4 ms·

What's the downside of a universal federal ID?

• supertrope 4y ago
  If nearly all choices and utterances are linked to the same database and can be used against you in ways that don't even exist today people will feel a strong chilling effect. We have bankruptcy and privacy laws specifically so the owners of these private ledgers and databases do not entirely control our lives. The issuer of an universal ID gains gatekeeping power. Besides the danger of people getting excluded, children and marginalized demographics won't have one. Ironically widespread deployment of an ID can sometimes lead to more fraud. Bureaucracies tend to confuse identification, authentication, and authorization. Possessing a scan of a passport is often accepted as possessing the passport which is accepted as authority to transact with that name. Through the transitive property possessing a hacked .jpg can allow a fraudster to transact as you. When businesses and bureaucracies are not liable for fraud or their errors, they focus on the ID tokens as a way to improve throughput instead of assessing the legitimacy of the transaction in a holistic manner.