Tag:

Identity

Fear and greed index falls to new low, last seen in Oct 2023. (Chris Charles/Unsplash)

Experiment With Pension Funds Proves Blockchain as ‘Ultimate’ Identity Tech

by admin September 26, 2025

The United Nations leaned into blockchain technology to overhaul its own pension system, and a study of that process concluded the innovation is the “ultimate technology for digital identity verification,” which has spurred the UN toward extending the system and sharing it with other international groups.

The UN — which has explored various blockchain uses over the years — tried it out on their United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF), according to a white paper released this week that suggested its use in confirming people’s identities can help in security, efficiency and transparency. In cooperation with the Hyperledger Foundation, the UN sought to “improve and secure the UN pension process globally by putting a blockchain-supported digital identification infrastructure into production.”

The UN pension fund had been working off of a 70-year-old system to identify beneficiaries in 190 countries, relying on a paper-based approach to prove more than 70,000 beneficiaries were who they said they were, still alive and where they claimed to be. It was prone to error and abuse, and resulted in about 1,400 payment suspensions every year, according to the document. So the organization shifted to the blockchain-powered digital certification, beginning with a 2020 pilot program and a 2021 implementation.

“The shift away from physical documentation has substantially reduced processing times previously spent on receiving, opening, scanning, and archiving paper documents,” the paper said.

The blockchain helped eliminate the single-point-of-failure problem posed by a centrally managed approach, according to the paper that detailed the process and results, with the authors suggesting its success could be repeated elsewhere. Its open access and usability by multiple entities reduces the repetitious need for identity checks, the authors found.

The UN is exploring spreading similar technology throughout its own system and sharing it elsewhere as a “digital public good,” seeking to expand the Digital Certificate of Entitlement approach to other international organizations.

“The project has provided not only a technical prototype but also an operational model for how organizations across the UN family can collaborate to design secure, scalable, and inclusive digital public infrastructure,” wrote Sameer Chauhan, the director of the United Nations International Computing Centre, in a conclusion included in the paper.

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September 26, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

Blockchain-Based Identity Can Help HR Navigate AI-Generated Applications

by admin September 7, 2025

Opinion by: Ignacio Palomera, co-founder and CEO of Bondex

The global hiring landscape is changing rapidly. Today’s job seekers are increasingly turning to generative AI to draft cover letters, tailor resumes and even simulate interview prep.

Agentic AI is auto-applying, generative AI is drafting personalized applications at scale, and AI auto-apply tools enable candidates to apply to thousands of roles in minutes. Employers are inundated with applications that look polished, persuasive and tailored — but often lack any real signal of effort, capability or authenticity.

When anyone can crank out a polished, high-quality application with just a few AI prompts, the traditional cover letter — once seen as a chance to stand out and show real intent — becomes a commodity. It stops signaling effort or enthusiasm and starts looking more like standardized output.

Hiring managers are now staring at inboxes filled with slick, personalized applications that all feel strangely similar. And that’s where the real problem kicks in: If everyone sounds qualified on paper, how can you tell who has the skills and knows how to game a prompt? It’s not about who writes best but about who can prove they can deliver in the real world.

A fragile trust system gets worse with AI

Traditional hiring has long relied on trust-based signals such as resumes, references and degrees, but these have always been weak proxies. Titles can be inflated, education overstated and past work exaggerated. AI blurs things even more, cloaking unverifiable claims in artificial eloquence.

For fast-paced, remote-native industries like crypto or decentralized autonomous organization ecosystems, the stakes are even higher, as there’s rarely time for deep due diligence. Trust is extended quickly and often informally — risky in a pseudonymous, global environment. More HR tooling or AI detection won’t solve this. What’s needed is a stronger foundation for trust itself.

It’s time for verifiable reputation and onchain employment

Consider a hiring manager trying to verify work history, social handles or onchain contributions.

Today, decentralized identity (DID) systems help you prove that you’re a real human — that you exist and are not a bot. That’s useful, but it’s only the start.

What they don’t address is the deeper layer: What have you actually done? There’s a new frontier emerging — one where your professional history, credentials and contributions can be verified and made portable. It’s not just about checking a box to prove that you exist. It’s about codifying your experience so your reputation is built on what you’ve done, not just what you say.

Related: Blockchain needs regulation, scalability to close AI hiring gap

In this model, your resume becomes a programmable asset. It is not a static PDF but something that can evolve, be queried and, in some cases, be privately verified without revealing every detail. That’s where tools like zero-knowledge proofs come in, giving users control over how much they reveal and to whom.

Some might argue that this all feels a little too invasive. In practice, however, and especially in Web3, most serious contributors already operate through pseudonymous identities built on provable actions, not job titles. DIDs got us to “real humans.” Verifiable reputation gets us to “real contributors.” And that’s the fundamental shift worth paying attention to.

From HR filters to smart contract gates

As reputation becomes programmable, entire industries stand to be reshaped. Grants, hiring rounds and even token sales could use provable credentials as filters. No more guessing who’s qualified or compliant. You can’t fake a pull request merged into a core repo or pretend you completed a course linked to a non-fungible token (NFT) issued by a smart contract.

This makes trust composable — something that can be built into protocols and platforms by default. What’s provable today includes contributions, learning history and verifiable credentials. Soon, entire work histories could be onchain.

A trust upgrade for AI-era hiring

The AI-generated job application is just a symptom of a larger trust breakdown. We’ve long accepted unverifiable self-reporting as the default in hiring, and now we’re facing the consequences. Blockchain-based identity and credential systems offer a path forward — where individuals can prove their work and hiring decisions can be based on verifiable data, not guesswork.

We need to stop pretending that polished language equals proof of skill. If hiring — and broader reputation systems — are to survive the coming AI wave, we need to rebuild the foundation of trust. Onchain credentials are a compelling place to start.

Opinion by: Ignacio Palomera, co-founder and CEO of Bondex.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

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September 7, 2025 0 comments

GameFi Guides

Digital identity is the infrastructure crisis no one admits

by admin September 6, 2025

Disclosure: The views and opinions expressed here belong solely to the author and do not represent the views and opinions of crypto.news’ editorial.

In the early days of the internet, you didn’t need a password to browse, and online communities operated on good faith and shared curiosity. But as the web evolved into the infrastructure of modern life, helping us govern our money, politics, and information flows, digital identity never caught up.

Summary

Identity is the missing layer of the internet — while we’ve digitized commerce and communication, online trust still rests on fragile, centralized logins and surveillance systems.
Verification ≠ identity — proving you hold a key or match a photo isn’t enough; true digital identity must be portable, composable, and tied to both humans and AI agents.
AI platforms are becoming dangerous gatekeepers — without trustworthy identity, we risk a future where bots, corporations, and governments control access, incentives, and even speech.
Current fixes fall short — fragmented age-verification tools and surveillance-heavy systems raise more privacy questions than they solve.
The solution: self-owned, privacy-preserving identity — cryptographic passports and zero-knowledge proofs can enable scalable trust without sacrificing freedom, creating a post-platform internet built on authenticity.

We’ve digitized commerce, communication, and computation, but identity is still a patchwork of logins and surveillance. The very thing that enables trustworthy relationships in the physical world, knowing who you’re interacting with, is nonexistent online.

Digital identity is the missing layer of the internet. Without it, everything we build rests on sand.

Verification isn’t enough

We often confuse identity with verification. Proving that you hold the private keys to a wallet, or that your face matches a passport photo, is only part of the story.

But identity must do more. It must be portable and composable across systems, supporting not just access, but trust. And it must work not just for people, but also the bots and agents we’re increasingly relying on.

Trust infrastructure is the fundamental challenge to be solved to fix digital identity.

The perfect storm

AI is currently being built like platforms, with a single point of failure. We’ve seen this movie before, on the web, Twitter, and Facebook, which centralized the discovery layer of the internet, concentrating control over what we see, share, and believe. AI is heading in the same direction, with a handful of companies owning the gateways to intelligence itself. If we allow this trajectory to continue, the future of AI will be defined not by open innovation, but by gatekeepers who control the inputs, outputs, and incentives of the entire ecosystem.

AI platforms are fast becoming the new gatekeepers of human activity. They train on our conversations and increasingly act on our behalf. But they lack accountability.

AI agents can generate content, apply for jobs, purchase products, and even negotiate contracts. But how do you know if that agent is operating on behalf of a real, unique human? Or a farm of coordinated bots? If you can’t tell the difference, you can’t trust the output.

The question becomes: how do we prove personhood and tie it to real accountability, without giving up privacy or control?

The current system is failing us

Last week, the EU launched a prototype age verification app across five countries, claiming to use zero-knowledge proofs to confirm if someone is over 18 without exposing their identity. The move is part of the EU’s broader Digital Services Act enforcement and a signal that lawmakers are finally starting to treat identity as infrastructure.

In the UK, where age verification has already been mandated under the Online Safety Act, platforms are relying on everything from facial recognition to credit card checks to behavioral data, often powered by opaque third-party providers.

These fragmented approaches raise more questions than they answer. Who stores the data? Who decides who gets access? And what happens when AI systems start using this data to infer, manipulate, or impersonate our identities?

You only need to look at the privacy policy of AI startups like Friend, which states it can use data from “everything you say, hear, and see”, to realize how far we’ve already drifted toward the normalization of surveillance.

Scaling trust

To establish and scale trust, we need ways to prove uniqueness and accountability. But to protect freedom, we must do it without exposing personal data, linking everything on-chain, or submitting to government-run surveillance regimes. Today, identity is centralized and owned by platforms and governments, along with all the data tied to it, leaving individuals with no real control over who sees it, how it’s used, or when it can be taken away. Owning your identity means holding it yourself, not renting it from a provider. This starts with a secure one-to-one mapping between a biological human and a digital representation, encrypted and held locally, a version of a cryptographic passport that’s verifiable, portable, and private.

From there, we can use zero-knowledge proofs to let users verify traits like age, location, and credentials, without disclosing underlying information. Combined with social graph validation, this would allow us to create identity networks that grow virally, not through centralized registration but through real human connections.

This system covers both humans and AI agents alike, ensuring that every autonomous actor on the network can be tied back to a real, accountable individual without ever needing to reveal who they are.

Post-platform Internet

Just as property rights enabled the Industrial Revolution, and Bitcoin (BTC) enabled permissionless finance, we need to unlock the next evolution of digital coordination, and that is authenticity at scale.

Every human should have a portable, self-owned identity that can be used across platforms. We also need to ensure that bots and agents can be audited and held accountable, and that DAOs and marketplaces can make decisions based on real, unique participants, not sybil attacks or fake accounts.

The world we’re sleepwalking toward

Let’s be honest about where this is heading if we do nothing. Over 50 countries are developing CBDCs, AI platforms are cooperating with governments, and wearable devices record our speech, location, heart rate, and more. The most sensitive data about our behavior, thoughts, and preferences will sit in private systems waiting to be breached or weaponized.

If we don’t act now, centralized identity, CBDCs, and AI platforms will converge into a system where governments can cut you off entirely for something you say in public, just as it worked in the USSR, only 100 times more efficient, more permanent, and harder to escape.

What we need is a proactive identity layer for the entire internet. Not just for web3, but for every digital interaction, whether it’s social, financial, creative, or autonomous. One that’s not owned by governments or corporations and verifies human uniqueness without surveillance. One that prioritizes privacy, dignity, and individual freedom at the protocol level.

The future of the internet demands more than patches; it demands new primitives.

Kirill Avery

Kirill Avery is a self-taught coder since the age of 11. He built Europe’s largest consumer social app at 16 (15M users). The youngest engineer at VK.com and the youngest solo founder accepted into Y Combinator.

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September 6, 2025 0 comments

The main character from Cronos The New Dawn looking out across a desolate encampment

Product Reviews

Cronos: The New Dawn review: a merging of survival horror greats that struggles to find its own identity

by admin September 3, 2025

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A few hours into Cronos: The New Dawn, I saw it. A corpse slumped against the wall, a message scrawled in blood above him: “Don’t let them merge”. If it wasn’t already clear that the latest survival horror game from Bloober Team was drawing from some of the genre’s greats, that warning, a nod to “cut off their limbs” seen in equally foreboding lines of jagged crimson in Dead Space, hammered the point home as subtly as a boot stomp to the skull.

Review info

Platform reviewed: PS5
Available on: PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC, Nintendo Switch 2, Mac
Release date: September 5, 2025

A feeling of déjà vu was a running theme in my time playing through Cronos. Here’s the main character, gun hoisted high in Leon S. Kennedy’s iconic pose from Resident Evil 4. Here are my limited crafting resources straight out of The Last of Us, ones I must choose to make either ammo or health items. Here are my gravity boots, pinched from Isaac Clarke’s locker on the USG Ishimura.

Cronos: The New Dawn at Loaded (Formerly CDKeys) for $51.29

It’s perfectly fine to be influenced by other works, especially when they are as iconic and genre-defining as the ones I’ve listed above. But when it just feels like you’re retreading the same path with less confidence and not bringing enough new ideas, what’s really the point of it all?

(Image credit: Bloober Team)

Now, that opening may read like I came away massively disappointed by Cronos: The New Dawn. In some aspects, I certainly did. It is painfully derivative in many areas, to the point where it made me question if anything has changed in sci-fi survival horror games in the last 20 years.

But, unsurprisingly, given its influences, it’s also a game that plays well. Combat is tense, shooting is solid, resource management is challenging, exploration is unsettling, and the environments drip with atmosphere. And there are kernels of ideas that, if only they were more fully realised or executed better, could have elevated the game beyond a decent – if standard – survival horror.

Let’s start with the premise: you play as the Traveler, an undefined being encased in a cross between a spacesuit and a diving suit. The game starts as you’re activated by a mysterious organisation known as The Collective and told to travel through time to extract important survivors after an apocalyptic infection dubbed the ‘Change’ turns most people on Earth into grotesque and amalgamated monstrosities.

The nexus point of the disaster is Poland in the 1980s, which at least makes for a unique setting that’s far from the spaceships and abandoned mining planets we usually find ourselves stomping around. There’s an inventiveness to the world design, too, which not only sees the infestation overrun dilapidated buildings, roads, and subways with a gloopy and pulsating biomass, but also fractures entire structures to create floating, twisted, and mind-bending new forms.

Add to that violent sandstorms and heavy snowfall, and safe to say, it’s not a pleasant stroll. I had to seriously pluck up some courage to carefully inch forward in many locations, especially towards the latter half of the game, when everything is so consumed by the effects of the infection and dotted with poisonous pustules that you feel suffocated by it – even if this trap is overplayed a dozen too many times.

Skin-crawling

(Image credit: Bloober Team)

Visually, it is disgusting (in all the right ways), but huge credit has to go to the audio. It masterfully ramps up that oppressive and stomach-churning atmosphere with all sorts of sloshing and wheezing and bubbling that gives a terrifying sense of life to the coagulated mass that surrounds you. One of the best gaming headsets is recommended.

If Cronos was all just trudging through fleshy corridors, then Bloober Team would have smashed it. Unfortunately, other parts of the game don’t excel in the same way and are merely fine or disappointing in comparison.

Combat is one. The gimmick here is that dead enemies remain on the ground and can be assimilated by other creatures to become larger and stronger foes – hence the bloody message of “don’t let them merge”. Fortunately, you come equipped with a torch. Nope, it’s not a bright light, but a burst of flames that can incinerate corpses and stop this merging from taking place.

Best bit

(Image credit: Future)

Cronos: The New Dawn finds its identity more as the game progresses and the section in the Unity Hospital is when the game hits its stride. It’s one of the scariest and creepiest places to explore, as you descend further into the bowels of the building, where the infection has taken even greater hold and you uncover some horrifying secrets about the impact of the Change.

That leads to the main flow of combat. Take down targets with your weapons, then prevent any survivors from merging by setting the bodies ablaze. It’s a setup that can create some tense encounters – ones where you’re busy dealing with one target, only to hear the awful sounds of two bodies smushing together in the distance (shoutout to the audio design again), and knowing there’ll be an even greater threat if you don’t introduce them to the cleansing flames immediately.

The problem is that I could count on one hand the number of times I felt seriously threatened by the risk of enemies merging. Too many encounters had too few enemies, were in too small spaces, or were littered with too many (respawning) explosive barrels, that I could comfortably handle the situation. It was only towards the end of the game when I felt overwhelmed in some encounters, needing to more strategically pick my targets, hurriedly craft ammo on the fly, and regularly reposition to burn dead enemies so they couldn’t merge.

Burn, baby, burn

(Image credit: Bloober Team)

It isn’t a disaster, just a shame that Cronos doesn’t really make the most of its main idea. Instead, the overwhelming feeling I had was that I was just playing Dead Space again, swapping between the limited ammo in my pistol, shotgun, and rifle to blast away everything. Outside of rare encounters, the mechanics of merging and burning feel like massively underused and unimpactful parts of the game.

It’s a common feeling. Take your main objective of ‘rescuing’ the specific survivors. I use quotation marks there because the actual process of saving them is kept ominously vague, and is instead best described as extracting and absorbing their soul to gain the knowledge needed to save humanity.

It’s here when I thought Cronos might step up from its clear inspirations with some fresh ideas. Not only is there a morbid mirroring at play (wait, are we the baddies?), but those other lives bouncing around inside your head lead to all sorts of different visions and hallucinations, depending on the characters you choose to save.

In its cleverest moments, who’s knocking about in your noggin can influence the environment or completely change how you perceive things in the world to create some genuinely spooky moments. Once again, though, outside of less than a handful of instances, this idea isn’t explored any further when it’s rife for some really interesting, exciting, and unique possibilities.

It frustrates and disappoints me more than anything. I really want to be clear that Cronos: The New Dawn isn’t a bad game: it plays fine, looks good enough, and runs well. Although I’d stick to performance mode on consoles if you can to get a smooth 60fps, as the quality mode feels far too jittery.

I just can’t help but feel that with the way it relies so heavily on what worked in classic survival horror games from yesteryear, I may have travelled back two decades myself to play it.

Should I play Cronos: The New Dawn?

(Image credit: Bloober Team)

Play it if…

Don’t play it if…

Accessibility

Cronos offers a range of standard accessibility options, including three color blind modes for green, red, and blue color blindness, as well as the option to add clear interaction indicators and subtitles in multiple languages that can be fully customised in terms of size and color.

The game has one Normal difficulty setting, with a Hard mode unlocked after you finish the game once. To customise the difficulty, though, you can adjust settings to get a more generous aim assist and alter whether you hold or tap for quick time events.

A center dot can be added to help alleviate motion sickness, while the game also provides options to reduce or turn off camera shake and sway.

How I reviewed Cronos: The New Dawn

I played Cronos: The New Dawn for around 16 hours on a PlayStation 5 Pro on a Samsung S90C OLED TV using a DualSense Wireless Controller. I mainly played in Performance mode, but I also tried Quality mode for a brief time and found the graphical improvements minimal compared to the benefits of a smoother frame rate.

I swapped between playing audio through a Samsung HW-Q930C soundbar and a SteelSeries Arctic Nova 7, and I definitely suggest headphones for the best experience.

I completed the main game and spent a lot of time exploring the environment to uncover as much of the story and as many hidden extras as I could find.

Today’s best Cronos: The New Dawn deals

Cronos: The New Dawn: Price Comparison

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September 3, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Google Will Make All Android App Developers Verify Their Identity Starting Next Year

by admin August 26, 2025

Android’s open nature set it apart from the iPhone as the era of touchscreen smartphones began nearly two decades ago. Little by little, Google has traded some of that openness for security, and its next security initiative could make the biggest concessions yet in the name of blocking bad apps.

Google has announced plans to begin verifying the identities of all Android app developers, and not just those publishing on the Play Store. Google intends to verify developer identities no matter where they offer their content, and apps without verification won’t work on most Android devices in the coming years.

Google used to do very little curation of the Play Store (or Android Market, if you go back far enough), but it has long sought to improve the platform’s reputation as being less secure than the Apple App Store. Years ago, you could publish actual exploits in the official store to gain root access on phones, but now there are multiple reviews and detection mechanisms to reduce the prevalence of malware and banned content. While the Play Store is still not perfect, Google claims apps sideloaded from outside its store are 50 times more likely to contain malware.

This, we are led to believe, is the impetus for Google’s new developer verification system. The company describes it like an “ID check at the airport.” Since requiring all Google Play app developers to verify their identities in 2023, it has seen a precipitous drop in malware and fraud. Bad actors in Google Play leveraged anonymity to distribute malicious apps, so it stands to reason that verifying app developers outside of Google Play could also enhance security.

However, making that happen outside of its app store will require Google to take a page from Apple’s playbook and flex its muscle in a way many Android users and developers could find intrusive. Google plans to create a streamlined Android Developer Console, which devs will use if they plan to distribute apps outside of the Play Store. After verifying their identities, developers will have to register the package name and signing keys of their apps. Google won’t check the content or functionality of the apps, though.

Google says that only apps with verified identities will be installable on certified Android devices, which is virtually every Android-based device—if it has Google services on it, it’s a certified device. If you have a non-Google build of Android on your phone, none of this applies. However, that’s a vanishingly small fraction of the Android ecosystem outside of China.

Google plans to begin testing this system with early access in October of this year. In March 2026, all developers will have access to the new console to get verified. In September 2026, Google plans to launch this feature in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand. The next step is still hazy, but Google is targeting 2027 to expand the verification requirements globally.

A Seismic Shift

This plan comes at a major crossroads for Android. The ongoing Google Play antitrust case brought by Epic Games may finally force changes to Google Play in the coming months. Google lost its appeal of the verdict several weeks ago, and while it plans to appeal the case to the US Supreme Court, the company will have to begin altering its app distribution scheme, barring further legal maneuvering.

Among other things, the court has ordered that Google must distribute third-party app stores and allow Play Store content to be rehosted in other storefronts. Giving people more ways to get apps could increase choice, which is what Epic and other developers wanted. However, third-party sources won’t have the deep system integration of the Play Store, which means users will be sideloading these apps without Google’s layers of security.

It’s hard to say how much of a genuine security problem this is. On one hand, it makes sense Google would be concerned—most of the major malware threats to Android devices spread via third-party app repositories. However, enforcing an installation whitelist across almost all Android devices is heavy handed. This requires everyone making Android apps to satisfy Google’s requirements before virtually anyone will be able to install their apps, which could help Google retain control as the app market opens up. While the requirements may be minimal right now, there’s no guarantee they will stay that way.

The documentation currently available doesn’t explain what will happen if you try to install a non-verified app, nor how phones will check for verification status. Presumably, Google will distribute this whitelist in Play Services as the implementation date approaches. We’ve reached out for details on that front and will report if we hear anything.

This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.

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August 26, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds Still Doesn’t Feel Like It Has An Identity Of Its Own

by admin August 26, 2025

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is quickly approaching the finish line, scheduled to launch in September. I got the chance to play the kart racer for a second time recently, and my opinion of the game is largely unchanged from my verdict during Summer Game Fest: It’s dropping the best aspects of its predecessors to become something closer to Mario Kart. This second session, I spent a little more time with the game, getting a chance to race on additional tracks and play as the previously unavailable Hatsune Miku and Ichiban Kasuga.

CrossWorlds sees you jump into a kart or onto a hoverboard and compete against several other racers from Sega’s catalog of Sonic characters (plus a few guests from other franchises!). Each race across the 24 different tracks is three laps, with the second taking place in an entirely different world after the racers teleport through a travel ring. Whichever competitor is in the lead as the racers approach the second lap chooses which world everyone hops over to, with two options given at random from a total pool of 15 other worlds.

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Now Playing: 8 Minutes of Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds Gameplay

It’s an interesting gimmick, best seen in the Grand Prix mode that was the focus of both the SGF preview and my latest hands-on. In that mode, you’re awarded a number of points depending on your place, which are added up at the end of a series of races to determine the ultimate winner. Each Grand Prix is four races, with the fourth and final race taking place across the three previous tracks–the first lap is on the track from the first race, the second lap is on the track of the second race, and so on.

As was the case at SGF, I crushed the computer-controlled competitors handily on the hardest available difficulty (there is one that’s even harder, but it has not been available in either preview). As fun as it is to win, it’s been hard to enjoy the game without the challenge of needing to try. I still believe that challenge will come when given the chance to play with other humans, but until then, CrossWorlds feels lacking compared to what came before.

Anyone else miss Sonic Riders?

The game borrows mechanics and features from Team Sonic Racing and Sonic Riders, but lacks the teamwork-oriented relay racing of the former or fuel management and character abilities of the latter. Those aspects made Team Sonic Racing and Sonic Riders distinct enough from Mario Kart to give them more identity, and also make them more challenging–it was rewarding to win at those games and I remember playing them (especially Riders) for hours upon hours and wanting to push myself to get better. I haven’t gotten that sensation from CrossWorlds yet.

Like all of the other characters, Hatsune and Ichiban have their own stats that affect the minutiae of play–making slight adjustments to how each kart handles in a race. It must be very slight though, as I didn’t notice any discernible difference between them, nor any change from my time with Jet the Hawk and Amy Rose at SGF. Changing up the plate loadout of the kart is a far more noticeable adjustment. I tinkered around with the kart plate system–which allows you to create several established loadouts to change how your kart behaves–a little more this time around, creating plates that let me start off with the monster truck transformation so I could run over everyone from the very start, or draft off others more easily and overtake the competition by stealing their rings, or spin like an unstoppable top while drifting to bash other racers and build extra speed boost.

With 24 tracks and 15 other worlds to explore, you’ll see plenty of strange sights throughout the race.

These plate builds are fun and zany, and I wish they had a bigger impact on my performance to encourage me to spend more time tinkering in the shop. But I won with them all and I didn’t really have to adjust my strategy for how I raced with any of them. I still needed to collect rings to build speed, pick up items to mess with opponents, dodge other racers’ items, and drift around corners. Like everything else, the customization features don’t help CrossWorlds differentiate itself from its competitors–nothing (so far) about this experience feels like it belongs solely to CrossWorlds.

I’m still hopeful that I’m just missing something. I generally enjoy the Sonic games that focus on racing, so this one not connecting with me feels like I’m somehow lying to myself. I’m sure that as soon as I sit down on the couch with my closest friends and we’re screaming at each other for the bullcrap that we manage to pull off, I’ll recognize in that moment what makes CrossWorlds special. Until that moment, however, I’m choosing to remain cautious of this one.

Sonic Racing CrossWorlds is launching for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Switch on September 25. The game will be released for Switch 2 during the 2025 holiday season.

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August 26, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

The government’s spending review: Citizen data and digital identity projects need high security by default

by admin August 21, 2025

The UK government’s spending review in June set out its plans to invest in Britain’s renewal: its security, health and economy.

Digital technologies featured heavily in the review with government pledging that it will provide “funding directly to departments to build strong digital and technology foundations, modernize public service delivery, and drive a major overhaul in government productivity and efficiency.”

One of the ways it has done this is by introducing a GOV.UK Wallet and a GOV.UK App, which aims to deliver more personalized customer experiences and verifiable digital credentials for citizens.

The pros and cons of centralizing data

Centralizing citizen data and digital identities has clear benefits. It enables more joined up services, reduces duplications allows for more seamless, personalized user experiences and could improve access and efficiency across the NHS and other public services.

For the NHS, for example, a single patient record could help doctors and specialists deliver better, more consistent care across the health service. For citizens interacting with government departments, a unified app and wallet could simplify administrative tasks and improve digital inclusion.

Technology Secretary Peter Kyle has said in recent interviews that, “People’s private data will not be shared outside of government.” However, despite the Technology Secretary’s assurances, this approach does come with significant risks. Centralized citizen data represents some of the most sensitive information any organization could hold. Health records, identity details and government interactions, combined in a single system, are a goldmine for cybercriminals.

And no doubt there will be some concerns from the public regarding its security – particularly in light of recent, very public, high profile cyber-attacks. Over the last 18 months, the UK has seen a series cyber attacks on both public and private sector organizations, including health authorities and councils, as well as the recent M&S and Qantas data breaches.

These incidents have highlighted the vulnerability of critical services and the real-world impact of compromised data, from patient safety to public confidence.

As these services become more integrated and reliant on shared data infrastructure, the risk of a breach also grows. A single point of access to multiple datasets can become a high-value target for threat actors. The more data an attacker can obtain from one place, the more appealing, and damaging, a breach can be.

A proactive approach to information security

With these very real threats, a proactive, systems-led approach to information security must be embedded from the outset.

The government needs to ensure that privacy by design and security by default is in every digital service developed. This means applying rigorous access controls, encryption, and secure development practices across every data touchpoint. That said, it is crucial that continuous monitoring for vulnerabilities and suspicious activities happens throughout the system lifecycle – and not just after deployment.

Similarly, the systems need to ensure that they comply with UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act and other relevant standards.

These requirements must be seen not as a burden by the government but as the bedrock of responsible digital innovation.

Building a high-security posture

To meet these heightened security demands, following the guidance provided by internationally recognized security standards, such as ISO 27001, can be a logical place to start to get ahead of the increased risks to highly personal data this approach represents.

Standards such as ISO 27001 offer a structured, repeatable framework for managing risk, protecting information assets and demonstrating compliance. But it’s more than a tick-box exercise, it is a cultural shift in how risk is understood, communicated, and mitigated across every layer of an organization.

If the government embeds the principles of ISO 27001 into its delivery of these new services from the outset, rather than retrofitting them post-launch, it can design services that are both secure and scalable. It can ensure that it is identifying and evaluating new and emerging threats as digital services evolve.

It will also mitigate risks through policy, controls and continual improvement. But it will also be able to demonstrate accountability and transparency to the public – which is key.

Transparency is key to building public trust

Security isn’t just about systems, it is also about perception. The government’s digital strategy must be underpinned by public trust. Clear communication about how data is used, who has access, what safeguards are in place and what recourse citizens have in the event of a breach is essential.

Publishing high-level information security policies, adopting standards like ISO 27001 and engaging with the public on data protection issues will help foster the confidence needed to make digital services work.

Public sector leaders must ensure that information security is not treated as an afterthought. That means prioritizing risk management now – not waiting for a breach to expose the consequences of delay.

We list the best identity management solution.

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August 21, 2025 0 comments