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Germany does not have a central identity authority. One of the most competitive countries globally, which seems to say something about the value surveillance o

Germany does not have a central identity authority. One of the most competitive countries globally, which seems to say something about the value surveillance offers.

intended 6y ago
India does on the other hand, and the whole nation is enamored by the idea of soft tecnhoxracy. Culturally people would likely be happy with a big daddy watching over everyone, making sure “evil doers” are caught. The only thing that has stopped it has been the challenge in building the systems and cleaning the data - for now. I really want to understand how Germany manages to make things work.
- inter_netuser 6y ago
  India is enamoured with the idea of surveillance for the greater good, really? I find this very hard to believe. Given the results of gold confiscation in India, it seems that revealed preferences of citizens in India are not aligned with such an idea. Germany is not alone in this approach, but they are a little unique in some aspects due to some historical events. Canada and many others do not even have a national id at all, and it works great: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_identity_card_policies_by_country#Countries_with_no_identity_cards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_identity_card... You simply present multiple sources of identification, and de-facto in many cases driver license is the national ID. However, you can always present a combination of multiple documents. e.g. birth certificate + photo ID of some kind. As such, there is no central database, but multiple databanks in most of those countries. I think central databases are an extremely misguided approach, because even with biometric databases - people just end up selling their identity for money to fraudsters. It just hikes the cost to commit fraud a little bit. Estonia's e-residency cards were obtained by the truckload, and then resold to "evil doers" who then proceeded to launder something like $250 billion. That's for a country of 1.5 million.
  - intended 6y ago
    As someone who actively] fought against the aadhar/UID program, have to find workarounds to file taxes, and the large evidence of positive support for the program on the ground - sadly, Indians really do like their surveillance state. I think most people assume it won’t happen to them. Thanks for the update on Germany/Canada. I agree - central databases are a bad idea.

Germany does not have a central identity authority. One of the most competitive countries globally, which seems to say something about the value surveillance offers.

intended 6y ago

India does on the other hand, and the whole nation is enamored by the idea of soft tecnhoxracy. Culturally people would likely be happy with a big daddy watching over everyone, making sure “evil doers” are caught. The only thing that has stopped it has been the challenge in building the systems and cleaning the data - for now. I really want to understand how Germany manages to make things work.

inter_netuser 6y ago
India is enamoured with the idea of surveillance for the greater good, really? I find this very hard to believe. Given the results of gold confiscation in India, it seems that revealed preferences of citizens in India are not aligned with such an idea. Germany is not alone in this approach, but they are a little unique in some aspects due to some historical events. Canada and many others do not even have a national id at all, and it works great: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_identity_card_policies_by_country#Countries_with_no_identity_cards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_identity_card... You simply present multiple sources of identification, and de-facto in many cases driver license is the national ID. However, you can always present a combination of multiple documents. e.g. birth certificate + photo ID of some kind. As such, there is no central database, but multiple databanks in most of those countries. I think central databases are an extremely misguided approach, because even with biometric databases - people just end up selling their identity for money to fraudsters. It just hikes the cost to commit fraud a little bit. Estonia's e-residency cards were obtained by the truckload, and then resold to "evil doers" who then proceeded to launder something like $250 billion. That's for a country of 1.5 million.
- intended 6y ago
  As someone who actively] fought against the aadhar/UID program, have to find workarounds to file taxes, and the large evidence of positive support for the program on the ground - sadly, Indians really do like their surveillance state. I think most people assume it won’t happen to them. Thanks for the update on Germany/Canada. I agree - central databases are a bad idea.