Does Zero Knowledge Equal Zero Privacy?

Perhaps you’ve heard the joke about an anonymous survey managed by a company’s personnel department. In the joke, one employee received two emails:

• The first was from HR, announcing the anonymous survey.
• The second was from the employee’s supervisor, reporting that HR says that the employee is the only person who hasn’t completed the “anonymous” survey.

But maybe it’s not a joke.

Is the zero knowledge/World dream of one unique identity per person actually a curse? According to Biometric Update, Vitalik Buterin of Ethereum fame claims it REMOVES privacy.

“[U]nder one-per-person ID, even if ZK-wrapped, we risk coming closer to a world where all of your activity must de-facto be under a single public identity….

“[T]here can’t be an easily legible hard limit on how many identities you can easily get. If you can only have one identity, you do not have pseudonymity, and you can be coerced into revealing it.”

Buterin believes multiple identities, managed separately, provide concurrent identity and privacy.