Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance

theslowburningfuse.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 215 posts

Re: Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance

#111

Post by Brian_K_White »

hhh wrote: post #2

I dunno man, I migrated to the Netherlands and our digital ID is an amazing system that literally makes my life easier anytime i need to interact with something. An open standard for the world to use for this seems like the ideal way you would want it to happen. I also personally think we are going to need some form of digital id and hopefully some sort of attribute based credential implementation à la the DECODE pro…

I dunno man, there is an interesting comment below about that time the Netherlands unusually complete population data made the Nazis lives easier.

Re: Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance

#112

Post by Xelbair »

skrebbel wrote: post #15
stavros wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not against digital ID, but I am very much against perfect law enforcement. Society evolves, and things that used to be unthinkable (eg gay marriage) slowly become acceptable. To become acceptable, however, they need to be allowed to be done, even if illegally. If you arrested every homosexual the moment they kissed someone, then homosexuality would never have become legal. Perfect enforcement leads to an ossifie…

This is the part of the argument I don’t get. A digital ID system like the one in NL is basically just a login system. It’s oauth for public services, not too different from “sign in with Google”. How does that lead to perfect law enforcement? Like, how does it prevent homosexuals from kissing? I don't mean this dismissively. I assume there is a series of steps that make sense that I’m not seeing.

Digital ID is fine if it is a choice of citizen if to use it or not, without any consequences - soft or hard. It is convenient to use, and can streamline processes.

If physical ID gets heavily discouraged and Digital ID gets mandated for everything, you basically have to keep a tracking device(a phone, which already fulfills that role) that is now tied to government records. Location, who do you meet, your contacts, when do you access your bank etc - all of that can be exposed extremely easily. The ease of access is the problem - as normally law enforcement needs to go through lengthy process to access such data across multiple vendors - but now all it takes is just storing metadata about access to Id Portal, and can do so in bulk.

Now they have it in single place - and in most cases - no code is open source, with no way to verify if it even does what it promised to even if it was open source.

The issue is that even if you have 100% trust in current government, you are one election away from a change to something vastly different. Always ask yourself this question when a law is proposed:

- would I be fine with this legislation if the government in charge represented everything I hate?

Re: Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance

#113

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

blauditore wrote: post #77
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Austrian version (which I use an appreciate a lot) allows some hardware FIDO2 tokens instead of a smartphone. Guarantee? Not by law but it will be hard for them to take that away.

It won't be hard at all to take it away if only few people are using it. And I assume the vast majority is using smartphones and won't understand the need for anything else.

I think it will be hard enough to take it away. The current solution also exists because there are lots of elderly people that do not have a smartphone.

Re: Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance

#114

Post by sjw987 »

octo888 wrote: post #61
afandian wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone has a smartphone with the latest OS and a fully charged battery. > i can tell that living in a country with great digital services is a lot less stressful For everyone who deserves to participate in society?

> fully charged battery. Yup. Look at train tickets in England. For now it's a convenience but you'll notice the law hasn't kept up with the push to have tickets on phones: the law still says you must produce on demand a ticket when requested. So if your battery runs out or your phone crashes or the app glitches or you've annoyed the "safety" department of Google/Apple... it's entirely your problem A moody ticket ins…

Or, if like I experienced yesterday, the most popular train ticket app stutters during peak rush hour and you cannot display the ticket you have actually bought to the conductor and exit gates at the destination.

:)

Re: Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance

#115

Post by qwopmaster »

Lauris100 wrote: post #31
a-french-anon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can it be used without a smartphone aka "portable telescreen"? Do they explicitly guarantee this'll remain the case? If not, you're just being hoodwinked via cheap convenience.

Everyone has a smartphone lol - i can tell that living in a country with great digital services is a lot less stressful than in country with no digitization and old school paperwork i have gone through both.

The vast majority of people after 65 or so are incapable of using modern smartphones beyond extremely simple things like calling.

Re: Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance

#116

Post by terminalshort »

scott_w wrote: post #60
hhh wrote: post #2

I dunno man, I migrated to the Netherlands and our digital ID is an amazing system that literally makes my life easier anytime i need to interact with something. An open standard for the world to use for this seems like the ideal way you would want it to happen. I also personally think we are going to need some form of digital id and hopefully some sort of attribute based credential implementation à la the DECODE pro…

From the UK and listening to people who don't have things like passports, it sounds like it'll make proving your right to work much easier for people, too. I've spoken to friends who have foreign relatives and they've also pointed out the problem the UK has which is: 1. To open a bank account you need an address 2. To rent somewhere (get an address), you need a bank account 3. See above The same happens for children…

In the US you can just tell the bank an address and they will type it in the computer. They make zero effort to verify it. They will even print a piece of paper with that new address on it that you can take down to the DMV and get an ID with that address printed on it. Is this a lot different in the UK?

Re: Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance

#117

Post by jcgl »

ta20240528 wrote: post #59
jcgl wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If smartphones are to be a requirement for participation in civil society, privacy- and freedom-preserving smartphones are needed at the very least. People shouldn't be required to submit to some company's Terms of Service in order to participate in society.

Should everyone be required to use private banks to access e.g. foreign exchange? The answer is yes: which is why banks are licensed and have ombudsmen. As are telcos. No modern society is going to maintain a parallel government economy to serve the vanishingly small minority who live in fear of private companies. Perhaps they should (IDK), but they won't.

> Should everyone be required to use private banks to access e.g. foreign exchange?

Maybe so, I don't know. Though it is worth remarking that "private" banks in the US really are only semi-private. The (admittedly imperfect) regulations that banks are subject to starts to blur the lines between public and private. Not to mention that there are far more banks than smartphone handset-and-OS makers.

> No modern society is going to maintain a parallel government economy to serve the vanishingly small minority who live in fear of private companies.

This is not the only option (though it would potentially be an option for some sufficiently-powerful societies). Other options could include:

1. Multilateral coalitions to do some combination of specify/design/build smartphones and/or their OS

2. Specify a set of user rights and regulate smartphone handset and OS manufacturers accordingly

As a sibling commenter said, this isn't about living in fear of private companies as such. It's about not wanting to be coerced into a system of products that don't preserve liberal rights.

Re: Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance

#118

Post by pta2002 »

a-french-anon wrote: post #28
hhh wrote: post #2

I dunno man, I migrated to the Netherlands and our digital ID is an amazing system that literally makes my life easier anytime i need to interact with something. An open standard for the world to use for this seems like the ideal way you would want it to happen. I also personally think we are going to need some form of digital id and hopefully some sort of attribute based credential implementation à la the DECODE pro…

Can it be used without a smartphone aka "portable telescreen"? Do they explicitly guarantee this'll remain the case? If not, you're just being hoodwinked via cheap convenience.

In Portugal, our version can use the smartphone app, an (open source) desktop app that supports reading your ID with a smart card reader, and you can also get the codes via SMS. The smartphone app is purely a convenience if you don’t have your wallet with you.

Re: Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance

#119

Post by pjc50 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #106
scott_w wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they will? We require multiple proofs because there’s no central place a bank or company, etc, can go to prove that you live in the UK. The excessive requirements to provide multiple proofs to your employer of your right to work are explicitly because there’s no single proof of your right to work in the UK. If you don’t have a passport, for instance, it’s much harder for a UK citizen to prove their right to wo…

If you have an address, you have a proof of address. Digital IDs won't magically prove your address, and I don't think there plan is to include addresses. But if Dìgital IDs include address then you'll have to prove your address to the Digital ID first exactly like you prove your address now: with documents. Regarding right to work (you are changing topic): if you are a citizen you can show your passport, if you don'…

> If you have an address, you have a proof of address

No! This is another one of those things that ends up being a serious problem for a few people, because the current proof of address standard is "utility bill".

> you are changing topic

This seems to be particularly bad in the "digital ID" discussion, almost every speaker including official sources seems to mean something slightly different by this phrase.

Re: Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance

#120

Post by pjc50 »

agedclock wrote: post #109
scott_w wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they will? We require multiple proofs because there’s no central place a bank or company, etc, can go to prove that you live in the UK. The excessive requirements to provide multiple proofs to your employer of your right to work are explicitly because there’s no single proof of your right to work in the UK. If you don’t have a passport, for instance, it’s much harder for a UK citizen to prove their right to wo…

Sorry you are totally misrepresenting how difficult it is. Here is the checklist: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68b6b7e7536d6... > If you don’t have a passport, for instance, it’s much harder for a UK citizen to prove their right to work in the UK, for which your employer is liable if they get it wrong. No it isn't. You need a Birth Certificate and a previous paycheck and something that has your NI n…

Don't forget needing to get it countersigned by someone sufficiently middle-class. https://www.gov.uk/countersigning-passport-applications/acce...
Post reply on HN