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This is a very impressive, forward-thinking initiative. No doubt it'll falter, act clunky and glitchy at first, and probably be cracked at least once, but this

This is a very impressive, forward-thinking initiative. No doubt it'll falter, act clunky and glitchy at first, and probably be cracked at least once, but this is the direction societies are moving in, and it's good of (and likely, for) Estonia to take the plunge first. An interesting point to consider: How would a formalized electronic ID scheme affect our present concerns with respect to governments spying on their citizens? On the one hand, putting everyone's public lives online will make it a lot easier to start aggregating data for unwholesome purposes, and puts everyone's personal information in potentially vulnerable computer systems. On the other hand, there are huge efficiency gains and convenience benefits that come from digitizing everything, and maybe having a government bureaucracy centered around digital records will confer that medium with the level of discretion the bureaucracy currently gives paper records.

jarrett 12y ago
Depending on the implementation, it would be possible to limit the government's collection of data to the following: 1) The underlying identity info such as SSN, photo, name, birthdate, etc. Which most governments already have even without this system. 2) A record of each request from a third party to authenticate a user. E.g. if I user my government ID to sign up for Facebook, that signup event will be logged. Again, it depends on the implementation. The above two would almost certainly be collected in even the most privacy-respecting implementation. But, it's certainly possible to devise an implementation that enables the government to collect far more.
jjoonathan 12y ago
Well, the largest and most sinister actors already have tools that aggregate said data into vulnurable systems for unwholesome purposes. What would a national ID give them that they don't already have?

jarrett 12y ago

Depending on the implementation, it would be possible to limit the government's collection of data to the following: 1) The underlying identity info such as SSN, photo, name, birthdate, etc. Which most governments already have even without this system. 2) A record of each request from a third party to authenticate a user. E.g. if I user my government ID to sign up for Facebook, that signup event will be logged. Again, it depends on the implementation. The above two would almost certainly be collected in even the most privacy-respecting implementation. But, it's certainly possible to devise an implementation that enables the government to collect far more.

jjoonathan 12y ago

Well, the largest and most sinister actors already have tools that aggregate said data into vulnurable systems for unwholesome purposes. What would a national ID give them that they don't already have?