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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 project[1], where we can start raising the barrier of entry for all of these bot farms to require at least a felony in identity theft to start.

Curious what others opinions are :)

[1]: https://decodeproject.eu/publications/final-report-pilots-am...

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 Denmark a similar system (NemID) gave you a piece of paper with long alphanumeric codes to be used instead of the app. Now it's replaced by another system (MitID) which I haven't verified that supports those, but it's highly unlikely that it stopped supporting physical codes.

It's actually quite a good idea to have this, even if you have a smartphone, in case that you lose access to it temporarily.

I don’t think MitID supports physical analog codes, but they have these for people that don’t want to rely on smartphones: https://www.mitid.dk/en-gb/get-started-with-mitid/how-to-use...

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.

> Guarantee? Not by law but it will be hard for them to take that away.

Last year they removed the ability to register[0] yubikey FIDO2 tokens affected by the EUCLEAK 'vulnerability', despite it not posing any security risk even by their own admission, and nobody seems to have cared. The whole thing screams security theater, they require the much more expensive FIDO2 Level 2 keys for no reason (which limited you to just Trustkeys at the time after yubikeys got banned) while their own sites crashes[1] if you give it a secure password.

At the end of the day, if not it's required by law the only other guarantee you have is a broad userbase that will complain if it's taken away and at least at the moment it's clear that no such userbase exists.

[0] https://www.a-trust.at/de/%C3%BCber_uns/newsbereich/20240905...

[1] https://imgur.com/a/Uyjaoa7

You don't have to tell me, I absolutely hate that passkeys support attestation. But there is pressure to support a non smartphone based sign in, and it does exist.

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.

Yes it can, it devolves into otp by sms then

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.

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.

> live in fear of private companies

It's not the _concept_ of private companies. It's specific things that those specific companies do. e.g.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-an...

Meaningful regulation would mean e.g. air-gapped infrastructure so they can't make inadvertent privacy mistakes. And guaranteed service levels, and a service of last resort.

Google have based built a business model without accountability and transparency. Which is fine, as long as we're not forced to use them by the state.

> It's not the _concept_ of private companies. It's specific things that those specific companies do. e.g.

It's not just the specific things that those companies do, it's the (lack of) structure of rights and entitlements that the users have.

Telcos are licensed. Mobile phone manufacturers and, crucially, OS providers, are not. Although in the EU they are now subject to some Digital Markets Act control.

And telco licensing isn't even really relevant. Afaik, licensing condition only has to do with their use of the airwaves and other such technical stuff. It's got nothing to do with ensuring the rights of the telco users.

> 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.

Not everybody wants to carry a smartphone around all the time.

If the ID becomes about more than proving right to work, and becomes a daily carry, it's not hard to see the appeal of a government down the line tapping into an always on-hand microphone, GPS, internet enabled device.

Even putting the tin foil hat aside, I and many people like me enjoy leaving the phone at home, and want as little time spent on the thing as possible.

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 inspector is under no obligation really to give you a few minutes to sort it out

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.

:)

Falsehoods programmers believe about society.

Perhaps if you never think about what the state and corporations can do with that surveillance and the amount of control and violence it enables.

Digital is more convenient at the loss of privacy. And no, absolutely not, NOT everyone has a smartphone nor can use one. Go read the thread on teaching iPhones to seniors.

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.

But this isn't a conversation about people being excluded from the latest JS framework, this is a conversation about people not using a smartphone being increasingly excluded from pretty fundamental things. App only tickets for public transportation? Grandma can't do that. E-voting? Grandma can't do that. Online banking? Grandma can't do that, because grandma struggles to send a text message much less to navigate a modern app with five different dickbars that is outright designed to get people to sign up for marketing trash.

Having an option for digital ID is great, and there are many potential benefits to it. Requiring a modern smartphone for it is wildly out of touch.

>Second, you're on the wrong forum complaining that people need a device to do things in life.

I think it's exactly right forum, because we know how unreliable and unmagical are those things and are in a good position to judge the risk of relying on them too much.

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

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 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.

> 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.

For Spain at least, most banks have foreigner accounts you can open with a passport, and convert into a normal account once you have local id later. It's a mildly unusual setup (and a bit confusing when you're new) but it's pretty widely available and it's not a significant blocker. There's plenty of other challenges and structural disadvantages as an immigrant, but this one at least isn't too bad.

If anything, there's really a big advantage to it for the banks - most locals already have banking, immigrants are the one market where you can get new customers without having to push them past the effort/laziness of switching from their existing setup.

It is not a problem to open a bank account with a foreign passport in the UK, and most banks have accounts for those who've just moved to the UK. Hundreds of thousands of people move to the UK every year...

However, you also need proof of address to open a bank account. Which someone moving to the UK won’t have yet. This limits their options of bank accounts.

Which has no relation to Digital IDs whatsoever... and again most banks have accounts that cater for this situation.

Allow me to repeat myself:

> This limits their options of bank accounts.

Now this:

> Which has no relation to Digital IDs whatsoever

Other countries use their ID systems for exactly this purpose, so I don't see how this has "no relation."

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.)

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?

As the parent said, you need proof of address to open a current account that can be used for day-to-day payments.

A savings account you don't need proof of address but I think most will ask for your NI (social security) number. Some will send snail mail to the address you provide to enable withdrawals.

That's not the case in the UK. You need a utility bill (gas, electric, council tax, bank statement) or an existing bank customer to verify your identity. It's only in the past 5-10 years that electronic statements have been accepted. Meeting customers in person is becoming less common, so I worry for, say, women whose husbands handle all the bills.

[dead]

Some do, some don't. Traditional banks will ask for a proof of address (and only accept a council tax bill, utility bill or rental contract). Some new online banks like Revolut will allow you to get around that step.

At the end of the day, somebody has to take your word for it and type it into the computer. The only questions is who has access to the records of which computer to cross-verify them.

The fact that the system is not 100% consistent 100% of the time is a feature, not a bug.

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.

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 work in the UK, for which your employer is liable if they get it wrong.

So please, tell me again how having a clear proof of identity tied to your right to work, and other things, will “not change anything.”

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't have a passport because you don't want one you can show your birth certificate. If you are not a citizen you show your passport and provide a share code. It is simple and there are no "excessive requirements".

> 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.

You just need something with you name and address. Bank statements, council tax, driver license (it doesn't even need to be a full one). It doesn't need to be a utility bill, it just often is one.

If you do not have a permanent address (I didn't for many years). You just need someone with a permanent address where these things can go e.g. friend or family member or you can pay a small amount for a letter box with a key (which is what I did).

> because the current proof of address standard is "utility bill".

Because utility bills are the simplest. Obviously you can show a tenancy or lodger agreement, or letters from "official sources".

If you have nothing then Digital IDs won't help you anyway because, if they do include address, you will also need to start by providing a proof of address to the Digital ID system!

>If you have nothing then Digital IDs won't help you anyway because, if they do include address, you will also need to start by providing a proof of address to the Digital ID system!

The way it works where it works -- you register with municipality and then whenever you need something, they either give a letter with your address (and maybe charge 25 bucks for it) or the agency gets it from the registry maintained by municipality on the need to know basis.

Since the need-to-know basis is set by law, your explicit consent isn't asked for.

Most tenancy agreements are just printed off by a landlord, so they're absolutely useless as proof of address.

> if they do include address, you will also need to start by providing a proof of address to the Digital ID system!

Yes, you're correct, however, there are starting points (like what's needed for a passport application). The difference is that, if there's a legal requirement to have one, then the government will provide ways for more people to get it for no cost. Unlike a passport that costs over £100 (+ the photos).

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 number on it, and usually something to prove your address e.g. Utility Bill.

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

This has nothing to do with passport applications. He is talking about right to work checks. There is nothing excessive about them and they does not require even photo-card ID e.g. driving license / passport.

Also you don't have to insert your personal brand of politics into every discussion. There is nothing outrageous about the list of professions of counter signers. All they are wanting is someone that can be identified easily in a community.

A driving license isn’t sufficient for right to work checks because you can have a driving license without being able to work.

For shits and giggles, I just looked up the checker on the UK Gov website and… if you don’t have a passport or easy access to your birth certificate, you don’t have enough evidence of right to work.

Is this possible for most people? Yes. Does it leave groups excluded? Absolutely!

https://www.gov.uk/check-job-applicant-right-to-work

> A driving license isn’t sufficient for right to work checks because you can have a driving license without being able to work.

I never said that you required a driving license. I said that at driving license was photo-card ID.

You need a passport or birth cert and NI number as a British Citizen for a right to work check. Most employers also want proof of address, so bring a utility bill.

I've been through this process about 3 times in the last 5 years. It isn't difficult or onerous.

> For shits and giggles, I just looked up the checker on the UK Gov website and… if you don’t have a passport or easy access to your birth certificate, you don’t have enough evidence of right to work.

I actually posted the checklist. I am quite aware what is required.

You can literally order replacements for a birth certificate easily. A replacement birth cert can be got for £12.50 and takes 4 days to receive.

https://www.gov.uk/order-copy-birth-death-marriage-certifica...

Nothing about this is "excessive".

> Is this possible for most people? Yes. Does it leave groups excluded? Absolutely!

People that can't produce basic documents it excludes.

You were claiming that the right to work checks were "excessive". Producing one or two documents that you should have is not "excessive".

Your privilege is showing.

> You need a passport for a right to work check. I've been through this process about 3 times in the last 5 years. It isn't difficult or onerous.

A new passport costs over £100 for a paper application. That can be prohibitive for people.

> You can literally order replacements for these easily. A replacement birth cert can be got for £12.50 and takes 4 days to receive.

These are additional costs, it's also an extra £3.50 to find it (taking 15 days), and possibly another £38 to get it quickly.

So yes, these are all costs that add up to exclude people from partaking in society.

And all of this assumes your employer knows what the hell they're doing. Given the fines are painful, it's entirely possible your employer refuses valid documents "just in case" and sticks to the ones they've relied on in the past.

> Your privilege is showing.

This is not an argument, and is merely a way to shut someone up because you don't like them disagreeing with you. It is quite a loathsome tactic.

> A new passport costs over £100 for a paper application. That can be prohibitive for people.

I agree that it is expensive. However you don't require a passport though and you can use a Birth Certificate and something that shows your NI number.

> These are additional costs, it's also an extra £3.50 to find it (taking 15 days), and possibly another £38 to get it quickly.

Ok. So £15. This is not "excessive" cost. Like with many things if you want something done more quickly you are required to pay extra.

If you are looking for work you really should make sure you have these documents as you should know that you are going to need them.

> So yes, these are all costs that add up to exclude people from partaking in society.

It may surprise you that a good number of things require monetary payment in some form or another to partake in society.

It is perfectly reasonable for the government to require basic checks to be carried out before you employed.

> And all of this assumes your employer knows what the hell they're doing. Given the fines are painful, it's entirely possible your employer refuses valid documents "just in case" and sticks to the ones they've relied on in the past.

I am not sure what you are trying to say here.

That to avoid fines an employer would break the law and not do right to work checks? Or that they are doing a right to work check and do additional checks?

> This is not an argument, and is merely a way to shut someone up because you don't like them disagreeing with you. It is quite a loathsome tactic.

Ok, let me break the argument down for you:

1. Person needs job

2. Person doesn't have job

3. Person therefore is low on money

4. Person needs to prove right to work to get job

5. Person needs money to buy proof of right to work (+ time to receive it)

6. Person needs money

7. See 2 and 3

Your privilege is what blinds you to a simple process.

> If you are looking for work you really should make sure you have these documents as you should know that you are going to need them.

This is what I mean by "your privilege is showing."

> That to avoid fines an employer would break the law and not do right to work checks? Or that they are doing a right to work check and do additional checks?

Read it again: they're skipping the checks and just using the one they know (passport) because they don't know if other legal forms of documentation are good enough. I know this is going to blow your mind but plenty of employers have no idea what the laws are. You might say "well that's on the employer," but it's the person who needs the job who suffers.

I understand this process that you outline can conceivable happen. However this scenarios is still extremely unlikely. Firstly the cost of a replacement Birth certificate is low.

Failing that, there are other support mechanism in place provided by charities, family, friends and even the state itself, in the unlikely event they are that are completely destitute.

None of this says anything about whether I am privileged or not. You know nothing about my personal circumstances or family background. The only reason anyone uses this line of argument is an attempt to shut people up or as a shaming tactic. Neither of which will work with me.

It also doesn't make any of the checks "excessive". It merely means that they may cost a relatively small amount of money.

As for the ability to produce basic documents, there is nothing privileged about being able to produce basic documents. What you are showing is simply a "bigotry of low expectations".

> Read it again: they're skipping the checks and just using the one they know (passport) because they don't know if other legal forms of documentation are good enough. I know this is going to blow your mind but plenty of employers have no idea what the laws are. You might say "well that's on the employer," but it's the person who needs the job who suffers.

I read it fine the first time thank you.

What you are describing now I would imagine is discriminatory and thus illegal. However IANAL. In this scenario the problem is with the potential employer in this circumstance. That isn't a problem with the right to work checks, and is a problem with the employer.

TBH. It really feels as if you are inventing reasons why right to work checks should be considered "excessive" to shoehorn in your own personal politics.

> However this scenarios is still extremely unlikely.

I watched a video just yesterday from someone (middle class) who explained that, by not having a passport, it took him weeks to get the necessary documentation together to prove his right to work in the UK. As a UK citizen.

> None of this says anything about whether I am privileged or not.

Oh boy, let's see:

> It merely means that they may cost a relatively small amount of money.

> What you are showing is simply a "bigotry of low expectations".

> What you are describing now I would imagine is discriminatory and thus illegal.

Out of this comment alone.

> I read it fine the first time thank you.

Except you completely misunderstood what I said, so you didn't "read it fine."

> However IANAL.

I can tell.

> the problem is with the potential employer in this circumstance.

Which primarily hurts the person who needs to work. What do you propose they do?

> TBH. It really feels as if you are inventing reasons why right to work checks should be considered "excessive" to shoehorn in your own personal politics.

I'm just pointing out how a mandatory Digital ID system, designed to prove right to work as a way of tackling illegal immigration (and thus illegal employment), could also benefit groups who aren't well-served by the current system.

> I watched a video just yesterday from someone (middle class) who explained that, by not having a passport, it took him weeks to get the necessary documentation together to prove his right to work in the UK. As a UK citizen.

This is an issues with the employer not following the checklist, which I posted in my first response to you.. That is not the fault of the legislation. The checklist is easy to understand and straight forward.

I do not have a passport (for quite a long time) and have no once had a problem proving my right to work with an employer.

> I'm just pointing out how a mandatory Digital ID system, designed to prove right to work as a way of tackling illegal immigration (and thus illegal employment), could also benefit groups who aren't well-served by the current system.

No that isn't true. You original claim was that it was "excessive". I took umbrage with that as it is a complete misrepresentation. It just isn't true and your scenarios that you presented are either unrealistic or not to do with the legislation itself.

Combine that with you being preoccupied about my supposed "privilege" as tactic to deflect from the point being made and making snarky backhanded comments, I no longer wish to talk to you. I am going to leave it there.

> This is an issues with the employer not following the checklist, which I posted in my first response to you

And yet you don't seem to have an answer to "what happens when they don't follow it?"

> You original claim was that it was "excessive"

Take the full context:

> are explicitly because there’s no single proof of your right to work in the UK.

> scenarios that you presented are either unrealistic

Except they happen.

> or not to do with the legislation itself.

What is your solution then?

> I am going to leave it there.

Because you've had 4 opportunities to answer my basic question and can't?

> Because you've had 4 opportunities to answer my basic question and can't?

No. It is because you've been rude several times to me without cause, you don't seem to actually read anything I say and therefore I no longer wish to talk to you.

> you don't seem to actually read anything I say

I've done nothing but quote and answer your responses, while you ignore my questions and (wilfully?) misinterpret everything I say and projecting your own behaviour onto me. Don't be surprised that I have a low opinion of your contributions.

> someone sufficiently middle-class.

The accuracy of this made me chuckle out loud!

I don't consider a nurse or a pharmacist, or a pub landlord, or someone that own a Limited Company (anyone can setup a LTD) as middle class.

Also what is wrong with being middle-class?

Exactly. They're middle class sounding enough (sufficiently middle class). That's what's funny

And nobody said there anything wrong with being middle class.

It is implied that there is something wrong by the fact that it is mentioned in such a manner.

It implied there was something wrong with trusting every chiropodist and professional photographer more than any cook or army sergeant. It implied nothing about being middle middle class.

The same happened in Spain when I used to live there. I ended up just paying everything cash in hand until I could get a bank account.

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.

They can definitely track when and where you log in.

I can't say if there are backdoors in place for them to log in, and if that is (currently) legal.

Hospitals and libraries are government run, I would assume even if they had their own login, they could manage to snoop the data, no?

These are all online service. So it's not even a wallet argument. But we recently got digital drivers license, which can be used in the "real" world. That is one card less you need to carry around. Only in DK and only for DK citizens though.

Hospitals and libraries are government run, I would assume even if they had their own login, they could manage to snoop the data, no?

In the United States, what you read is your business. The librarians have been one of the very few groups who have successfully pushed back against the new administration's demands for information.

Last year, I could log in to my very large city's library web site and see everything I checked out for the last few years. I looked a couple of weeks ago, and all that history has been purged, I presume as a cautionary move to preserve my privacy. Good for them.

> Hospitals and libraries are government run

A lot more effort. In the UK public libraries are run by local authorities who do not seem to routinely share that information with other government bodies.

Libraries and hospitals are not purely online services though. I do carry a library card. I do not need one for hospital or doctors appointments.

No, it does not mean that. In Germany the card holds the information, which is signed. So trust is established via certificate. The government has no idea when or where I use the card.

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.

> It is possible, to trust the government in other parts of world.

That means trusting all future governments, all layers of government, all govt organisations with access to the data, and all governments they might share data with, and all other organisations they share data with.

You have to trust them to both use data correctly, AND to have sufficient security to keep the data safe while greatly increasing the attack surface.

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.

The idea is we should develop systems that are resistant to relying on trust. Ideally, I should have faith in my life being okay without needing to blindly trust every single company I interact with.

You can't actually. Everything we interact with eventually ends up relying on trust, even the blockchain, but especially everything with humans and politics.

> 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 optimized for efficiency. Privacy and systemic integrity is worth at least that much imo.

The Netherlands has had a standard for authentication, which is supported by all government organizations, many insurance companies, etc. for 21 years and it only got better with time. I also strongly prefer it over the shitty, broken authentication systems many government organizations, companies, etc. come up with otherwise (we lived in Germany for a while and the crappy systems we had to deal with were endless). Or even worse, let some FAANG company do the authentication.

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

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 ossified society that only changes when the people who can lobby for laws that benefit them want it to. It will be a perfect dictatorship that can never be toppled, it can only get worse.

Every dystopian film or movie starts with some tyrannical society and a resistance movement. Now imagine you made resistance impossible, which is what perfect law enforcement will do.

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?

But no one should use sign in with google.

Are you saying that it's 100% garanteed optional in all situations? It has no power to be used to control or even coerce you or discriminate against you or build a profile and track you which can be used at a later date by a different party when a new political wind decides it finds you inconvenient? I find all of that hard to believe while still performing the convenience function let alone any legitimate law enforcement function.

I didn't say this specific system does, some systems might, and those are the ones I'm against. If it's just a login (we have the same in Greece), I'm fine with it.

The ID checks in the UK are an example of something I'm against.

The main concern here is that it will create a narrow bridge (i.e, the digital ID system) between people and various services and opportunities which will make it an easy target for people who wish to wield power against someone.

Perhaps your digital ID is needed to open a bank account, get a phone number, sign up for insurance, etc. Now, suppose some fascist government comes into power. They could start cancelling the digital ID's of people or groups they do not like or are bigotted against. These people start losing access to critical infrastructure.

Now, this could already happen, even with imperfect paper IDs, of course. But by making everything digital, we are reducing societal resilience towards such kind of hostility.

We already have exactly this right now, without digital ids, it's not even theoretical. The government blocks plenty of residents from aspects of society (eg can't work based on visa rules, can't access public/health services at all without legal residency). Currently that's enforced by random members of e.g. medical staff looking at your skin colour to decide whether to ask to check your physical paperwork before they'll look at your weird looking mole. Governments enforce plenty of paperwork checks & blocks today. I think a digital id strictly improves this scenario.

> We already have exactly this right now, without digital ids, it's not even theoretical.

That is true. I was answering skrebbel's question about [how does having a digital ID system lead to perfect law enforcement?].

> Governments enforce plenty of paperwork checks & blocks today. I think a digital id strictly improves this scenario.

I hope you are right. Personally, I am not against Digital ID. My concern is, (a) how can we make sure that the infrastructure operating the digital ID is democratically controlled and not just owned by tech oligopolies; and (b) what security practices, social norms, and legal checks and balances shall we implement to prevent weaponization of this sort of infrastructure and violations of privacy?

>(eg can't work based on visa rules, can't access public/health services at all without legal residency)

You aren't a citizen in such case - you aren't legally allowed to do so. This is another issue with law being in power but it's enforcement over the years was spotty - and people just got used to it.

What you are saying is that government blocks you from committing a crime - which it should try to do so as government's responsibility should be first and foremost towards it's citizens.

Whether you agree if such law is moral or not is irrelevant in this case. As an active participant in the system you could vote for parties that want to change it or campaign to have it changed(even by talking to people) if you find it immoral.

Digital ID on the other hand affects citizens, and allows power abuse towards citizens from government, including unelected officials and middle-level clerks.

> government blocks you from committing a crime - which it should try to do

You may have missed stavros's comment in the parent thread. The fact that the government is not perfect at blocking people from commiting crimes is actually good in some cases

indeed, but the problem isn't from them trying to do so.

It's the success rate that matters.

> I think a digital id strictly improves this scenario.

"Improves" does a lot of work here.

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 gives out visa, including family reunification permits.

You, as natural born citizen want to bring another person from the outside as a partner and for that you need to sponsor their visa. Government in their infinite wisdom decided you need to earn a certain amount of income for a certain time to be able to sponsor a partner (otherwise you both will be able to claim benefits). To do so you get a list of unemployment premiums paid from one agency and submit to the other.

Now here is the kicker -- if the government is able to aggregate the data from all the agencies mentioned above, they can better implement their policy, i.e. deny you family reunification visa AND bust your for not paying taxes. To aggregate the data they need to have the primary key to join datasets, including data sets from the governments from other countries (see CRS).

In this imaginary situation you can get your partner a visa and immediately stop working. If the government is able to join datasets, something will automatically trigger and you will get the letter saying visa is revoked.

You can disagree or agree with any specific policy, or you can deny government the capability to implement privacy invading policies.

Think of it as a backslash against tracking by google on all the sites with ad sense, algorithmic feeds and the rest. Maybe gestapo is not sending you gulash tomorrow, but it's symptomatically not great.

Add:

Can the government ask Palantir to join datasets without the primary key? Sure they can and they do, that goes against the same principle as above. Is it better to have civil freedoms and privacy protection that come from literally doing Holocaust? It's better, but it's not on menu yet.

But the government can already do all that without Digital ID. That's my question with the fear mongering.

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.

"But the government can already do all that without Digital ID."

That may be true, but the point is that it makes law enforcement less perfect, and that can be good. That is the point "stavros" is making.

Rosa parks broke the law by seating on a seat where she was "not supposed to". Hypothetically, if there were a quick ID check machine on the bus, it could have just prevented the whole thing from happening at all.

There was a "quick check", just not the one based on identity. You can always publicly disagree with the result of the id check too.

If you start with the premise that the government is hostile by default, it logically follows they will get some capability they didn't have before or increase the one they had. You will have less chance to fall through the cracks and the friction you get from not having the convenient thing is a proof that the beast is at least partially crippled.

It's very often that government has a capability to retroactively assemble a very detailed information about a specific person, but doesn't have a capability to proactively screen the whole population and implement policy.

Illegal immigration is a good example of it -- when somebody is already sitting in a van it's possible to figure out whether they are a citizen or not and maybe even find pictures of watermelons on their phone. It's however impossible to selectively block phone numbers and bank accounts of all the people who are present in the country without government authorization.

> The first step you need to take is view a government as a hostile entity.

No. Observing hostile governments replaced non hostile governments and used previously harmless capabilities is sufficient.

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

SMH

So if a future government decides you are or have done something undesirable, they have a one-stop shop to remove you from societal participation.

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-admiring right wing populists who are eager to upend the status quo.

> 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.

For the most part it doesn't go as far as the arrest but it gives the right for police to do "a sustained campaign of harassment and abuse against one or more named individuals" because their kids are posting unpopular memes on social media

UK is in big trouble, it's a naughty nanny state

> because their kids are posting unpopular memes on social media

I can't work out what this is supposed to refer to? Is this supposed to coexist with the "parents have complete responsibility for their kid's internet usage" from the Online Safety Act discourse?

I don’t follow this stuff in depth but if the arrests are part of a "a sustained campaign of harassment and abuse against one or more named individuals" by the police that sounds worse IMHO?

They meant the people who were arrested were arrested for harassment and abuse of individuals. Not posting unfashionable takes. Graham Linehan was their example.

> 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.

Case in point is actually the Netherlands, which is the country the GP is from. When the Nazis took over the Netherlands, they relied on the state's exceptional record keeping of individuals to hunt down the undesirables. Many people died that didn't have to die because the bad guys were enabled by the data systems built by the good guys.

> It will be a perfect dictatorship that can never be toppled, it can only get worse.

This might be the asymptotic steady state, due to the absorbing nature (in a Markov state sense) of future dictatorships. You only have to enter the state once, then you get stuck in that state. But democracy has to be ever vigilant, and it cannot fail even once. There is an unfortunate offense-defense asymmetry there.

You don't even have to go back to Nazis. Just mention Toeslagenaffair of 2004-2019.

> When the Nazis took over the Netherlands, they relied on the state's exceptional record keeping of individuals to hunt down the undesirables. Many people died that didn't have to die because the bad guys were enabled by the data systems built by the good guys.

In many cases, they looked at the census records; something that most western nations have today anyway.

Let's be real: if your government decides to slaughter an entire class of people in its own borders, there's nothing you as a citizen can do except flee and hope to get out without being caught (or sent back).

Let's be real, helping is worse than not helping.

> Every dystopian film or movie starts with some tyrannical society and a resistance movement. Now imagine you made resistance impossible, which is what perfect law enforcement will do.

I dunno, the Nazis did a fucking good job without Digital ID. They weren't overthrown by a resistance movement, they were crushed by the combined might of the Allied and Soviet armies.

We're also seeing how this plays out with ICE in the US: they're doing random street sweeps, and then the burden of proof is on the victim. They're not stopped by the lack of an ID system.

Are you sure they aren't using mobile phone data collection?

Apparently they are using data from these cameras:

https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-...

Therefore resistance is always useless?

Always useless? No. Useless most of the time? Yes. Don’t fool yourself into believing that you’re Luke Skywalker fighting the evil empire: your entire life already depends on the government and your fellow citizens working together in society. If that breaks down, or the government comes for you, there’s very little you can do to stop it. Multiple oppressive regimes, genocides, atrocities throughout history make my point for me.

You kinda prove the point with it. Nazis killed more Jews in places with more complete and accurate population registers too. If the municipality already has a list of all the people in one table and records their faith or ethnic origin you just need to get it.

Agreed, all the scaremongering is hilarious. As if a digital ID is what is going to be used to repress the common (wo)man.

News flash, if your "liberal western government" wanted to they have more than enough tools to do it already. See all the repressive governments with institutions stuck in the 60s.

- Don't trust corporations that you have no control over. - Vote wisely for the government you do have some control over. - Accept compromises are needed in a society of millions rather than constant political conflict.

Start with the above for a better life.

In the same breath you mention repressive governments and how you have control over governments. Which one is it?

Depends which sort of government you live under obviously. Luckily in the UK we do have control over our government.

If people got off the internet they might realise they have all the tools needed to make their country a better place.

I don’t think it’s scaremongering or hilarious. I think you’re weak. Oh it’s nice to have this, so I’ll relinquish my sovereignty, if you can’t beat em join em. Enshrined in a false dichotomy: how about we don’t trust the corporations OR the government?

As far as their “tools” I invented a stack which demolishes all digital surveillance. The real point is we need people like me not people like you, then we’d actually have solutions to these problems. YOU are the problem. Your weakness and laziness is what enables these horrible patterns.

all the scaremongering is hilarious.

Only if you didn't pay attention in history class.

Certain European governments didn't tattoo serial numbers on the arms of certain citizens so they could more easily access government services and check out library books.

You can say "Europe isn't like that anymore" all you want. Governments change. Power shifts.

Less than a decade ago, Europe was saying that Russia is no longer a threat because it was welcomed into the Western economy. Things change.

The present is not the future.

Does Decode project overlaps with Solid project (Sir Tim Berners Lee's project with similar objective)?

P.S. Thanks for sharing Decode, it looks good, I will be diving deeper into it this weekend. TIA.

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

Poland takes it a step further. You don't need to carry the driving license with you because the police can check it in the system anyway.

In Germany it unfortunately failed abysmal. Most digital ids stopped working after like 6 months of introduction of the system...

I think in Germany, such efforts are doomed to fail (or were at least doomed to fail when we lived in Germany) because Germany is reluctant to connect different government administrations due to historical baggage (SS, Stasi, etc).

We have had DigiD in The Netherlands since 2004 (at least that's when it got its current name) and it's glorious. Everything from requesting a new passport, logging to your tax administration, registering as a company, making an appointment for Corona vaccination to doing declarations with your insurance company is done with DigiD. The authentication flow is super-smooth and quick.

I know there are risks to having one central account (slightly mitigated by support for 2FA and scanning your ID card/passport/driver's license NFC as another factor). But it makes dealing with the government so much easier. We lived in Germany and it was a total disaster in comparison.

Germany as a whole has become a total disaster sadly. From public transportation to schools over retirement homes to rent prices. Everything is crumbling and its depressing. I wished we could at least have good technical infrastructure, as its relatively cost efficient, but no, we lack competence and old people are blocking every modernization there is (in public offices). Its honestly extremely frustrating.

This is one of the most exaggerated takes on the country I've come across. I lived there for 8 years and Germany is, frankly, a superb place to live.

I left Germany 3 times and my quality of life took a hit each time. The first 2 I went back; sadly I can't do it again.

Public transportation was in the top 3 of what I've experienced in Continental Europe; schools are seen as respectable and good; healthcare was generally very good if expensive (14.x% of salary is a bit much). I could go on.

Germany has definite problems, and the federal overruling of things like “rent brakes” is cause for concern. But to call the country ’a total disaster’ can only be done by one that, quite honestly, has no idea of what a bad or even mediocre country looks like.

8 years, wow. Try 30 and actually growing up in this country. School is letting people down, rent prices are exploding. Public transportation is a complete joke (https://youtu.be/0rb9CfOvojk?si=1S258ynDJZkGZdoT)

Sorry, but with how rich Germany is I can and should expect more from this country.

Public schools, public transport, well, public everything is being dismantled or cost-savings-worsened by neoliberal governments all across Europe.

I've yet to live in a country where the public institutions aren't being torn apart by privatisation and cost-cutting. That's sadly universal. So I'd say Germany fared better than the other places I've lived: Portugal, Spain, France, and Belgium. In Belgium we have a higher marginal tax rate with the same results as you're complaining about.

Your universities are still seen abroad with high regard.

Rent… well, damn, yes. Rent is very high everywhere, for a number of reasons largely due to letting foreign and corporate investment hoard up property, while at the same time building too much high-cost residential and not enough for lower and middle class people (single or otherwise). The market won't correct itself until only individuals are allowed to own housing and up to a certain highly-progressively taxed limit. That said, my rents in Germany were lower than, say, Belgium.

I agree you have a rich country and I didn't live there all my life. But it's still one of the few countries I'd say is doing something for its citizens, largely due to the German understanding of the collective good and social norms :)

Hopefully BundID remains

What? It works great when it’s supported. It’s just that there still aren’t enough public or private places supporting it.

Not my experience unfortunately

I think this is the plot of every dystopian movie ever though?

You're betting that the government are always going to be nice to you and those around you, carefully ignoring all the history books.

Don't forget couple of things:

Dutch digid is tightly coupled with your address. All documents only go via regular post to your registered address in the Netherlands. No address? Moved to another one? Didn't register new address? Moved out of country? Good luck getting or updating digid.

Digid verification goes to your phone. Lost phone or get stolen? Changed mobile number? Guess what, no digid for you anymore.

You can just install and register a new Digid App it's not that complicated.

I mean people have physical passports and they sometimes lose those which doesn't seem to be a blocking issue.

Oh man, you probably never used it. You cannot register digid without paper documents being sent by post to your registered address in the Netherlands.

Also, once you go beyond very basic services you might discover digid only works if you are a citizen. Otherwise you are back to papers.

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 verifiable tokens that say “I have the right to work” and “my eyeballs have this shape and are this far apart”** without the world turning into 1984?

(I suppose with enough people there could still be a black market for token generators where you could feasibly buy one that matched a subset of your biometrics.)

* Illegals have the potential to be exploited just as much they themselves can be exploitative. It goes both ways.

** Is it possible to have biometrics that can be verified against my physical presence, but which can’t be used to identify me in a crowd?

That is what digital IDs usually do: the website requests the smallest amount of information they need, you decide to grant it, and only that gets sent. And at least in my country you also have a physical card, so if you really don't want to grant anything via the internet (or find their request is too broad) you can just do whatever process it is in person.

What if sites start to request more information than they need because why not? If you don't give it, you don't get access, and you want access. What incentive do they have for requesting less information?

Asking for more information than required will cause people to stop using the website, hurting revenue.

If the existing situation with website registrations, required ID uploads for social media, signing in with Google/Apple/Microsoft, etc. is to go by, the majority of people don't mind giving out nearly anything about them when asked for it by someone who seems trustworthy at a brief glance.

I have never seen one of those planets.

Google zero knowledge proofs for verification

Well, to be fair, many many clubs nowadays operate a sharing policy so that if you're banned from a one venue in a city others won't let you in either. It's part of the terms of going in, if you don't agree to it, you don't have to have access.

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.

Buried in this discussion is the nastier side of UK politics: people (well, marginal voters) want an identity system, but _only_ to inconvenience foreigners.

I think a digital id in concept is fine but will ultimately be used to exploit or exclude people from the system.

A digital id can be great but it needs some extra decorations to make it better suited to being used in the wild. Some thoughts:

What happens if "the system is offline"? No healthcare that day? No transactions? What are the effects of downtime, whether intentional or cause by hackers etc?

What happens in countries with low literacy rates? Some people cannot read or write, some countries use paper only, how will you travel to those countries?

On privacy abuse, I think there should be an app alongside the digital id, that when a third party requests information, I get the request and I have to approve it. It should have an expiry date attached so that the third party has to delete their records. I should be able to see exactly what data they request. What happens if the system is offline?

A digital id can eliminate many cases where people have to "trust" each other and they would rather rely on the system instead. Lets say the bank asks me to give them certified copies of my id or statements from a different party. Many fraud occur as people can forge documents, so with a digital id, this whole step gets eliminated as the bank can simply ask the gov for the information so they don't have to trust me or that the documents are valid.

Some laws might be needed to ensure that you are forced to keep your data up to date, so that when someone needs to request your home address (as an example, an attorney might need it), they should be able to get an up to date address.

But still, all round with how things are at the moment, such a system WILL be abused, especially by special interest groups, politicians, scammers etc. Technically feasible but the specific society might not be compatible with the convenience it brings.

As a privileged European, I am not primed to fully engage with this point of view. The "pro digital id" arguments of freedom appeal to me, for instance it means it's easier for me to have secure, reliable access to my medical data.

That being said, I do appreciate that it must look very different when you don't get access to it, especially when so much of travel and government assistance relies on it. Our digital Id solutions definitely still have accessibility issue for instance. And I do believe that in some societies, it can be (and maybe is) used as a "boot to the neck".

I would say the main goal should be to make it easier for anyone to obtain and use the benefits of these tools, but that it relies on a society where the government protects personal freedom of movement as necessary.

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.

Banks are _required_ to check ID! And act as unpaid immigration enforcers. Already in the UK.

https://www.fca.org.uk/firms/immigration-act-2014

Yeah the situation with banks is a whole other problem. Banks have basically become an arm of the government, but without the protection of due process.

Financial privacy is a pipe dream at this point, so I'd prefer basic bank accounts be run directly by the government. At least that way, they can more easily be held accountable for their actions.

Enforcement of the state's desires by private corporations leads to all kinds of evil.

In my country, "hard lines" are next month's "soft lines". So any system that requires those is a problem.

The author asserts that reports have documented deaths of starvation due to Aadhaar identification issues. That seems pretty extreme and horrifying. The author doesn’t cite their source for that claim—is anyone familiar with the underlying work?

> While the government remains in denial about the deaths highlighted by Right to Food activists, the Minister admits that Santoshi Kumar, 11, died because her family ration card was deleted for not being linked to Aadhaar. Taramani Sahu, a foot soldier of the Right to Food Campaign, says she had raised this issue with the district authorities months before Santoshi died. The administration assured intervention, but that came only after the child’s death.

Jharkhand has the most of these, due to the underlying issues and activism on Right to Food in the region.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/death-by...

I also remember a case where an infant Aadhaar was issued by CSC at the hospital and was celebrated as a win because the doctors refused emergency Heart Surgery without the infant having an Aadhaar.

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 access with ease.

Digital identity is on the slightly more controlling side of this, but the article focuses entirely on the cynical perspective without considering the positives.

> identify yourself to the government

"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?

Other than finding it bizarre has it actually negatively affected your life? I'm not talking 10 minutes of extra admin once a year hah

What are those positives you allude to?

I'm in South Africa and working for an Australian company. I still find it weird that they don't have ID numbers, instead we make use of a name + surname + DoB combination. I didn't even know it was like that in the UK as well or anywhere else to be honest, I always just assumed everyone makes use of government issued ID's.

So .. back in the day I was active in the no2id campaign against UK identity cards. Since then the UK has introduced mandatory ID and immigration status check requirements for banking, renting, employment, and voting .. but not issued any new forms of ID, apart from the short lived immigrant-only "Biometric residence permit".

The ID question splits into two halves:

1) ID requirements: situations where you cannot proceed without presenting ID

2) ID issuance: issuing an ID to comply with (1)

People here, and the thin liberal/libertarian side of UK politics, are quite against (2) because they think it will lead to (1). But it turns out to be very easy to impose (1)_in half-assed and inconvenient ways even without (2). We just got "identify yourself to use social media"! That's already happened, except the people you are identifying yourself to are random non-GDPR US data broker services which are almost certainly cc'ing US intelligence on a copy of all the faces you show them.

(2) is where the real fight is, and now we've mostly lost that (because the public wants authoritarianism so long as it's used primarily against The Other), not having (1) becomes a matter of dealing with an inconvenient and broken pseudo-ID system where "utility bill" is a valid form of ID and organizations may require things that no longer exist like "original printed bank statement".

Well. Yeah. The criticism of digital ID writes itself.

Given the US president’s inflammatory rhetoric about “Democrats” and “radical left”, this passage is an ominous prediction:

“Welfare can be rationed through digital checkpoints, ensuring that only the “deserving” poor receive aid. Policing is strengthened through biometric databases, making dissent and protest more dangerous.”

This mirrors the reasons for resisting Voter ID laws.

And given story after story written here on HN about corporations who are unaccountable for their poor data handling, given digital services routinely deny users fair resolutions for bad algorithmic actions or ambiguous “policy violations” and without human arbitration. (Ha! Or just Byzantine department compartmentalization).

If you’re not chilled by the thought of Universal Digital ID for every single bit of life’s necessities, why no? Are you team Ellison? Do you think there will be room for _you and your family_ on the Ark?

https://fortune.com/2025/09/28/larry-ellison-ai-surveillance...

This article is written from an anarcho-socialist perspective so it may not be that persuasive to many people.

In the US we don't have any official government digital ID but instead various data brokers are providing it... with no real oversight. If the people of the UK reject government digital ID they may get Palantir digital ID instead. It's not clear to me which is worse, the government playing by its own rules or private companies playing by essentially no rules. Europe may be better because at least they have GDPR.

It's definitely clear to me which is worse, the private digital ID. At least we have some checks and balances for the government, however ineffective.

We're likely getting Oracle digital ID. The UK gov of course is going to contract it out

We don't they ask some European partners? Some have great ID systems. In The Netherlands we have DigiD, which was developed by a government organization and works very well. IIRC Estonia als has a digital identity system that works well.

It's verboten in UK politics to acknowledge that any EU country might be doing something well and to consider copying it. Only America can be used as a model.

Because the UK gov doesn't want a system like theirs.

You don't need to keep Europsplaining to Brits. We aren't all idiots. We know you have ID cards etc and we know about Estonia.

Also if we reject one your ideas, it's not always because we misunderstood it - we can understand it AND think it's a bad idea. I know that often hurts the egos of Germans, the French and the Dutch ;(!

It's funny because it's often Europeans not understanding British politics...the irony ;)

Don't feel like you are getting Eurosplained. I say the same thing when our government does something stupid where it could learn from any other country in the world (there is plenty of that).

we can understand it AND think it's a bad idea

Please explain why Oracle ID would be better than one of the existing governmental/nonprofit systems. Genuinely curious.

> Please explain why Oracle ID would be better than one of the existing governmental/nonprofit systems. Genuinely curious.

I would, if I held that position. I'm explaining my idiotic government's opinion, not mine. Though I totally didn't make that clear.

We've already given contracts for health data management to Palantir, it wouldn't surprise me if they got the contract for this Orwellian digital id too

'the government playing by its own rules' generally means they change the rules, often arbitrarily, when some new crisis demands a 'solution'.

Digital ID is logic, in a digital world, what's not logic is centralized digital IDs instead of open, public chain-of-trust ones.

Similar for many other digital things: they could be good or bad depending on how you do them. As long as 99% have no clue of IT it's pretty normal that digitization evolve against the common interests, when people get a bit of knowledge then things change.

Right now email is true One True SSO. I suspect that the root of trust for the digital identity of most people here is something like a Gmail account, unless you have gone to vast efforts to secure personal digital sovereignty in terms of having entirely self-hosted domain, email, DNS etc. The question is: in the long run, do you trust your government more than Google?

My digital ID in the western European country I live in is great, it also works offline. There's no extra information the government has that it didn't already have. Everything is the same, except now I don't have to carry a physical card with me all the time, I just need my phone and I can switch to a new phone easily.

And you can use online services to interact with the government and other important things like your bank.

Imagine the alternative: each government department has their own auth system to roll out and maintain, and you have a gazillion logins to manage etc.

Indeed

it's not that without digital ID you didn't need verification. At least in Italy, digital identities means don't having to go attending lengthy queues in public offices, where paper identities where usually checked. Sometimes you still have to do it.

What I agree with, is that some system is needed to help those without an identity, or at the border of the system. Digital stuff can help there too.

There are two sides of the story, as usual

- we already have some forms of IDs. Most of us have personal ID, driving license, you data exist in government tables

- we already have some forms of IDs online. Everything is stored per email address, and phone address

- this makes some people do not care

- until government starts using it for nefarious reasons. All it takes is one president to change, one super power to shift

- people are ignorant, until it is too late

- the problem with digital ID is with centralization, that it is goldmine for hackers, it can be used to spy on you if all your data are in one bucket

- therefore people who say that they have digital ID lack imagination on what can happen

- it all works, when everything is disconnected, platforms, governments, etc.

The issue isn't so much an identification system, or a digital identification system. It's just that we're waiting to see if there's going to be a non-smartphone implementation of this, and we're waiting to find out if this is handled locally or handed to a company like Palantir (which is likely given their cosying up to the UK government).

If this ID is only required at point of reference for job applications, as they are implying, why does it need to be operated via smartphone app? Can it not just be a card, or website? If it's purely digital, what happens in the case of a leak, cyber attack or internet outage?

If the ID grows in purpose in the future, does this mean we'll have to carry smartphones around with us at all times as if it were an extension of our body? You don't have to be much of a conspiracy theorist to take issue with the idea of carrying an internet connected microphone, camera and location tracked device around at all times.

They aren't revealing anything yet. I want the UK to stay a country where you don't need to reveal identification at a whim, as opposed to a country where you must always carry it at all times ready for questioning. I don't want to live in a state where a lack of smartphone is grounds for suspicion of criminal/illegal behaviour.

Calling a state ID card capitalist surveillance is hilarious.

Regardless if you agree with the point or not, I'm not seeing the contradiction. Your government is capitalist, is it not?

The government is not capitalist. No where in the Constitution will you see a mention of capitalism. Communist states however organize their governments around their economic system necessarily.

> No where in the Constitution will you see a mention of capitalism

Of course not, why would it be there? I'm talking about the way a government acts, not what they declare in centuries-old documents. The vast majority of modern countries are unquestionably capitalist, despite not pledging their affinity to it literally. If the frameworks in your country are centered around supporting and regulating a capitalist system, then it's a capitalist country. That shouldn't be a controversial or partisan statement. All countries use regulation to railroad the way their economic system will run, and just because the USSR et al. were way more totalitarian and uncompromising doesn't mean the rails are completely absent where you live and that your country's systems are some kind of a free and natural outcome. All nations exercise this control. Every country has greater economic plans that are in line with an ideology or movement they think will be good, and laws are used to nudge people and businesses towards making all the "correct" choices.

> If the frameworks in your country are centered around supporting and regulating a capitalist system, then it's a capitalist country

But the government isn't capitalist.

I don't disagree with the concerns of the author, but to me it seems that the response should be to wage war against chokepoint capitalism, i.e, third party tech oligopolies which might own the critical infrastructure to Digital ID databases and the verification systems, not Digital ID itself

The word "Capitalist" is casually thrown in with other bad things to make it look bad. Don't be tricked. Capitalism is a good and moral system. In fact, it is the only moral system that works. What's bad is central planning and government surveillance.

This blog is written by an anarchist - a member of a group that's infamously opposed to both things you mention as bad.

Would you mind providing a more specific critique of what they're arguing? So far, all you've said just comes off as ideological reflexes. I don't even need to caricature you to say that your post is just "My thing is always good, and the only good. Any other thing is bad." with no further argumentation.

theremust be balance in the use of digitised personal records that are availible to officials first, every single touch on someones info is recorded, and abuse in any form is punished, catestrophicaly. even the ticket checker, will be monitored, and if there is any discriminatory pattern to there "checking" they are prevented from any job or occupation that involves power ,and authority to prosecute. 2 no ministerial overrides,etc, without a court order 3 if the whole thing becomes unmanageble and leakes private info, it is trashed and we go back to cards

the people pushing this must face catestrophic consequences for failing to impilment a digital sytem of ID that is perfectly secure, and immune from abuse. no mights,no coulds, no excuses, no mumbling,no clauses, no public private, secure national ID, fuck with it and go to jail forever

I'm not sure the summoning of "capitalism" adds much here (and detracts a lot).

"The notion of “identity” under capitalism has always been bound up with surveillance and discipline."

This is the classic surface level grasp where the author uses words like capitalism where they really mean corporatism -- I hope the author isn't against the free and mutually beneficial exchange of goods and services between two willing parties

Secondly just replace the word in this quote ^ with communism...or any large state apparatus for that matter, and it still could work.

The problem is that the author is referring to a body of arguments that most people aren't familiar with, and wouldn't agree with if they were. Within certain leftist circles these are well known, and it's standard to assume the usefulness of ideas from French poststructuralist writers from the 1960s and 1970s, as well as Frankfurt School writers from 1920s and 1930s. These are sometimes called "critical theory".

"Surveillance and discipline" comes from Foucault's book "Surveiller et punir," which was translated into English as "Discipline and Punish". It argues that the logic of surveillance from prisons has worked its way into a bunch of institutions in modern society.

Articles in this style feel to me like a word salad of leftist shibboleths that never really amount to an actual argument: capitalism, resistance, settler-colonialism, domination, class rule.

The article had clear arguments. No continental philosophy reading is required to understand By embedding digital checkpoints into daily life, whether entering a building, logging into a service, or accessing healthcare, surveillance becomes routine.

I really don't think so.

My point is not that you need continental philosophy to understand the article. It's that the author assumes the truth of the philosophy. It's not argument. It's just repetition.

They did not mean corporatism. Commerce is not exclusive to capitalism. The sentences before the 1 you quoted made broader statements.

I hate these fluff pieces that use "Digital ID" as some nebulous thing that represents everything from a social credit system to a mandatory id card to a location tracking device injected the spine of every citizen.

Why is there suddenly so much talk about vague implementations of Digital ID? Is it because of the UK proposals? No one seems to know exactly what that amounts to either - but importantly it seems to be nothing like what people in the rest of Europe mean when we say "Digital ID".

If you want to discuss "Digital ID" - or write a long blog post about it - then please just describe what it is you are writing about. Don't use it as a label for everything you don't want.

TFA talks about how pervasive Digital ID (no quotes) systems are in everyday life, with multiple examples, feels very concrete and not at all vague.

You mean the biometric systems in India or geofencing in South Africa and the like? Absolutely no one ever used ”Digital ID” for those phenomena which is my point. TFA takes a wide range of dystopian tech and says ”these are digital ID, ergo digital ID is dystopian!”

"wielded by states and capitalists to monitor, control, and discipline populations. From passports to colonial passbooks, from welfare cards to border regimes, the apparatus of identification has always been tied to domination."

Uh, what is the word capitalists doing here? All of the examples are of the states. Notably, most of the states doing those were the least capitalist of all.

In Soviet Union (and Russia) you have an internal passport that you have to carry at all times and show to the cops if asked. You need/used to need a residence permit or some other explanation to be somewhere other than your address stamped in the passport (in fact, earlier they wouldn't give rural people passports at all, so they wouldn't travel). Or btw if your photo is too old you could be taken to a police station. I have been, almost, and the only difference added by capitalism is that you could conveniently pay a bribe on the spot (it was literally the birthday I was supposed to change my photo so I got a free birthday special after some discussion)

I surrendered my internal passport with my Russian citizenship and never had "capitalists" offer me any replacement digital ID! It's jarring, what am I supposed to show to capitalist cops?!

Sure, surveillance, etc. But the author is clearly extremely biased and keeps harping on the sins of Paul to condemn Peter.