8 ms·

In term of features, it would be awesome. But in term of privacy and surveillance society, this will be a nightmare... Imagine, the dream for all eu gov and t

In term of features, it would be awesome. But in term of privacy and surveillance society, this will be a nightmare... Imagine, the dream for all eu gov and tax/police forces to have a mandatory unified controlled system for identification anywhere. From there, it will be more easier to go one step further in surveillance for average citizen. The thing is that currently, the multitude of not centralized, authenticated system allows to remain anonymous or quasi anonymous for a lot of things. But, once there will be an official guaranteed EU identity authentication system, everyone will want to use it. You are visiting a city, and you need to pay the parking fee? the EU SSO will have to be used, and states will be able to know where you were, at what time. You want to access a website that is required by law to do age verification? EU SSO has to be used and again, the state can monitor your internet browsing. You buy/sell a few things online, on peer to peer website like "leboncoin" or "ebay"? or do car sharing on "blablacar"? Mandatory EU SSO id has to be used, and so everything you do can be monitored.

the-dude 5y ago
Wait until you become unwanted or fall through the cracks and your wallet is blocked.
- beebeepka 5y ago
  That was my first thought as well. It could be a powerful weapon
- kasperni 5y ago
  And this is different for status quo in what way? In every EU country the government can go to a bank and freeze your account via a warrant.
  - Aerroon 5y ago
    But at least right now it won't block you from viewing websites as an example. If this becomes commonplace then most websites with accounts will do this kind of identity detection. Why wouldn't they? Think about it. If people's real identities are involved then they're less likely to be abusive, because everything tracks back to them. But it also means that websites like Facebook and pornhub might not let new users in without that kind of authentication.
  - disambiguation 5y ago
    in the US we had laws protecting the privacy of mail going through the postal service, and conversations over the phone. now facebook and google know our every thought and move. new technology is like the wild west for govts and corporations, and you can hold a larger crowd hostage with a gun than you can with a knife.
nicbou 5y ago
I'm also thinking that it will become one of those catch-22 problems for recent immigrants, who need a bunch of papers to settle, but also need to settle to get those papers. For example, the German government assumes that every resident has a fixed, official, registered address. However for various reasons, many people can't register their address. They might for instance live in an illegal sublet. Since they can't register, they can't get a tax ID, health insurance or a bank account, which in turn make it hard to get an apartment that lets them register. Lawmakers often forget that millions of people aren't born into the system, and do not always fill certain preconditions like the native population.
- fakedang 5y ago
  Or, you know, it's may be by design? There are n number of countries where you'll be deported immediately if you don't have the right documents, precisely to discourage the kind of challenges you mentioned. The only difference between those countries and the EU is that they actually enforce their laws almost immediately while the EU (and to an extent, the US) don't. A fixed address is practically required in any part of the world to avail of government services, insurance, healthcare and banks, from Mozambique to Monaco.
  - the-dude 5y ago
    AFAIK, the US does not have a mandatory ID requirement ( nor does the UK ).
    - Zenst 5y ago
      Birth certificates are kinda in the realms of manfatory and be it directly or indirectly (classed as child abuse in the case of the USA) illegal not to register a birth in many countries. In the UK you have the 1953 Births and Deaths Registration Act requires a birth to be registered within 42 days of a child being born. Also nice example that Google spat out here in the respect of the UK and trying to opt out not registering a birth: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jun/23/man-refused-to-register-sons-birth-high-court https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jun/23/man-refused-... So given that, I'd say birth certificates have in many ways and thru various avenues of law in one country or another, kinda become mandatory years ago.
tokamak-teapot 5y ago
Being optimistic, which is perhaps not warranted here, but bear with me: The EU is perhaps one of the few places in the world where there will be controls mandated on the data. I'm not at all convinced they'll be anywhere near abuse-proof, but at least I would expect to see an attempt.
- Aerroon 5y ago
  >The EU is perhaps one of the few places in the world where there will be controls mandated on the data. For non-state actors. Government(s) will obviously get exemptions in ways we won't find out until later. Look at GDPR and the EU commission.
  - PoignardAzur 5y ago
    I don't know about other EU countries, but in France the CNIL is pretty damn serious at telling the government to back off and respect the GDPR.
- privacylawthrow 5y ago
  EU governments are exempt from the requirements of GDPR. In some countries police can access large amounts of data without the need for a warrant. For example German police do not need a warrant to get passwords to email account, PIN numbers for mobile phones, mobile usernames, birthdates, telco information, or hospital data.
  - germanier 5y ago
    They do need a warrant for all the mentioned things in Germany (except birthdates if accessed in public registers). The GDPR does apply to governments in general (see Article 2) but criminal law enforcement authorities are exempt.
- martin_a 5y ago
  > ... they'll be anywhere near abuse-proof, but at least I would expect to see an attempt. All police-like institutions will likely have full access right from the beginning, because of child pornography, terror or other "serious crimes". That will be softened and weakened by the time until someone finds out this system was misused for stalking some VIP or because police wanted to catch a guy who had 10 grams of weed. It's all happened before, it will happen again.
kasperni 5y ago
> The thing is that currently, the multitude of not centralized, authenticated system allows to remain anonymous or quasi anonymous for a lot of things. I don't really think that is the case. There was a big scandale in Denmark a couple of years [1]. Where a tabloid had bribed a person at Nets which is the main digital payment processing solutions in Denmark. As a result they could set up trackers on people whenever they used their credit card. Tracking where the went on honeymoon or had dinner etc. If a second-rate tabloid can end up tracking individuals' people use of their credit cards. I'm pretty sure it should be manageable for most governments _if they want to_. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Se_og_H%C3%B8r_media_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Se_og_H%C3%B8r_media_scan...
- Asymmetryk 5y ago
  I don't know about today, but 15 years ago when my company held presentations about the value of print advertising that's grossly under bought, (with permission) we'd put everyone's favourite take out Pret sandwich in front of their seats, with the advertising sources on green fanfold line as placemats. We couldn't get better than 50 50 for exact choices but given the advantage of permission to obtain personal information we asked the secretaries with a (disclosed as payment for data) bribe. The line prints did the talking just as raw data - in 05 data mining was too precious for stunts and Xeon hadn't surpassed our ES45 alpha servers for system bandwidth.
throwaway4good 5y ago
I think you read too much into this. It is a service that will allow say a Dane to use Danish NemID instead of a Swedish bankid when working in Sweden. And it is not for monitoring you. It is for authenticating you in a manner that is explicitly under your control.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  not monitoring yet.
  - throwaway4good 5y ago
    It really doesn’t have anything to do with monitoring. You are being monitored a plenty, just not via this eu initiative.
    - rorykoehler 5y ago
      If it can be used to monitor you it will be used to monitor you. Let’s not fool ourselves here.
    - emteycz 5y ago
      So how exactly will the auth request be impossible log/trace? And is it really going to be implemented that way?
      - inter_netuser 5y ago
        They are logged. These are just SAML federations, ForgeRock has a bunch of these rolled out across Europe. They are logged, and law enforcement does get the logs on request. Read the ToS.
rapjr9 5y ago
It is my understanding that this is why China is developing their own cryptocurrency, to be able to track all uses (and users) of it. The Wall Street Journal reported on it: https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-creates-its-own-digital-currency-a-first-for-major-economy-11617634118 https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-creates-its-own-digital-c... That applies to uses inside China and outside China. I can see the NSA/USA wanting to do the same, as well as all the other countries in the world. This might be what actually kills all cryptocurrencies unless it becomes mandated that all citizens use it, which could lead to many outside a country having to also use it. But maybe there will be ways to scramble the tracking? Or maybe not, anyone looked at the design of China's cryptocurrency?

the-dude 5y ago

Wait until you become unwanted or fall through the cracks and your wallet is blocked.

beebeepka 5y ago
That was my first thought as well. It could be a powerful weapon
kasperni 5y ago
And this is different for status quo in what way? In every EU country the government can go to a bank and freeze your account via a warrant.
- Aerroon 5y ago
  But at least right now it won't block you from viewing websites as an example. If this becomes commonplace then most websites with accounts will do this kind of identity detection. Why wouldn't they? Think about it. If people's real identities are involved then they're less likely to be abusive, because everything tracks back to them. But it also means that websites like Facebook and pornhub might not let new users in without that kind of authentication.
- disambiguation 5y ago
  in the US we had laws protecting the privacy of mail going through the postal service, and conversations over the phone. now facebook and google know our every thought and move. new technology is like the wild west for govts and corporations, and you can hold a larger crowd hostage with a gun than you can with a knife.

nicbou 5y ago

I'm also thinking that it will become one of those catch-22 problems for recent immigrants, who need a bunch of papers to settle, but also need to settle to get those papers. For example, the German government assumes that every resident has a fixed, official, registered address. However for various reasons, many people can't register their address. They might for instance live in an illegal sublet. Since they can't register, they can't get a tax ID, health insurance or a bank account, which in turn make it hard to get an apartment that lets them register. Lawmakers often forget that millions of people aren't born into the system, and do not always fill certain preconditions like the native population.

fakedang 5y ago
Or, you know, it's may be by design? There are n number of countries where you'll be deported immediately if you don't have the right documents, precisely to discourage the kind of challenges you mentioned. The only difference between those countries and the EU is that they actually enforce their laws almost immediately while the EU (and to an extent, the US) don't. A fixed address is practically required in any part of the world to avail of government services, insurance, healthcare and banks, from Mozambique to Monaco.
- the-dude 5y ago
  AFAIK, the US does not have a mandatory ID requirement ( nor does the UK ).
  - Zenst 5y ago
    Birth certificates are kinda in the realms of manfatory and be it directly or indirectly (classed as child abuse in the case of the USA) illegal not to register a birth in many countries. In the UK you have the 1953 Births and Deaths Registration Act requires a birth to be registered within 42 days of a child being born. Also nice example that Google spat out here in the respect of the UK and trying to opt out not registering a birth: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jun/23/man-refused-to-register-sons-birth-high-court https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jun/23/man-refused-... So given that, I'd say birth certificates have in many ways and thru various avenues of law in one country or another, kinda become mandatory years ago.

tokamak-teapot 5y ago

Being optimistic, which is perhaps not warranted here, but bear with me: The EU is perhaps one of the few places in the world where there will be controls mandated on the data. I'm not at all convinced they'll be anywhere near abuse-proof, but at least I would expect to see an attempt.

Aerroon 5y ago
>The EU is perhaps one of the few places in the world where there will be controls mandated on the data. For non-state actors. Government(s) will obviously get exemptions in ways we won't find out until later. Look at GDPR and the EU commission.
- PoignardAzur 5y ago
  I don't know about other EU countries, but in France the CNIL is pretty damn serious at telling the government to back off and respect the GDPR.
privacylawthrow 5y ago
EU governments are exempt from the requirements of GDPR. In some countries police can access large amounts of data without the need for a warrant. For example German police do not need a warrant to get passwords to email account, PIN numbers for mobile phones, mobile usernames, birthdates, telco information, or hospital data.
- germanier 5y ago
  They do need a warrant for all the mentioned things in Germany (except birthdates if accessed in public registers). The GDPR does apply to governments in general (see Article 2) but criminal law enforcement authorities are exempt.
martin_a 5y ago
> ... they'll be anywhere near abuse-proof, but at least I would expect to see an attempt. All police-like institutions will likely have full access right from the beginning, because of child pornography, terror or other "serious crimes". That will be softened and weakened by the time until someone finds out this system was misused for stalking some VIP or because police wanted to catch a guy who had 10 grams of weed. It's all happened before, it will happen again.

kasperni 5y ago

> The thing is that currently, the multitude of not centralized, authenticated system allows to remain anonymous or quasi anonymous for a lot of things. I don't really think that is the case. There was a big scandale in Denmark a couple of years [1]. Where a tabloid had bribed a person at Nets which is the main digital payment processing solutions in Denmark. As a result they could set up trackers on people whenever they used their credit card. Tracking where the went on honeymoon or had dinner etc. If a second-rate tabloid can end up tracking individuals' people use of their credit cards. I'm pretty sure it should be manageable for most governments _if they want to_. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Se_og_H%C3%B8r_media_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Se_og_H%C3%B8r_media_scan...

Asymmetryk 5y ago
I don't know about today, but 15 years ago when my company held presentations about the value of print advertising that's grossly under bought, (with permission) we'd put everyone's favourite take out Pret sandwich in front of their seats, with the advertising sources on green fanfold line as placemats. We couldn't get better than 50 50 for exact choices but given the advantage of permission to obtain personal information we asked the secretaries with a (disclosed as payment for data) bribe. The line prints did the talking just as raw data - in 05 data mining was too precious for stunts and Xeon hadn't surpassed our ES45 alpha servers for system bandwidth.

throwaway4good 5y ago

I think you read too much into this. It is a service that will allow say a Dane to use Danish NemID instead of a Swedish bankid when working in Sweden. And it is not for monitoring you. It is for authenticating you in a manner that is explicitly under your control.

inter_netuser 5y ago
not monitoring yet.
- throwaway4good 5y ago
  It really doesn’t have anything to do with monitoring. You are being monitored a plenty, just not via this eu initiative.
  - rorykoehler 5y ago
    If it can be used to monitor you it will be used to monitor you. Let’s not fool ourselves here.
  - emteycz 5y ago
    So how exactly will the auth request be impossible log/trace? And is it really going to be implemented that way?
    - inter_netuser 5y ago
      They are logged. These are just SAML federations, ForgeRock has a bunch of these rolled out across Europe. They are logged, and law enforcement does get the logs on request. Read the ToS.

rapjr9 5y ago

It is my understanding that this is why China is developing their own cryptocurrency, to be able to track all uses (and users) of it. The Wall Street Journal reported on it: https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-creates-its-own-digital-currency-a-first-for-major-economy-11617634118 https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-creates-its-own-digital-c... That applies to uses inside China and outside China. I can see the NSA/USA wanting to do the same, as well as all the other countries in the world. This might be what actually kills all cryptocurrencies unless it becomes mandated that all citizens use it, which could lead to many outside a country having to also use it. But maybe there will be ways to scramble the tracking? Or maybe not, anyone looked at the design of China's cryptocurrency?