromorphically interpreting personal identity from a simple ‘selfie’ captured on the one device we all carry with us all over all the time - a standard, off-the-shelf mobile phone (even low-end phones) equipped with a ~2MP camera, QiD is able to identify someone without having to know anything about the someone…
As an anonymous neuromorphic identity technology, only QiD is able to answer the “Who?”-question properly without having to appeal to identity credentials, without having to perform any identity reference checks and without employing any biometric
Ultimately, QiD is predicated on the fact that the only way to know who someone actually is, is not to rely on any form of user attestation or feature vector or derived biometric representation, but to ground identity in the unique distinctiveness of the human being behind the interaction instead
