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European digital identity: provisional agreement reached on eID
- sylware 3y agoIs this a joke? "Checking your browser before accessing a GSC Managed Website Checking your browser before accessing "www.consilium.europa.eu". Please turn JavaScript on and reload the page."
- rvz 3y ago> With the approval of the European digital identity regulation, we are taking a fundamental step so that citizens can have a unique and secure European digital identity. This is a key advance for the European Union to be a global reference in the digital field, protecting our democratic rights and values. Another shoehorned decision which almost no-one wanted and no-one consulted the public on, since if they did it would be a resounding: No.
- spurgu 3y agoWhile I can be quite critical of the EU this actually sounds somewhat convenient, from a practical standpoint at least. Currently in Finland I can identify online through my Finnish bank credentials, but that's of no use in Spain for example because even if they were to recognize Finnish banks as authoritative the information that is passed from there is my Finnish social security number, while in Spain I identify either by passport number or by NIE (foreign identity number). A standardization would be convenient, that I could verify my identity online regardless of which European country I'm dealing with. Edit: I mean from a privacy standpoint we all have social security numbers already, this (on the surface at last) just seems like a standardization of identifying online across Eueopean countries. Or am I missing something? Edit2: But..! I would definitely vote against tying this to biometrics. But I think that ship has already sailed? Aren't everyone requiring biometrics for passports nowadays? So the only way to avoid it is to not travel.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- verisimi 3y ago[flagged]
- FinnKuhn 3y agoThe German ID also has an online verification function already in it, but if you are a Spanish citizen for example on holiday in Germany that doesn't help you. One EU-wide system is much better than a different one for each country as it helps to give equal access to online services regardless of your country of origin. That system is mostly just used for government websites, stuff like getting a new passport, change your registered address or view/submit your taxes. If you could do this stuff anywhere in the EU online no matter where you are from it would be way easier to move between countries and navigate different bureaucracies.
- raxxorraxor 3y agoIf such an ID were to be broadly established, people start to demand it being used for everything. Age verification, any form of transaction, social media will require it to filter content... We already see some of this even today, Blogger for example. At that point anonymity on the net becomes impractical. Honestly, even with government services getting easier to access, this is mostly not worth it.
- spurgu 3y ago
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoThe desirability of eID that just works, regardless of what EU country you are from or in, has been discussed for years in tech circles in Europe, including on this very site.
- bertil 3y agoMost people who use official digital authentication appreciate the value and wish it was widely available. Such systems have not been breached or leaked information yet, despite being used daily by millions of people.
- Asooka 3y agoThe problem I see is with having the government be the one that issues your digital id. It gives them more power to fuck with politically undesirable people. Currently I can get one of several companies to issue me with a digital certificate that I am person A, at least one of which could operate in defiance of corrupt orders. As an example, our banks will refuse to do business with you if you use your account to trade cryptocurrency. That is, if a bank catches you transferring money for the purpose of buying or selling cryptocurrency, you get blacklisted from doing any business with them at all forever. Your accounts get closed, you get your money back and are told to fuck off and never return. But you can still do it by using some other banking service. In contrast, if my government was the only bank I could use, they could debank me entirely and totally fuck me.
- bertil 3y agoBanks don't have to offer you an ID; governments do.
- Jochim 3y ago> In contrast, if my government was the only bank I could use, they could debank me entirely and totally fuck me. Digital government ID doesn't make the government into a bank. It also doesn't confer any powers that they don't already exercise through your physical government ID. Most countries already require some form of government ID in order to open a bank account, presumably they already blacklist these.
- belorn 3y agoThey two authentication systems that I know of that allow users to freely choose between authentication suppliers are websites supporting openid and RFC 6238. There are works being done in Sweden to create an open government identification standard where users can choose which trusted entity to use, assuming that those entities are trusted by the government website or service that require government ID. For Sweden that would likely mean a choice between banks or government issued digital id, which is a step up from current system of only having banks being the authority of online identification. An EU digital identity would be a third options. Those are not a digital certificate. They are more similar to single-sign-on system. It is the "authenticate with facebook" but without facebook and for things like healthcare and taxes. As a side note, the current system in Sweden is such that if you do get banned from banks in Sweden then you also loose your digital identity and will be unable to do most things in relation to government or healthcare.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y agoAre you an EU citizen? Because anyone who is who likes to do things online would find this very convenient. Identity is very important when dealing with things like taxes, legal cases and various other rights and responsibilities. Instead of jerry rigged systems like SSN in the US, having something secure and reliable is gold.
- PrimeMcFly 3y agoThe only reason against I think is not wanting to give the government more control and more information about you than they already need. And what happens if/when they get hacked?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- surgical_fire 3y ago> Another shoehorned decision which almost no-one wanted and no-one consulted the public on, since if they did it would be a resounding: > > No. Are you sure? I live in Europe, and I am in favor of this idea.
- expertentipp 3y agoWhat's wrong with plastic national identity documents exactly, are they too heavy, too large, not enough waterproof? With the next wave of broad consent for authoritarianism like during 2020-2022, the new "features" promptly integrated into this ecosystem will be not nice at all. > Finally, the revised law clarifies the scope of the qualified web authentication certificates (QWACs), which ensures that users can verify who is behind a website, while preserving the current well-established industry security rules and standards. Pan-Europan edition of the German Impressum enforced by hordes of vicious bloodthirsty legal trolls and predators.
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoThis is about proving identity online across the EU. Most plastic national IDs obviously don’t work for EU-wide online uses because not all EU identity cards have a corresponding smartcard chip, and there would not be a standardized system without an EU-level decision like the one discussed here. When eID has been rolled out at the national level, it allows you to log into, say, your tax account or social-security account by simply logging into your bank. Your bank was already compelled to do all the work of vetting your identity, so the state trusts the bank to pass on your authentication.
- expertentipp 3y ago> Your bank was already compelled to do all the work of vetting your identity, so the state trusts the bank to pass on your authentication. Long time ago I thought it's an okayish idea, but to think of it... banks and governments are separate entities with not exactly overlapping interests. Lots of heavyweight lobbying happening. Many of their interests are not in favour of an individual. I don't want to connect dots for them, it's not going to work in my favour. Ideally the only data shared between banks and governments regarding a law-abiding citizen would be only an IBAN.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago> Most plastic national IDs obviously don’t work for EU-wide online uses because not all EU identity cards have a corresponding smartcard chip This is a good thing. It should be inconvenient to authenticate real identities over the internet because otherwise it will be used for tracking. Meanwhile there is no real problem with doing a one-time account creation with your bank or social security administration in person for the few things that actually need it.
- dudeinjapan 3y agoThis doesn’t sound very GDPR compliant.
- number6 3y agoIt actually is, there were long and debates and safeguards against misuse. E.g. if you have to verify you age, the service online gets a True or a False. There is no identifiers for transactions and so on
- AnthonyMouse 3y agoThis doesn't actually fix it. Suppose there is a some age-gated content you want to access. It's age-gated because it's controversial and politically sensitive. You now have to give your identity to a third party each time you access it, which they can use to correlate what you read with who you are if they collude with the service provider or either of them is compromised and the intruders record the data and either publish it or are themselves a government intelligence service that directly uses it for oppression. It also does nothing about the concern with turnkey authoritarianism. Once the infrastructure is in place, shouldn't we have a way to unmask these people? What if they're child abusers? Or the profane religious minority? The minor advantage of building something like this is vastly outweighed by its potential for use by governments in order to do things that Must Never Happen Again.
- number6 3y ago> You now have to give your identity to a third party each time you access it No. This is one of the safeguards. The ID just tells you if you are above the age or not. Nothing more. Your scenario is something that is explicitly considered and guarded against.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago> The ID just tells you if you are above the age or not. Nothing more. The ID has your name attached to it. The ID provider has to know who you are in order to know your age -- or the system would be worthless because all you would need is access to one adult ID which could be shared by everyone underaged in the world.
- freecitizen285 3y ago[flagged]
- olivermuty 3y agoLol! You dont have to give up your spanish identity to be able to log into govt services in other countries. I would take eID any day to buy internet over the asinine NIE process as a foreigner in Spain.
- V__ 3y agoWhat are you talking about?
- motohagiography 3y agoUsefully, one identity system is as legitimate as the next, so if anyone wanted to start one with an actual constitution, the hubris of the EU has created the opportunity.
- yawboakye 3y ago> this is a key advance for the european union to be a global reference in the digital field, protecting our democratic rights and values. very few things are as abused as ‘democracy.’ the mind boggles how a global identification system has anything to do with democracy. not to talk of protecting ‘democratic rights and values.’ bear in mind that at the european union level there is no democracy. at least in the form that we have come to expect it at the national level. it has become an all-recipe ingredient: drop a few pinches in there and criticism of the scheme is criticism of democracy itself. update: more broadly, communications in general, but political communications especially, have intentionally embraced the nonsense and murky. they don’t expect it to make sense to you, but worse, they don’t expect to be grilled through their own words. see the US’s white house press briefing for example. stinkiest of word salads but hey!
- morsch 3y ago> the mind boggles how a global identification system has anything to do with democracy. not to talk of protecting ‘democratic rights and values.’ But she did talk about democratic rights and values, the rest is you editorializing. As to the how: the idea is that it's more secure and more respectful of privacy than alternatives, which are virtually ubiquitous and mostly in the hand of US tech and finance companies. You don't have to agree that a) those are important values, b) having a European (not global!) SSO serves them, or c) that this implementation does, but if the whole thing is incomprehensible to you, then you're not part of the conversation. > bear in mind that at the european union level there is no democracy. at least in the form that we have come to expect it at the national level. it has become an all-recipe ingredient: drop a few pinches in there and criticism of the scheme is criticism of democracy itself. The parliament is directly elected, the commission is designated by the (democratically elected) governments and approved by the parliament, the European council consists of representatives of the (democratically elected) governments. It's just complicated enough that people who either don't understand it or just don't like the EU for other reasons keep repeating that it's not democratic.
- yawboakye 3y ago> the idea is that it's more secure and more respectful of privacy than alternatives, which are virtually ubiquitous and mostly in the hand of US tech and finance companies. i think we can’t have an argument because you’re seeing the idea rather than the implementation and all the mutations it will undergo. there’s no orwellian system in existence now, except in the hands of intelligence agencies, that set out with explicit goal to do evil. they start nobly, but with such unfettered access to personal information that only supernatural self-restraint can stay the hand of abuse. so maybe let’s talk about this system in a couple of years time. i preambled my submission with an acknowledgment that democracy is among the most abused terms. i guess all you need is to throw a popular election somewhere in there and voila there’s your democracy, however far away it is removed from the decision making body.
- alphanullmeric 3y ago[flagged]
- gclawes 3y ago"Ihre Papiere, bitte"
- whynotmaybe 3y ago"Papiers électroniques s'il vous plaît"... ... Pardon my French
- zx10rse 3y agoI can see from the ISS where this is going, given Lagarde announcement about the digital euro from the last month [1]. Digital identity wallets, open sourcing the application components only, giving the states ability to implement whatever they want, not disclosed... At the end the CCP social credit system will be a joke compared to this. [1] - https://twitter.com/Lagarde/status/1715019514985775178 https://twitter.com/Lagarde/status/1715019514985775178
- einarfd 3y agoI live in Norway, that is one of the many European countries that have a national eID system, and it's one of these things that might not make much sense if you haven't lived somewhere where its there. But if you've used to it. It's such a clear good thing, that being against it makes no sense. I'll try to explain why it's such a positive, but it feels a bit like trying to explain why paying with cards is nice, to someone who had only used cash. So at the moment, I'm in the process of moving to a new bank, and will be moving my mortgage, getting new credit cards, and closing my old bank accounts. I'll be able to do all of that, without signing and faxing documents around, but instead doing all that signing with my eID, or BankID which the Norwegian variant is called. I can also use this id system to login to the health care system, look at my prescription, or any other government service that's on the internet. One simplified way of looking at these eID system is that they are a way prove that you are you, on the internet, that courts and the government believes in. That opens the door to services that just isn't possible without it.
- NoImmatureAdHom 3y agoThis isn't surprising to hear from someone who lives in a highly developed country like Norway, where you have very high (and obviously implicit!) trust in your government. I'd still argue the details of the implementation are very important and even in places where people trust their governments things like this should be approached with caution. But I'm not surprised. The same attitude doesn't make much sense if your government is a bunch of untrustworthy criminals with unchecked (or unevenly-checked power). Imagine being from Nigeria or China and wanting those governments to have more power and visibility! Nah.
- einarfd 3y agoI agree that the legislation need to be done properly, and be of high enough quality. But there is a lot of EU states, that have had these kind of systems for a long time, and would have experience with the pitfalls of this. If the EU manages to ruin eID in memberstates, with this legislation, that will probably enrage every citizens in countries that have them, let's hope the bureaucrats aren't that dumb. Since the article was in the context of EU, I was commenting in the context of countries in it, or comparable to it. I'm sure you are right. A bad government will be able to turn anything, including something like this, into a bad thing.