51–60 of 215 posts
The bouncer saying I need to see your ID always rubbed me up the wrong way, not because I objected to being challenged but because they don’t need to know who I am, they just need to see proof of age . Not even that! Proof that my age is greater than or equal to X! In a world where we would might actually see societal benefits in having people prove things about themselves*, could we not leverage technology to emit v…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I can explain the logic behind it. The first step you need to take is view a government as a hostile entity. It's not your government, it's occupational government. It's unjust by default and you don't agree with the rules it makes, including immigration and taxes. Now imagine there are three arms of the government -- the one that collects taxes, the one that administers unemployment benefits and the other, which giv…
A hostile government can already link your data from all sorts of places. Digital ID at least helps us for more security.
Without Digital ID + Hostile Government you have the worst of both worlds.
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.
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.
Digital identity is on the slightly more controlling side of this, but the article focuses entirely on the cynical perspective without considering the positives.
Having grown up in South Africa, having a physical document to prove who you are, along with an identity number is just so normalised. When I moved to the UK later in life, I found it absolutely bizarre that there’s no mechanism to uniquely identify yourself to the government, or any other entity that deals with your personal/financial/health identity. It’s just a combination of name and address, which anyone can acc…
What are those positives you allude to?
I think privacy abuse can be largely prevented if a hard line is drawn saying that digital ids must only be used by the government for government services, such as voting, taxes, immigration, welfare, etc. If any private parties like banks, social media, or online stores are allowed to check your digital id, they are going to be a privacy disaster.
Having grown up in South Africa, having a physical document to prove who you are, along with an identity number is just so normalised. When I moved to the UK later in life, I found it absolutely bizarre that there’s no mechanism to uniquely identify yourself to the government, or any other entity that deals with your personal/financial/health identity. It’s just a combination of name and address, which anyone can acc…
"The government" is not an abstraction, it's bunch of people, fallible people, who may or may not have your best interests at heart, so really, why should they have much to do with the every day existence of the public?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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 opening their first bank account. They get round this usually by having a parent vouch for you, however, this isn't much use to children with estranged/dead/abusive parents.
A system that is mandatory, acts as sufficient ID in all cases (proof of ID, proof of address, etc.) and is free for the recipient has the potential to make otherwise excluded peoples' lives easier.