4 ms·

This is just not true. There absolutely is a good identity, and it's one provided by countries.

buro9 3y ago
maybe you are in Scandinavia, but many countries do not even have a centralised register of births, deaths, marriages... and so they do not have a centralised and canonical record of identity of all people in the country.
- dfox 3y ago
  For example Czech republic has central register of all residents. The register is intentionally designed so that it does not provide any kind of identifier that is both long-term stable and globally meaningful (there is a number called RČ broadly equivalent to NIN in other countries, but it is not supposed to be used since 2010). Conceptually there is ZIFO (Basic ID of natural person), that should be globally unique, but this is known only to a subcomponent of the central registry that is run by different govarnment entity than rest of the system. At same time the design of that subcomponent contains provisions for allocating new ID, mainly for handling the cases when that ID was allocated wrong (both multiple IDs for one person and multiple persons sharing same ID), so even that is not necessarily stable ID. Users of that data refer to persons using AIFO, which is specific and meaningful only for particular database (called AIS) and if different databases need to identify particular person as having the same identity they have to call the central translation subcomponent (the API surfaces are designed such that the translation the calling system will not get the result of the translation, which is only sent to the destination system). Even that the AIFOs are meaningless, they are required to be not disclosed to anybody. Alternative IDs that can be used are broadly serial numbers of government issued identitty/travel documents, but these are necessarily both revocable and have limited time validity (the aforementioned technically deprecated RČ is essentially a special case of this). I believe that this design comes from some pan-EU initiative related to GDPR. For example according to Wikipedia Austria uses broadly similar, but less fine-grained system. This has interesting issue with regard to things like eIDAS as there is no sane ID that could be included in the qualified personal certificate. One Czech QCA (PostSignum) does not include any kind of personal ID in its personal certificates, second one (I.CA) can optionally include the serial number of identity document that was used for identification. Apparently you can get Swedish qualified certificate that includes Czech RČ in its CN form Zealid. You are supposed to register your certificate into the resident registry yourself, which creates the link between the certificate and your identity. The slight issue with that is that there is no sane way how a third party outside the architecture of these registers can validate that link (you can send them a signed PDF with your data from the resident register, which is apparently what you are supposed to do, but "sane" would look different).
BrandoElFollito 3y ago
How do you imagine using that? Having an API for each country and each returning different data? With a 10% adoption? If my country did not like your country I will not be able to connect to your stuff? A never ending must of problems ahead.
- superjan 3y ago
  Well the argument not that it it readily available, but that most countries do have an administration of their inhabitants.
  - ForkMeOnTinder 3y ago
    So instead of "There is a good identity", GP should have said "There are about 200 good identities around the world, but if your country happens to not have a single unified ID system you're out of luck"
    - BrandoElFollito 3y ago
      There are 200 good identities in the world with an authentication system closed outside the official entities. I have never seen any endpoint for the general population that can be used to authenticate a citizen
- maxcoder4 3y ago
  Doesn't it kind of already exists for passports? I can travel with my passport to (basically) any country on earth, so there must be some international support for this.
  - BrandoElFollito 3y ago
    The format of the data on a passport is unified (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine-readable_passport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine-readable_passport) but the problem is to make sure that the one who presents this string of data is actually the one it belongs to.
ben_w 3y ago
The UK has no formal universal government provided ID system. The UK does allocate National Insurance numbers, but those are specifically not to be used as ID in part because they don't have a face associated with them. Driving licenses exist but are optional, and need regular replacement e.g. when moving address. Names are something you can change on a whim for a bet. Passports have to be updated if your appearance changes significantly, and in any case you don't keep the same one if you change nationality.
- lolinder 3y ago
  And you can basically say all of the same things about the US.
kijin 3y ago
People get new citizenships. They often lose their old citizenships, too, often deliberately for tax purposes.
- zarzavat 3y ago
  The most common reason people lose their citizenship is that they take on a second citizenship and the first country doesn't allow dual citizenship. This means that citizenship limbo exists where you have legally lost your citizenship but can still benefit from it until the first country finds out. Some countries forbid dual citizenship but don't enforce it so people end up in this limbo for the rest of their lives. There's also a large number of stateless people who don't have citizenship at all. There's also people who are not technically stateless, but cannot return to their country or obtain any identity documents from it.
deruta 3y ago
Then, however else you'd want it to be, states do come and go too, regions change hands...
tecleandor 3y ago
Well, that if your contry keeps a lifelong unique ID for your person. And that's only till you migrate, I guess.
azlev 3y ago
Here in Brazil I have at least 4 different IDs :-).
wlonkly 3y ago
Sometimes, the country you are in changes even though you are in the same geographical location. I've had my email address for over a decade longer than the current countries of Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and South Sudan have existed.

maybe you are in Scandinavia, but many countries do not even have a centralised register of births, deaths, marriages... and so they do not have a centralised and canonical record of identity of all people in the country.

dfox 3y ago
For example Czech republic has central register of all residents. The register is intentionally designed so that it does not provide any kind of identifier that is both long-term stable and globally meaningful (there is a number called RČ broadly equivalent to NIN in other countries, but it is not supposed to be used since 2010). Conceptually there is ZIFO (Basic ID of natural person), that should be globally unique, but this is known only to a subcomponent of the central registry that is run by different govarnment entity than rest of the system. At same time the design of that subcomponent contains provisions for allocating new ID, mainly for handling the cases when that ID was allocated wrong (both multiple IDs for one person and multiple persons sharing same ID), so even that is not necessarily stable ID. Users of that data refer to persons using AIFO, which is specific and meaningful only for particular database (called AIS) and if different databases need to identify particular person as having the same identity they have to call the central translation subcomponent (the API surfaces are designed such that the translation the calling system will not get the result of the translation, which is only sent to the destination system). Even that the AIFOs are meaningless, they are required to be not disclosed to anybody. Alternative IDs that can be used are broadly serial numbers of government issued identitty/travel documents, but these are necessarily both revocable and have limited time validity (the aforementioned technically deprecated RČ is essentially a special case of this). I believe that this design comes from some pan-EU initiative related to GDPR. For example according to Wikipedia Austria uses broadly similar, but less fine-grained system. This has interesting issue with regard to things like eIDAS as there is no sane ID that could be included in the qualified personal certificate. One Czech QCA (PostSignum) does not include any kind of personal ID in its personal certificates, second one (I.CA) can optionally include the serial number of identity document that was used for identification. Apparently you can get Swedish qualified certificate that includes Czech RČ in its CN form Zealid. You are supposed to register your certificate into the resident registry yourself, which creates the link between the certificate and your identity. The slight issue with that is that there is no sane way how a third party outside the architecture of these registers can validate that link (you can send them a signed PDF with your data from the resident register, which is apparently what you are supposed to do, but "sane" would look different).

BrandoElFollito 3y ago

How do you imagine using that? Having an API for each country and each returning different data? With a 10% adoption? If my country did not like your country I will not be able to connect to your stuff? A never ending must of problems ahead.

superjan 3y ago
Well the argument not that it it readily available, but that most countries do have an administration of their inhabitants.
- ForkMeOnTinder 3y ago
  So instead of "There is a good identity", GP should have said "There are about 200 good identities around the world, but if your country happens to not have a single unified ID system you're out of luck"
  - BrandoElFollito 3y ago
    There are 200 good identities in the world with an authentication system closed outside the official entities. I have never seen any endpoint for the general population that can be used to authenticate a citizen
maxcoder4 3y ago
Doesn't it kind of already exists for passports? I can travel with my passport to (basically) any country on earth, so there must be some international support for this.
- BrandoElFollito 3y ago
  The format of the data on a passport is unified (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine-readable_passport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine-readable_passport) but the problem is to make sure that the one who presents this string of data is actually the one it belongs to.

ben_w 3y ago

The UK has no formal universal government provided ID system. The UK does allocate National Insurance numbers, but those are specifically not to be used as ID in part because they don't have a face associated with them. Driving licenses exist but are optional, and need regular replacement e.g. when moving address. Names are something you can change on a whim for a bet. Passports have to be updated if your appearance changes significantly, and in any case you don't keep the same one if you change nationality.

lolinder 3y ago
And you can basically say all of the same things about the US.

kijin 3y ago

People get new citizenships. They often lose their old citizenships, too, often deliberately for tax purposes.

zarzavat 3y ago
The most common reason people lose their citizenship is that they take on a second citizenship and the first country doesn't allow dual citizenship. This means that citizenship limbo exists where you have legally lost your citizenship but can still benefit from it until the first country finds out. Some countries forbid dual citizenship but don't enforce it so people end up in this limbo for the rest of their lives. There's also a large number of stateless people who don't have citizenship at all. There's also people who are not technically stateless, but cannot return to their country or obtain any identity documents from it.

deruta 3y ago

Then, however else you'd want it to be, states do come and go too, regions change hands...

tecleandor 3y ago

Well, that if your contry keeps a lifelong unique ID for your person. And that's only till you migrate, I guess.

azlev 3y ago

Here in Brazil I have at least 4 different IDs :-).

wlonkly 3y ago

Sometimes, the country you are in changes even though you are in the same geographical location. I've had my email address for over a decade longer than the current countries of Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and South Sudan have existed.