7 ms·

Digital ids are inevitable in my view, just as digital currency has become inescapable because it is more convenient and efficient, these ids will be issued and

Digital ids are inevitable in my view, just as digital currency has become inescapable because it is more convenient and efficient, these ids will be issued and things like paper proofs of identity will fall away over time. Physical tokens like bank cards and driving licenses are neither necessary nor a good solution in a networked world. Our focus therefore should be controlling what governments can do with them - for example disallowing blocking/removing someone’s id, just as we should disallow removing citizenship.

fc417fc802 6mo ago
I think even digital IDs will tend to exist as physical tokens? Also worth noting that you can have a digitized and cryptographically signed ID on "paper" which can serve much the same purpose (security, machine readability) as an electronic one. Where electronic tokens shine (for IDs or otherwise) is attesting to the physical possession of a single copy.
- izacus 6mo ago
  Many EU countries already issue a chipcard IDs which can be used to auth for government services (via NFC or a dedicated reader). So yeah, I'd expect those to move to a phone as an alternative to the card
  - shevy-java 6mo ago
    This is not the same. For instance, we can access the internet without needing that ID. But right now there are attempts to force a digital ID in order to access information on the www - this is the whole idea behind "age verification". The kids are just used as excuse here. It has never been about the kids.
    - izacus 6mo ago
      I think you're jumping to conclusions that aren't supported by the digital ID proposal. Even with that: There's plenty of services dangerous to kids that we gate behind an ID check and I don't particularly see why internet is special in any way.
      - fc417fc802 6mo ago
        You think bad actors are going to plainly spell out their nefarious intentions? Or worse, the misinformed reactionaries that genuinely believe they're doing good. No one claimed the internet should receive special treatment. The two forms of ID check that you're attempting to equate aren't the same.
  - Muromec 6mo ago
    Most passports in post 9/11 world have a chip. Thanks America!
- grey-area 6mo ago
  I don’t see why they would bother with physical tokens nor would they be popular - things like passports are really quite expensive to manage and largely unecessary these days. An app or identity on people’s phone might be a good stopgap. However I suspect biometric methods of id verification will render carrying anything redundant long term. The databases for digital id already exist, they’re just not fully utilised yet and these databases will always be centralised.
  - lodovic 6mo ago
    I doubt everyone will still be carrying phones as we know them in a decade, so we might indeed be headed for a future where governments keep giant databases of biometric information. Works OK if you trust your government to handle that properly and not abuse it in the future. The real headache is crossing borders, where your details end up in the hands of a foreign state.
    - ACCount37 6mo ago
      What? What to replace the phones with? And why whatever replaces them wouldn't be able to do the same things?
    - consp 6mo ago
      > so we might indeed be headed for a future where governments keep giant databases of biometric information Don't want to wake you from that nice dream but that ship has sailed quite a while back, at least here in the EU.
    - grey-area 6mo ago
      We are already in that future and have been for at least a decade. Passports contain biometrics which are in a central db too.
    - LunaSea 6mo ago
      Biometrics are usernames at best not passwords.
  - b112 6mo ago
jojocool0501 6mo ago
Inevitable indeed. Rabbit hole ahead. UE has been for many years the way to prevent "controlling what governments can do with them". https://escapekey.substack.com/p/europe-goes-full-digital https://escapekey.substack.com/p/europe-goes-full-digital
shevy-java 6mo ago
I don't see it as inevitable at any stage. Why would it be necessary? Why is access to information tied to a digital id suddenly? Also, where is digital currency inscapable? I can not pay with a bank note suddenly? > Physical tokens like bank cards and driving licenses are neither necessary nor a good solution in a networked world. I see absolutely nothing wrong with physical tokens. You could reason that this or that has more or fewer advantages but to insinuate that digital is always better, all of the time, is simply wrong.
- phillc73 6mo ago
  > I can not pay with a bank note suddenly? In some places you cannot. I was in London post-COVID and there were a bunch of tourist things, like a riverboat on the Thames, where you could only pay with a card. Went to a craft cider bar out in the countryside and again, they didn’t accept cash. Personally, I think businesses should be forced to accept all legal tender, which means cash stays as a first class payment method, but that’s not how it is in many places. On the other hand, in Austria there are many places that are cash only, especially small restaurants in the countryside or community sporting events with coffee bars.
graemep 6mo ago
> just as we should disallow removing citizenship. However lots of countries do allow removing citizenship In the UK it is a political decision too. Lots of countries allow locking people out of other things (e.g. freezing bank accounts). I therefore doubt we an effectively prevent this. I do not see the problem with physical tokens. They are simple, do not create a single point of failure (if I lose my phone I still have my cards and cash), robust to network and systems failures. What is the drawback? Having to carry a few cards?
- wongarsu 6mo ago
  The drawback of physical tokens is that you can't use them online. I don't want to spend an hour waiting in queue at the city hall for something I can do online in 10 minutes. The ideal state is having both physical and digital ID. But that will lead to a slow erosion of the willingness to carry physical ID, even if it stays available (which I believe it will for many decades. Even if national ID cards and drivers licenses were to go digital only, passports won't)
  - graemep 6mo ago
    I use credit cards online all the time. I have logins for government services so I do not need to queue (I had to verify my ID using an app once for one of them). Getting a new driving license (for a change of address) was done online.
  - pezezin 6mo ago
    But you CAN use them online. Smart card readers are nothing new, and quite cheap.
- grey-area 6mo ago
  Yes and I find this deeply wrong - what politician would you trust with this decision? Debanking is also wrong in my view. I think we should focus on laws against things like that which lead to tyranny rather than attempting to stop progress. Cash in particular is expensive to produce/process and no longer honours the promise printed on it, it will be phased out as the transactions with it approach 0%. Cards are really no different than a token in a phone and don’t work for long either in the absence of a network (both will work offline but do need to be reconciled). I haven’t habitually carried a card in about a decade, I think for similar reasons to cash they will die off by general consensus.
bootsmann 6mo ago
> for example disallowing blocking/removing someone’s id If I lose my passport I am obliged to call the police so that they revoke it, if I lose my phone with my digital ID on it they also need to be able to revoke that ID.
- grey-area 6mo ago
  Sure, I meant disabling without replacement, making someone an unperson. Obviously updates and replacements would be required as with passports. I don’t think governments should be allowed to do that. They do it with passports and I think it’s deeply wrong but also it would be far more damaging and immediate with a digital id (which will inevitably be used for a lot of services) - similar to being refused a bank account.
Muromec 6mo ago
I can't help but think people mean something else when they hear "digital ids" then what they are. Like I have a digital id from the government of the Netherlands that I use to log into their government systems to declare taxes or what not. I had an X509 certificate issued by Ukrainian government and have their app to do the same. It's bad somehow?
- jdrek1 6mo ago
  The problem is what follows. They will make it mandatory to use the electronic ID to do anything, resulting in total surveillance. And if you happen to land on their "bad" list (which eventually everyone will), you're locked out of life completely. No banking, no traveling, no communication with anyone, no buying food, nothing.
  - jcattle 6mo ago
    "They" will make it mandatory? Who is they? How will the current approach result in total surveillance? I would much prefer hotels would have a scanner which just transmits the bare minimum of identifiable information from the ID instead of it being completely normalized in many countries/hotels that they take your ID card and scan the full thing. Can you explain to me, how with an eID one would be prevented from communicating with anyone or buying food?
    - dzhiurgis 6mo ago
      > Who is they? You see, the government wants to control the people so they can control the government /s
    - pzo 6mo ago
      > Can you explain to me, how with an eID one would be prevented from communicating with anyone or buying food? Some government (will) make mandatory: social accounts (so also IM apps like IG, WA, X, messanger), banks, buying simcard, internet, buying alcohol, cigarettes, energy drinks). Some companies will make it mandatory implicitly or explicitly just for profit: selling your consumption data, analytics for themselves. E.g. in poland it's harder and harder to pay with cash because reduced stuff and huge queues - they force your use self checking. The pricing changed also that you have to use their loyalty apps if you don't want to be ripped - otherwise you will be paying 50% more. > I would much prefer hotels would have a scanner which just transmits the bare minimum of identifiable information from the ID instead of it being completely normalized in many countries/hotels that they take your ID card and scan the full thing. I don't like it either the problem is right now you mostly this being abused only in some hotels. Whats misleading that that this digital id won't allow tracking because you supposed to "trasmitting the bare minimum of identifiable information"
abc123abc123 6mo ago
How beautifully naive. When was the last time you controlled the government? This idea, that we just trust the government to be good, and that it listens to the voters needs to die. The government should always be assumed to be evil, and work towards complete and ultimate power. It is a cancer that spreads. Therefore decentralization, and a private libertarian society, is the only ethical and long term sustainable society possible. Every other society, eventually collapses into authoritarianism and the burning of the jews.

fc417fc802 6mo ago

I think even digital IDs will tend to exist as physical tokens? Also worth noting that you can have a digitized and cryptographically signed ID on "paper" which can serve much the same purpose (security, machine readability) as an electronic one. Where electronic tokens shine (for IDs or otherwise) is attesting to the physical possession of a single copy.

izacus 6mo ago
Many EU countries already issue a chipcard IDs which can be used to auth for government services (via NFC or a dedicated reader). So yeah, I'd expect those to move to a phone as an alternative to the card
- shevy-java 6mo ago
  This is not the same. For instance, we can access the internet without needing that ID. But right now there are attempts to force a digital ID in order to access information on the www - this is the whole idea behind "age verification". The kids are just used as excuse here. It has never been about the kids.
  - izacus 6mo ago
    I think you're jumping to conclusions that aren't supported by the digital ID proposal. Even with that: There's plenty of services dangerous to kids that we gate behind an ID check and I don't particularly see why internet is special in any way.
    - fc417fc802 6mo ago
      You think bad actors are going to plainly spell out their nefarious intentions? Or worse, the misinformed reactionaries that genuinely believe they're doing good. No one claimed the internet should receive special treatment. The two forms of ID check that you're attempting to equate aren't the same.
- Muromec 6mo ago
  Most passports in post 9/11 world have a chip. Thanks America!
grey-area 6mo ago
I don’t see why they would bother with physical tokens nor would they be popular - things like passports are really quite expensive to manage and largely unecessary these days. An app or identity on people’s phone might be a good stopgap. However I suspect biometric methods of id verification will render carrying anything redundant long term. The databases for digital id already exist, they’re just not fully utilised yet and these databases will always be centralised.
- lodovic 6mo ago
  I doubt everyone will still be carrying phones as we know them in a decade, so we might indeed be headed for a future where governments keep giant databases of biometric information. Works OK if you trust your government to handle that properly and not abuse it in the future. The real headache is crossing borders, where your details end up in the hands of a foreign state.
  - ACCount37 6mo ago
    What? What to replace the phones with? And why whatever replaces them wouldn't be able to do the same things?
  - consp 6mo ago
    > so we might indeed be headed for a future where governments keep giant databases of biometric information Don't want to wake you from that nice dream but that ship has sailed quite a while back, at least here in the EU.
  - grey-area 6mo ago
    We are already in that future and have been for at least a decade. Passports contain biometrics which are in a central db too.
  - LunaSea 6mo ago
    Biometrics are usernames at best not passwords.
- b112 6mo ago

jojocool0501 6mo ago

Inevitable indeed. Rabbit hole ahead. UE has been for many years the way to prevent "controlling what governments can do with them". https://escapekey.substack.com/p/europe-goes-full-digital https://escapekey.substack.com/p/europe-goes-full-digital

shevy-java 6mo ago

I don't see it as inevitable at any stage. Why would it be necessary? Why is access to information tied to a digital id suddenly? Also, where is digital currency inscapable? I can not pay with a bank note suddenly? > Physical tokens like bank cards and driving licenses are neither necessary nor a good solution in a networked world. I see absolutely nothing wrong with physical tokens. You could reason that this or that has more or fewer advantages but to insinuate that digital is always better, all of the time, is simply wrong.

phillc73 6mo ago
> I can not pay with a bank note suddenly? In some places you cannot. I was in London post-COVID and there were a bunch of tourist things, like a riverboat on the Thames, where you could only pay with a card. Went to a craft cider bar out in the countryside and again, they didn’t accept cash. Personally, I think businesses should be forced to accept all legal tender, which means cash stays as a first class payment method, but that’s not how it is in many places. On the other hand, in Austria there are many places that are cash only, especially small restaurants in the countryside or community sporting events with coffee bars.

graemep 6mo ago

> just as we should disallow removing citizenship. However lots of countries do allow removing citizenship In the UK it is a political decision too. Lots of countries allow locking people out of other things (e.g. freezing bank accounts). I therefore doubt we an effectively prevent this. I do not see the problem with physical tokens. They are simple, do not create a single point of failure (if I lose my phone I still have my cards and cash), robust to network and systems failures. What is the drawback? Having to carry a few cards?

wongarsu 6mo ago
The drawback of physical tokens is that you can't use them online. I don't want to spend an hour waiting in queue at the city hall for something I can do online in 10 minutes. The ideal state is having both physical and digital ID. But that will lead to a slow erosion of the willingness to carry physical ID, even if it stays available (which I believe it will for many decades. Even if national ID cards and drivers licenses were to go digital only, passports won't)
- graemep 6mo ago
  I use credit cards online all the time. I have logins for government services so I do not need to queue (I had to verify my ID using an app once for one of them). Getting a new driving license (for a change of address) was done online.
- pezezin 6mo ago
  But you CAN use them online. Smart card readers are nothing new, and quite cheap.
grey-area 6mo ago
Yes and I find this deeply wrong - what politician would you trust with this decision? Debanking is also wrong in my view. I think we should focus on laws against things like that which lead to tyranny rather than attempting to stop progress. Cash in particular is expensive to produce/process and no longer honours the promise printed on it, it will be phased out as the transactions with it approach 0%. Cards are really no different than a token in a phone and don’t work for long either in the absence of a network (both will work offline but do need to be reconciled). I haven’t habitually carried a card in about a decade, I think for similar reasons to cash they will die off by general consensus.

bootsmann 6mo ago

> for example disallowing blocking/removing someone’s id If I lose my passport I am obliged to call the police so that they revoke it, if I lose my phone with my digital ID on it they also need to be able to revoke that ID.

grey-area 6mo ago
Sure, I meant disabling without replacement, making someone an unperson. Obviously updates and replacements would be required as with passports. I don’t think governments should be allowed to do that. They do it with passports and I think it’s deeply wrong but also it would be far more damaging and immediate with a digital id (which will inevitably be used for a lot of services) - similar to being refused a bank account.

Muromec 6mo ago

I can't help but think people mean something else when they hear "digital ids" then what they are. Like I have a digital id from the government of the Netherlands that I use to log into their government systems to declare taxes or what not. I had an X509 certificate issued by Ukrainian government and have their app to do the same. It's bad somehow?

jdrek1 6mo ago
The problem is what follows. They will make it mandatory to use the electronic ID to do anything, resulting in total surveillance. And if you happen to land on their "bad" list (which eventually everyone will), you're locked out of life completely. No banking, no traveling, no communication with anyone, no buying food, nothing.
- jcattle 6mo ago
  "They" will make it mandatory? Who is they? How will the current approach result in total surveillance? I would much prefer hotels would have a scanner which just transmits the bare minimum of identifiable information from the ID instead of it being completely normalized in many countries/hotels that they take your ID card and scan the full thing. Can you explain to me, how with an eID one would be prevented from communicating with anyone or buying food?
  - dzhiurgis 6mo ago
    > Who is they? You see, the government wants to control the people so they can control the government /s
  - pzo 6mo ago
    > Can you explain to me, how with an eID one would be prevented from communicating with anyone or buying food? Some government (will) make mandatory: social accounts (so also IM apps like IG, WA, X, messanger), banks, buying simcard, internet, buying alcohol, cigarettes, energy drinks). Some companies will make it mandatory implicitly or explicitly just for profit: selling your consumption data, analytics for themselves. E.g. in poland it's harder and harder to pay with cash because reduced stuff and huge queues - they force your use self checking. The pricing changed also that you have to use their loyalty apps if you don't want to be ripped - otherwise you will be paying 50% more. > I would much prefer hotels would have a scanner which just transmits the bare minimum of identifiable information from the ID instead of it being completely normalized in many countries/hotels that they take your ID card and scan the full thing. I don't like it either the problem is right now you mostly this being abused only in some hotels. Whats misleading that that this digital id won't allow tracking because you supposed to "trasmitting the bare minimum of identifiable information"

abc123abc123 6mo ago

How beautifully naive. When was the last time you controlled the government? This idea, that we just trust the government to be good, and that it listens to the voters needs to die. The government should always be assumed to be evil, and work towards complete and ultimate power. It is a cancer that spreads. Therefore decentralization, and a private libertarian society, is the only ethical and long term sustainable society possible. Every other society, eventually collapses into authoritarianism and the burning of the jews.