[ac2u]

>I'm not saying the government would get an automatic transcript of every purchase I've made

You make the assumption here that governments don't trend towards looking for ways for that information to be automatically supplied in future in the name of "efficiency".

Honestly, the history of the 20th century should be the closed book final assessment on why it's permanently a bad idea for governments to collect files on people.

[jbattle]

Given how long governments have kept records (domesday book, bablylon) and how few governments have slipped into totalitarian hellscapes, I'm not as worried about this as you are.

I'm more concerned about the patriot act & etc because a lot of those survelliance programs are actively centralized.

The system I outlined would work XX% as well if it were entirely optional and if it were managed by independent agents. You could sign up with "ID Corp", or a credit union, or whatever. And they could keep your records.

[ac2u]

>and how few governments have slipped into totalitarian hellscapes

Just because it's improbable doesn't mean we shouldn't protect against tail risks. Not taking meaningful tail risk protection is why we're in the covid-19 problem we are now.

>I'm not as worried about this as you are.

I wouldn't want to be presumptions of your background, but have you talked with many people from countries where they or their parents were victims of state bullying via secret police that kept files on them?

>I'm more concerned about the patriot act & etc because a lot of those survelliance programs are actively centralized.

I don't think what we're talking about is any different in the long run.

>The system I outlined would work XX% as well if it were entirely optional and if it were managed by independent agents.

I'm actually not opposed to a temporary system of tracking like this in order to stamp out coronavirus. However, it needs to have iron-clad provisions in law to make it time limited, along with laws that mandate that independent international observers witness data audits and subsequent destruction of said data. Unfortunately, when governments legislate provisions, they're usually in the form of "we promise to be very good" platitudes.