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

81–90 of 215 posts

Re: Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance

#81

Post by pjc50 »

scott_w wrote: post #73
pjc50 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've spoken to friends who have foreign relatives and they've also pointed out the problem the UK has which is Lots of countries have this circularity, including Continental ones with ID systems, and I think it's an intentional anti-immigrant measure.

Absolutely, it’s a major problem. I would think this system needs to hand out ID cards to everyone who needs one (student, work visa, alongside NI number, etc.) to break that loop.

For a while the UK had the stupid situation where there was a high-security biometric identity system, but only for immigrants, and one of the things you did as part of the process of becoming a citizen was the requirement to hand back or destroy the ID.

(this of course tells us where all the ID pressure is coming from: voters want an identity system that can be weaponized against immigrants and The Other.)

Re: Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance

#82

Post by buildfocus »

graemep wrote: post #30
Mashimo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in Denmark. It acts as a SSO for Banks, library, 2fa for debit card, hospital websites, all kinds of government services. Makes it easy, because you don't need a new or different account.

Which means the provider can track you across all those. What you spend, what you read, what medical treatment you have. All just to save carrying a wallet?

For Spain, for online stuff signatures & verification it's mtls, with a client certificate issued by the government. You can sign documents with it or authenticate with it entirely offline (effectively nobody does the latter, but you could, and signing documents with it is very common). Government has no idea how it's used. 3rd party just verifies the government has signed the cert and it's got a valid date.

There's other issues (UX, privacy to the 3rd parties) and further improvements here coming with better wallets (EU-wide) soon, but even today it's absolutely possible to have digital id that doesn't tell the government every time you use it.

Re: Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance

#83

Post by ta20240528 »

Muromec wrote: post #36
skrebbel wrote: post #15

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…

Your entire post is motivated to allow people to deliberately scheme to break a multitude of laws.

SMH

Re: Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance

#85

Post by agedclock »

pjc50 wrote: post #50
michaelt wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in the UK, the government wants: * ID checks for social media (to protect children) * A digital ID card, allowing ID check records to be provably linked to the original ID document (to prevent illegal working) * The police arresting people for posting unfashionable takes on human sexuality to social media And even if you trust the current government, there are very real fears the next government will be Trump-ad…

> The police arresting people for posting unfashionable takes on human sexuality to social media When you look into these cases, they always turn out to be "a sustained campaign of harassment and abuse against one or more named individuals". It took years for even Glinner to finally cross that line and get his collar felt.

> When you look into these cases, they always turn out to be "a sustained campaign of harassment and abuse against one or more named individuals".

No that isn't the case. The are substantial problems in the UK around the the various hate speech and terrorism laws. Pretending there isn't by hand waiving away concerns and pretending that them being found not guilty later after having their life turned upside down (the process is the punishment) is quite honestly disingenuous.

Re: Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance

#86

Post by mytailorisrich »

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…

The issues you mention have nothing to do with having an ID card so a Digital ID won't change anything.

Regarding passports, really at this point people who don't have one don't want one.

Re: Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance

#87

Post by Muromec »

closewith wrote: post #42
vachina wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The provider is the government by the way, and SSO doesn’t give them the ability to track activities beyond where I signed in. It is possible, to trust the government in other parts of world.

Can you imagine a scenario where this might become a problem?

That entirely depends on how hostile you believe both parties of SSO exchange are towards you.

Re: Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance

#88

Post by bapak »

hkt wrote: post #53
Lauris100 wrote: post #31

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.

Not everyone has a smartphone. A substantial number of especially older people don't. Plus poor people, and just.. well, offline people whose lives are much more communal than ours. The requirement for a hundreds-of-units-of-currency device to prove who you are is bonkers.

Sorry but aluminum foil level of thinking to me.

First of all, my digital ID is still a physical card. Second, you're on the wrong forum complaining that people need a device to do things in life.

Re: Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance

#89

Post by cowboy_henk »

wesammikhail wrote: post #9
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…

> An open standard for the world to use for this seems like the ideal way you would want it to happen. I get the convenience part. I am from Sweden. We have BankID. I really get it. But in reality, when centralized systems go to shit, they go to shit REAL BAD. So I personally oppose any such measures on both principles but also... it's okay if life is a little bit less convenient. Not everything needs to be ultra opt…

BankID seems quite different. Importantly the Dutch system is not tied to banks in any way; no commercial parties required for it to function.

Re: Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance

#90

Post by zenlot »

I don't know why people complain much about it. In UK especially. For example all EU citizens, after Brexit been "marked", with sort of digital ID.

1. You cannot open bank account without presenting share code from gov.uk, which shows your photo and right to stay and work when generated. 2. You cannot rent without presenting same share code. 3. You cannot go on cruise ship without presenting that. 4. Employers cannot hire you without presenting that code.

Codes are temporary, you login, generate and share that.

It's very much digital ID that's been in place for many years by now. So getting it to everyone makes sense, either "mark" everyone in a country or "mark" no one. And EU citizens been "marked" for a while and tested on with that system.

Post reply on HN