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This is one of the obvious consequences of not having a national identity number assigned to everyone at birth, which exist in most developed countries, except
by Aozora7 2mo ago
This is one of the obvious consequences of not having a national identity number assigned to everyone at birth, which exist in most developed countries, except for anglosphere, for some reason.
- reaperducer 2mo agofor some reason. The reason is there. It's no big secret. Pick up a history book.
- Extropy_ 2mo agoCare to be a little less vague? Maybe a little more helpful?
- rendall 2mo agoA government may have entirely benign reasons for creating a comprehensive population database, but you cannot guarantee who will control that database later. You have to trust the people who control it, not only now, but at all times in the future, but history does not support that. Nazi Germany and occupied forces used census data, municipal population registers, etc., to identify and track down targeted people. The United States, during World War II, used census information to assist in the removal and incarceration of citizens with Japanese, Italian, and German heritage. The Rwanda population database explicitly classified people as Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa. This became the mechanism to target Tutsi during the Rwandan genocide. In China today, these databases are used to surveil and imprison Uyghurs. Those are examples of official policy turned to dark purposes. It did not even include malfeasance for malfeasance or criminality by individuals or cartels who somehow gain access.
- toasty228 2mo agoUh? The reason is that the constitution doesn't explicitly allow the federal gov to do it, so it's a state power. It's not like you care about all the thing you enumerated, they literally ask you for your "race" when getting a driver's license, which is the defacto ID document anyways. You're installing flock cameras everywhere and gargling palantir's balls while they implement the surveillance state.
- po1nt 2mo agoYeah and that's exactly what shouldn't happen. Government's should not have a power to ask a private company for data under any circumstances and they should not make "race" a compulsory data to submit, so that you could exercise your rights.
- Aozora7 2mo agoA government won't give up on malicious acts just because it lacks accurate census. The United States does a lot more surveillance and oppression than EU countries that have national ID and mandatory ID documents. The lack of a comprehensive population database only seems to hinder the actual useful civilian bureaucracy, not law enforcement, intelligence services, or ICE. The latter just grab anyone who looks brown enough.
- wizzwizz4 2mo agoIn the US, where race is entirely defined by skin pigmentation and there's heavy segregation ("redlining") of living quarters, sure: databases aren't necessary. But in places where race is defined by heritage or culture, things which can be disguised by the targets of a regime, these databases are a vital part of any serious ethnic cleansing operation. I don't remember the statistic in IBM and the Holocaust that compares Jew survival rates in occupied countries with versus without digitised censuses, but the difference was stark.
- dgellow 2mo agoAre you aware that pretty much every developed country has such database? Even the US, its guaranteed US 3 letters agencies have such comprehensive population databases
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- neximo64 2mo agoIts not as if it even helps since the numbers can be leaked and stolen and then abused & the situation ends up even worse since it is so centralised.
- Aozora7 2mo agoIdentity numbers being abused is a consequence of them being misused. And as far as I can tell, this happens more often with american SSNs than anywhere with actual national identity numbers. All that these numbers do is uniquely identify people. They aren't private. To actually prove your identity, you present your ID, passport, or a digital signature tied to that identity number.
- lotsofpulp 2mo agoThe abuse only happens because US courts deemed a third party liable for a lender’s error/cost cutting in attempting to verify a borrower’s identity.
- larsnystrom 2mo agoYou’re talking about different things. Sweden has personal identity numbers and they’re public information. It protects you from being mixed up with someone with the same name. Not from identity theft though.
- trollbridge 2mo agoMaking them explicitly public is better than the US situation where they’re treated like a password - a password you can’t change if it gets disclosed, and that lots of people feel entitled to get.
- unixhero 2mo agoIt helps. Period.
- ramraj07 2mo agoIn most countries you cant do anything with a single number id of a person. Except ironically the US so youre doubly so off.
- yassa9 2mo agoin Egypt, every person is born with a universal national ID number , which is standardized everywhere here, but it created some problems, it became extremely valuable to attackers. If leaked, it can be reused across completely different services ( and you can never change it under anycase ) Having the full name + national ID was enough to bypass verification and activate various services, and many people weren't tech savvy enough to realize how dangerous it was to share or leak that info
- foxglacier 2mo agoClearly it was the services that weren't tech-savvy using a non-changeable non-secret ID as some kind of authentication. Can't blame the users here.
- ramraj07 2mo agoThis is the SSN in the US too though.
- JuniperMesos 2mo agoOne good reason to introduce a national ID system in the US would be in order to replace and deprecate the Social Security Number, which is a terrible system that never should have been used as a de-facto national ID system.
- lmz 2mo agoSomething tells me the people misusing the SSN would just misuse this new national ID number too. Wasn't the issue that people were treating knowledge of the (de facto public) ID number as proof of identity? Nothing is stopping them from doing the same with any future ID number.
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- pibaker 2mo agoObjection to ID numbers as a concept aside, I don't think it actually solves the problem this author faced. Fake identities are dime a dozen. It is not exactly hard for an illicit entity to just put some random ID numbers it bought off the dark web on its books. And now you have just made it even harder for the people who had their identities stolen to clear themselves. How do you convince some company drone doing sanction compliance that you didn't actually work for Sanction Circumvention Ltd when your ID number matches the one on their company's payroll files? Not to mention the sanction list is full of foreigners. The American authorities compiling the list aren't going to know what's the national ID of a random Russian or Iranian guy running an import business. So what is going to happen if your name matches someone who's on the list with a blank ID field? Probably the same thing that happened to the author, I guess.
- larsnystrom 2mo agoIf they put an ID on a sanction list, there’s a possibility to verify it. They could verify that it actually belongs to the person they want to sanction before putting it on the list. Failing that, the actual person can prove that they don’t belong on the list by verifying their identity. Verifying identity is a much simpler problem than establishing identity.
- pibaker 2mo ago> If they put an ID on a sanction list, there’s a possibility to verify it They didn't care to figure out if the Sean Byrne of County Sligo actually existed before putting the name on the list. I doubt they would bother verifying an ID number. Plus, going back to my point about the list being full of foreigners, how do you verify the validity of a foreign ID number and address? Maybe Ireland is going to comply with a US request, but many other countries won't, and you are now back to square one.
- larsnystrom 2mo agoDon’t let perfect be the enemy of good. As you said, Ireland might comply, which would’ve solved this particular issue.
- graemep 2mo agoNational ID numbers will not help with cross border situations like this.
- bagels 2mo agoHe has a passport with a number on it. Why isn't that sufficient? There are also multiple countries involved in this story.
- Aozora7 2mo agoWhen you renew your passport, the new one will have a new serial. Not matching a passport serial doesn't mean anything. Not matching a national identity number does.
- po1nt 2mo agoAttaching numbers to people is unbelievably creepy. My identity is not a number. We recoil at the idea of having assigned and tattooed numbers on our bodies and I don't feel it's okay to do it, just so you could maybe avoid misidentification.
- ramraj07 2mo agoWhy did it need to go to tattooed numbers? Also the implication that cultures and countries which have happily accepted id numbers are filled with non individualistic people is it?
- pibaker 2mo ago> Why did it need to go to tattooed numbers Many countries have laws about having to carry an ID on you all the time. Not as bad as a tattoo, but still not acceptable IMO. > Also the implication that cultures and countries which have happily accepted id numbers are filled with non individualistic people is it? Are we really gonna keep pretending there are no differences between cultures?
- Aozora7 2mo agoVery few countries require you to carry an ID. Many countries require you to own one and keep it up to date, but don't care whether you carry it outside. Also, I find the point kind of moot for the US where a driving license is essentially an ID card, you have to carry it to drive, and you have to drive to go anywhere in most places.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 2mo agoIn the US, permanent residents technically have to keep their green card on them at all times.
- po1nt 2mo agoSo that you could not impersonate some other identity. Same in the spirit of carrying a plastic card, just without somebody touching you by force. Either way you are branded forever.
- matherial 2mo agoHow so? The article is talking about a fictitious person that's listed by name only on a sanctions list despite the government knowing the person doesn't exist. There is no possibility of the real Sean Byrne presenting a government number that is a negative match against the list because the fake Sean Byrne has no known ID to match against. The essence of the entry is just "here's a name to avoid". The real Sean Byrne can produce a government-issued passport number, but that's clearly not enough for Apple. I think it's more of a problem of all these "hyperscale" platforms where the cost of not being zealous enough is long litigation and devastating fines, while the cost of losing a single customer (or a thousand) is basically nil. This leads to all kinds of opaque, customer-hostile outcomes like this, also if you trip some filters not related to sanctions / mistaken identities. There's a recurring theme of HN posts along the lines of "an automated process at Google cut my business off, HN plz help".
- Aozora7 2mo agoIn this particular case, it would be harder to produce a fake signature from a non-existent person if the signatures in questions were digital and backed by a national identity number. The kind of that I'm submitting when signing documents at work.
- layer8 2mo agoAside from the fact the entry in question was added to the list almost two decades ago, it’s naive to assume that people would only be put on these lists if they have a verified identity number. If that was a rule, the easier rule of requiring a birth date would already have helped. Because while not everyone has a national ID number, pretty much everyone has a birth date.
- necovek 2mo agoThere are people whose birth date is not really known (babies left at doorsteps, people from war-torn countries with no official record who had no parents to tell them of their birth date...). I do not know how are they handled, but they probably get assigned one plausible date and it probably depends on the country. In a sense, a birth date can be just as much an assigned number as an ID is. An ID can also have a checksum in it, potentially even a cryptographic one that only government can sign.
- Macha 2mo agoIreland has a PPS number which everyone who’s ever had a job or claimed government benefits has. The union of those sets is basically everyone. Clearly that hasn’t helped.
- boxed 2mo agoWell.. yea, because it's the US that creates the list, and they don't know or understand that systems like ID numbers exists.
- nevdka 2mo agoAmericans use their social security numbers like id numbers in all sorts of systems. This problem has nothing to do with id numbers.
- boxed 2mo agoWell.. it does. There's no checksum in social security numbers for example, that's actually a pretty big deal. The lack of proper buy in on what a personal ID number IS and what it's for is also a huge deal (although not a technical issue, more legal and social for sure).
- dghlsakjg 2mo agoOr they understand that ID numbers are a less than perfect way to identify people. I’m applying for a second citizenship. That means that I can have two national ids that are unlinked. In the US, you can petition to have your SSN number changed, as well, so that doesn’t work. If you are willing to commit crimes and lie, it isn’t that hard to spin up an entirely new identity. Some people are born to parents that don’t notify the government. The real world is incredibly messy. If I were to be placed on a list with one passport/id, I could just use a different one. The bigger issue is that the list is meant as a risk alert, but companies treat a match as truth because the penalty for doing business with a sanctioned entity is far higher than whatever they might lose by not hiring someone mistakenly. What you need, at minimum, if you are going to make these lists is an easy way for false positive people to prove they aren’t the person named (tsa/homeland security have a “redress number” you can provide if you have the same name as someone on their list). Then a legal requirement that anyone checking this list must also ask for additional documentation if they are making a decision based on a hit.
- hdgvhicv 2mo agoAmerica has social security numbers. U.K. has national Insurance numbers, Ireland had a PPS and Canada has an SIN
- UltraSane 2mo agoI wish people were assigned a identity certificate with public and private key at birth.
- defrost 2mo agoMultiple distinct sets of such things would be better.
- chrisjj 2mo agoFor the 0yr-old to keep private?
- sneak 2mo agoWhat happens when they lose it? What happens when someone else gets a copy of the private key? What happens when every app, website, and mobile OS requires a signature for every single post or message, tying all communication to an identity that the government can retaliate against? This creates many more problems than it solves.
- KronisLV 2mo agoUUIDv7 for all!
- YeGoblynQueenne 2mo agoI'm from Greece, where I have a national identity number. In fact I've had several (maybe half a dozen?) national identity numbers. You see, the national identity number is, literally, the number on your national identity card, or in other words the serial number of the document; not the person. When the document changes, the number changes with it. Same as with passports. Even in the Anglosphere people have passports with passport numbers. They could be used to uniquely identify the passport holder, except of course there are many passports, and therefore, many numbers, for each passport holder. Small problem? Just update whatever database is holding the information for sanctionted persons (or, indeed, persons who should not be sanctioned)? Turns out, that is not a small problem.
- eru 2mo ago> You see, the national identity number is, literally, the number on your national identity card, or in other words the serial number of the document; not the person. When the document changes, the number changes with it. In Singapore, your number is fixed, even when they give you a new document.
- thetimewotitis 2mo agoI mean in theory, it doesn't have to be a serial number, and I think that's better. Something about it suggests being enlisted in a national army. It says the state assigns "A body" a number. -vs- The state is made up of us as individuals. So while the serial keyfield is a data engineers dream, politically I'd welcome something more personal. Time of birth/parents and other identifying information is on our birth certificates in the UK. Concatenate some of that. I could be. DavidAndrewEvans-01011980-0036-MRI-JeanDavis-AlexEvans Name-DOB-TOB-LocationCode-Parent(s) Location of Birth like an airport code - MRI (Manchester Royal Infirmary), Parent(s)... i mean we can use their birthdates too. I actually quite like the idea of it. It seems intrinsically validating to a person to identify them in this way.
- necovek 2mo agoThe problem with that is that it leaks too much information to anyone seeing it — this is bad if it needs to be used with any party you might not trust (or not trust their security). Serbia (former Yugoslavia) already does something similar since 1970s, and your Unique Citizen Number (JMBG) is derived from your date of birth and county of issuance (usually birth county) and sex at birth, a couple of digits and a single digit checksum. Ideally, government could issue a cryptographically signed ID, so anyone with access to countries' public key can verify authenticity (with revocation mechanism built-in for both individual keys and all keys signed with one government — this is where it gets tricky). Obviously, governments become new CAs, and people in them can provide fakes when they want if they are corrupt, but anyone can easily validate it.
- oasisbob 2mo agoNames and even dates of birth aren't consistent enough in records for this. You're reinventing a natural key with a bunch of identifiers which aren't stable enough.
- functionmouse 2mo agoYes. And they should be tattooed onto the person's arm, so there can be no mistake. Maybe a bar code?
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- karel-3d 2mo agoTony Blair joined the chat
- Georgelemental 2mo agoNo, the problem is the due-process-free list of government-designated undesirables
- smsm42 2mo agoHow the identity number would help? It's not like terrorists tell each other their identity numbers. So if the LEOs learn about a terrorist guy that goes around under the name "Sean Byrne", how would they know which ID number that is? And even if I needed some ID number to put on my fake documents, it's easy to download one of the dozens data dumps on the darknet now, and just use any of the IDs there. The LEOs then have a choice - put that number into their ban database (therefore banning some innocent person whose only fault is that he made a mistake of participating in the economy) or go just by the name (which is not better). Don't see how it changed anything.
- numpad0 2mo agoThat doesn't work unless everyone is always referred to by that number. All it takes is a "credible" information on some database that says you're the other Sean Bryne, now with the related national ID.