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This seems like a very easy problem. The government has birth records, passports, ssn, phone records, etc. so they could provide an age bracket to anybody that
by bix6 7mo ago
This seems like a very easy problem. The government has birth records, passports, ssn, phone records, etc. so they could provide an age bracket to anybody that needs it. But instead a private corporation will get to do this and create an absolute mess à la Palantir.
- edoloughlin 7mo agoAn absolute mess for you. A tidy profit for them.
- _heimdall 7mo agoThat requires a high level of trust in your current government and whomever is in charge in the future. Its worth remembering how the Nazis so efficiently found Jews in the Netherlands. The Dutch government kept meticulous records, including things like your name, address, and religious affiliation. That wasn't a big deal until the Nazis rolled in, throw in some level of Nazi sympathizers in the Dutch government and it wasn't hard for them to track down anyone they wanted to find.
- megous 7mo agoThat's an argument against any mass collection/concentration of data in anyone's hands. Not against gov. collection of data in particular.
- _heimdall 7mo agoSure, there's a good reason to avoid centralizing data in general but in this case we're talking about governments. Governments are particularly dangerous for mass data collection because they also come with the authority, and military, of a state.
- mafuy 7mo agoAnd with the money (or else: the authority) to get the data from private businesses. So they get the full data without any restrictions that they themselves would face.
- mapcars 7mo ago> That requires a high level of trust in your current government and whomever is in charge in the future. Some entity has to be trusted with our data anyway, at least government supposed to have some accountability before the citizens, corporations have much higher incentives for profit.
- ori_b 7mo ago> Some entity has to be trusted with our data anyway Why?
- colejohnson66 7mo agoBecause the government needs to know who you are to do anything involving you. Taxes, drivers' licenses, passports, courts, etc.
- ori_b 7mo agoYes, I think one ID, presented only as necessary for those interactions, is enough for them to do their job. It would be good to clamp down on private companies collecting that data.
- _heimdall 7mo agoThere are still a lot of underlying assumptions here worth noting though. You're assuming we must have a government and what it must be able to do, like charge me taxes or gatekeep certain activities behind licensing systems. I'm not arguing we don't need a government. But to silently take for granted that everything from income taxes to public roads and travel restrictions are a given jumps ahead here. We could decide, for example, that the government shouldn't be allowed to centralize certain data and remove some of what we expect them to do instead.
- mapcars 7mo ago> We could decide, for example, that the government shouldn't be allowed to centralize certain data and remove some of what we expect them to do instead. How exactly government manages our data is a valid concern and in the modern world this needs to be reevaluated.
- bix6 7mo agoBased on your other comments, I’m curious what your solution is? The government needs our records to collect taxes. So at the minimum the government must have some information. We can argue over the mechanism and trust factor but that’s not the core issue here. The private companies doing this is the core problem. This is a service that the government could provide for free with the most safeguards. Or perhaps you have some other proposal? And I’m not interested in the no government anarchy you propose elsewhere.