4 ms·

Funny was just testing the pilot of the Irish Government Digital Wallet. Definitely seems like the way forward if we're intent on doing identity verification. I

by padjo 1mo ago

Funny was just testing the pilot of the Irish Government Digital Wallet. Definitely seems like the way forward if we're intent on doing identity verification. I'd rather the government mediate this than a bunch of random 3rd parties.

wiradikusuma 1mo ago
But usually gov't will outsource to random 3rd parties, no?
- bryanrasmussen 1mo ago
  probably gov will outsource to 3rd party for gov to build system to track and manage ID. Sometimes though also to manage, as in Denmark's MitID mainly managed by NETS under government set rules.
- padjo 1mo ago
  One third party, managed by a public contract, seems much better than a parade of third parties for every service you interact with though right?
- weberer 1mo ago
  In Finland they outsource the system to banks and telephone operators. Its a very strange system. As far as I know, its not possible to access government services just by being a citizen. You also have to have an account with one of these third parties to get in.
  - gorbachev 1mo ago
    It's also impossible to use if you're an expat, and you get locked out of every Government online system that requires strong identification.
    - weberer 1mo ago
      You can, but there's a couple extra hoops to jump through. You first have to go to the police station and get a state ID because banks don't accept US passports or Finnish residence permits for whatever reason. Then you can open an account at Nordea. Then you can go through Nordea's system for e-identification.
      - gorbachev 1mo ago
        Expat...as in Finnish citizen living abroad.
psychoslave 1mo ago
As a citizen under the France Passoire[1] and in an increasingly fascist chauvinist nationalist drifting in the geopolitical landscape, I wouldn’t be that found of delegating too much of these responsibilities to some centralized governmental institutions. Note that’s this is not here some rant against any governmental power, just that in context, large private group use them as puppets and shrink their budget which of course impact quality of deliveries (not shaming the people who do the hard job without the relevant means). And while more distributed governmental topologies would have their own caveats, at least it would less likely offer opportunities for single point of failure. [1] https://francepassoire.com/ https://francepassoire.com/
- m4rtink 1mo ago
  On the end of the day, it is the state that issues these ID documents. So if you let the government go bad, IMHO the form of the documents does not matter that much. During the totalitarian communist rule in Czechoslovakia, the state would regularly interfere with passports of people considered not loyal enough - withholding them outright or inventing extra paperwork that was necessary for the border police to let you out of the country. They also controlled all supply of foreign currency, both in an out. Then if someone was actually allowed to travel outside the country but failed to return, their family and relatives would be punished, including demotion at work & prohibition of higher education. So if your government goes bad, this is what will happen - the form of the ID takes at that point does not make much difference.
  - deleted 1mo ago
    [deleted]
- andai 1mo ago
  > increasingly fascist chauvinist nationalist drifting in the geopolitical landscape What's going on in France?
  - expedition32 1mo ago
    France has always been chauvinist and nationalist. The principle reason why the Netherlands joined the EU was to sabotage the French-German alliance- all the alarm bells went off in the 1950s.
ulrikrasmussen 1mo ago
We also have a Danish wallet now, AltID, which implements an anonymized (assuming no collusion between issuer and eavesdropper or service provider) age verification protocol based on batches of single-use tokens which contain no personal information (except that they can be traced back to you by the issuer). It's been released and in production since summer. Since then, several social networks have apparently started A/B testing age verification for their EU users, but how many of them actually integrate with the anonymous solution that is now available and in production? To my knowledge: 0. They all use Persona. This highlights one of my main criticisms of EU's naive approach to regulation of tech companies. They fail to realize that any regulation that they impose will be complied with in the most malicious way possible, which is how we got cookie banners with dark patterns instead of a simple HTTP header saying no thanks to cookies.
- niels8472 1mo ago
  In 2027 it will become mandatory for big tech to accept the EU digital wallets, so soonish they'll have to integrate with them.
  - ulrikrasmussen 1mo ago
    Well, that's at least a positive. I hope this means they are also forced to accept the weakest credential type, and that they can't require you to present the identity proof that the wallet also provides when verifying your age. Because if they are allowed to do that, then that is what will happen.
- iamnothere 1mo ago
  The problem in much of the west is that even if verification is initially government funded/run and secure, the neoliberal ratchet (underfunding>degraded service>privatize) ensures that it will eventually be privatized and enshittified. Here in the US, we have login.gov, but many government services use the private ID.me instead. Any time the government says it needs to “cut spending”, it instead sells off critical infrastructure to friends of government who then permanently extract a private tax on the public.

by padjo 1mo ago

wiradikusuma 1mo ago

But usually gov't will outsource to random 3rd parties, no?

bryanrasmussen 1mo ago
probably gov will outsource to 3rd party for gov to build system to track and manage ID. Sometimes though also to manage, as in Denmark's MitID mainly managed by NETS under government set rules.
padjo 1mo ago
One third party, managed by a public contract, seems much better than a parade of third parties for every service you interact with though right?
weberer 1mo ago
In Finland they outsource the system to banks and telephone operators. Its a very strange system. As far as I know, its not possible to access government services just by being a citizen. You also have to have an account with one of these third parties to get in.
- gorbachev 1mo ago
  It's also impossible to use if you're an expat, and you get locked out of every Government online system that requires strong identification.
  - weberer 1mo ago
    You can, but there's a couple extra hoops to jump through. You first have to go to the police station and get a state ID because banks don't accept US passports or Finnish residence permits for whatever reason. Then you can open an account at Nordea. Then you can go through Nordea's system for e-identification.
    - gorbachev 1mo ago
      Expat...as in Finnish citizen living abroad.

psychoslave 1mo ago

As a citizen under the France Passoire[1] and in an increasingly fascist chauvinist nationalist drifting in the geopolitical landscape, I wouldn’t be that found of delegating too much of these responsibilities to some centralized governmental institutions. Note that’s this is not here some rant against any governmental power, just that in context, large private group use them as puppets and shrink their budget which of course impact quality of deliveries (not shaming the people who do the hard job without the relevant means). And while more distributed governmental topologies would have their own caveats, at least it would less likely offer opportunities for single point of failure. [1] https://francepassoire.com/ https://francepassoire.com/

m4rtink 1mo ago
On the end of the day, it is the state that issues these ID documents. So if you let the government go bad, IMHO the form of the documents does not matter that much. During the totalitarian communist rule in Czechoslovakia, the state would regularly interfere with passports of people considered not loyal enough - withholding them outright or inventing extra paperwork that was necessary for the border police to let you out of the country. They also controlled all supply of foreign currency, both in an out. Then if someone was actually allowed to travel outside the country but failed to return, their family and relatives would be punished, including demotion at work & prohibition of higher education. So if your government goes bad, this is what will happen - the form of the ID takes at that point does not make much difference.
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
andai 1mo ago
> increasingly fascist chauvinist nationalist drifting in the geopolitical landscape What's going on in France?
- expedition32 1mo ago
  France has always been chauvinist and nationalist. The principle reason why the Netherlands joined the EU was to sabotage the French-German alliance- all the alarm bells went off in the 1950s.

ulrikrasmussen 1mo ago

We also have a Danish wallet now, AltID, which implements an anonymized (assuming no collusion between issuer and eavesdropper or service provider) age verification protocol based on batches of single-use tokens which contain no personal information (except that they can be traced back to you by the issuer). It's been released and in production since summer. Since then, several social networks have apparently started A/B testing age verification for their EU users, but how many of them actually integrate with the anonymous solution that is now available and in production? To my knowledge: 0. They all use Persona. This highlights one of my main criticisms of EU's naive approach to regulation of tech companies. They fail to realize that any regulation that they impose will be complied with in the most malicious way possible, which is how we got cookie banners with dark patterns instead of a simple HTTP header saying no thanks to cookies.

niels8472 1mo ago
In 2027 it will become mandatory for big tech to accept the EU digital wallets, so soonish they'll have to integrate with them.
- ulrikrasmussen 1mo ago
  Well, that's at least a positive. I hope this means they are also forced to accept the weakest credential type, and that they can't require you to present the identity proof that the wallet also provides when verifying your age. Because if they are allowed to do that, then that is what will happen.
iamnothere 1mo ago
The problem in much of the west is that even if verification is initially government funded/run and secure, the neoliberal ratchet (underfunding>degraded service>privatize) ensures that it will eventually be privatized and enshittified. Here in the US, we have login.gov, but many government services use the private ID.me instead. Any time the government says it needs to “cut spending”, it instead sells off critical infrastructure to friends of government who then permanently extract a private tax on the public.