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Show HN: Changefly ID + Anonymized Identity and Age Verification

https://www.changefly.com/blog/2025/08/anonymized-identity-and-age-verification-a-new-era-of-privacy-for-changefly-id
19•davidandgoli4th•7h ago
Hey HN! I’m Lukas Dickie the founder of Changefly and I’m truly excited to share with you our latest release of Changefly ID with Anonymized Identity & Age Verification.

By putting privacy first and using a novel approach to account protection, Changefly ID offers a path to a safer, more secure, and less-intrusive internet for everyone:

- Changefly ID for anonymous authentication + ANONYMIZED identity & age verification for services that are required to verify minimum age

- Zero-knowledge proofs, secure multi-party computation, temporary unique identifiers

- Protects against bot attacks, bot scraping, identity theft, phishing, credential stuffing, online tracking, and other evolving threats

Changefly ID + Anonymized Identity & Age Verification is like showing a bartender a “Yes, I’m over 21” hologram badge instead of handing them your driver’s license with your name, address, and birthdate. They get what they need—but none of what they shouldn’t have.

We’re just getting started and I’d love to hear what you think, what you’d like to see next, and any feedback you have.

https://changefly.com

Comments

commandersaki•2h ago
What is the enrolment process for users that want to prove an attribute or credential?
VoidWhisperer•2h ago
I'm a little confused here from the explanation and examples - how is this anonymous exactly? The examples require that you pass their 'changefly user id' and ip address. Both of these are fairly unique identifiers (especially when combined). The mention in the developer documentation that you may prompt them for the user's changefly PIN in the case of an IP address mismatch implies that you are storing the user's IP in some form or another - so basically users are having to trust that you aren't storing information about these 'changefly connections'. This is just one further hop from having the government provide this service themselves, since if they really wanted to, what is stopping them from coming to you and saying 'I want a list of all websites that user at X ip address did age verification on'?
Coeur•2h ago
This is definitely something that is needed. But I don't know if you're doing the privacy bit right and I can trust you. What I'd like to see next is a technical paper where you explain all your claims.

You're in the trust business. You haven't earned it yet.

If you can't really do the privacy bit with 100% absolute guaranteed certainty using technical means, you could also do a third party audit you daily. Yep, daily. That would be fine by me too.

pilingual•2h ago
While a zk-proof solution for IDs is sorely needed, I too am wondering how the initial setup works.

Just have a simple video on the homepage like https://heyblue.com showing someone new to the product start using it. Montage with a few examples would be nice.

The app screenshots could be improved.

Edit: clarity

foxylad•1h ago
Seems to require an app. Which instantly gives ChangeFly my PII. Nope.

Anonymized identity requires some entity to certify that a given token proves what it says it does. That is an awesome power, and given the abuse of that power by private companies who have gained it in the past, I'm not going to give it to ChangeFly, whoever they are.

Which begs the question of who we DO trust enough to do provide this service. Perhaps our banks?

ranger_danger•1h ago
I would not consider identity/age verification to offer a path to a "less-intrusive internet".
vorejdajo•1h ago
The linked article seems purposely vague so much so that I'm wondering if you're a scam. It just has some privacy keywords like "zero knowledge proofs", but it doesn't really explain what's going on. Diving deep into your privacy policy, to know how it works - shows you use third party for the initial verification?

>For example, our Third-Party Providers may verify your government ID when you register for Changefly Anonymized Identity Protection[1]

[1]: https://www.changefly.com/policies/privacy-policy

monero-xmr•1h ago
This is definitely the future: non-governmental entities compete for business, users KYC and self-identify with one or more of them, and they take the legal risk via insurance policies if children slip through. Then third-party sites trust the third-party vendors, who approve users without passing the PII.

Sure, the third-party identity vault companies could be hacked, but I would prefer one of those over a million various sites of dubious quality taking my PII themselves.

DiabloD3•1h ago
Kind of wild you're willing involving yourself with the PII footgun.

There is no acceptable amount of PII a business should hold unless required to by the government for extremely limited industries (ie, banking or medicine or the act of employment).

Every single government that is requiring age verification is not also legally indemnifying companies that are performing this. Every single company that is trying to provide this will be hung out to dry when this blows up in their face: the company will be heavily fined under the existing laws in that country.

In many countries, banks that have to follow KYC or similar laws or hospitals that have to follow HIPPA or similar laws are given at least some form of partial legal indemnification as long as they can prove they were following the law. This is why they almost uniquely keep getting away with it with a slap on the wrist when they inevitably fuck up.

This will never be offered to companies like yours. You are taking on, essentially, infinite legal risk to make a quick buck.

If your legal council is telling you they can defend you from this, I suggest finding new legal council. IANAL, IANYL, but proceed very carefully. This is not a technological problem, this is a legal problem, and you cannot solve this with technology.

xvilka•1h ago
I know Cardano has something similar (not sure how it's anonymized but it operates on the need-to-know basis) called Veridian[1][2]. And, of course, there are identity platforms from Ethereum[3].

[1] https://www.veridian.id/

[2] https://cardanofoundation.org/blog/veridian-digital-identity...

[3] https://ethereum.org/en/decentralized-identity/

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