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> Unfortunately, it is unlikely that the state, who forces government ID regulations onto businesses, employers, landlords and healthcare providers, will accept web-of-trust vouches or biometrics as “proof of identity”. Having looked into it a little bit, web of trust (in the word of mouth / paper form) is already a legal proof of identity. It was legalized again after WW2, and government ID made optional again rather than mandatory, because the people that forced mandatory IDs on everyone were literally the Nazis. (Related previous history : factory owners and workers.) So looks like it's a matter of preservation of fundamental rights to insist on using web of trust rather than ID... and most specifically a question of everyday(ish) practice, so the question is how to best push back against the normalization of mandatory IDs ? (In which countries can you sue an administration / a business for refusing to work with you because you refused to provide them an ID ? Does it need to be escalated to civil disobedience and laws changed ? Other options ?) Of note : this is perhaps only a step in the "Police State-ification" of our societies. At some point, you didn't have a fixed first name / surname / address. But then (for instance) Hausmann demolished your neighborhood, made one more legible to the state instead, and next time the (Paris Commune) riots happened, they failed. It also made you easier to tax, but also brought better sanitation and "foreign" firefighters and ambulance drivers could actually quickly find you. The question is : how much (by definition, unnatural) state legibility is too much, how little is too little, and how to maintain homeostasis in the right range ? |