[skeletal88]

Our system in Estonia works well.

I don't get the resistance to a digital/national id in other countries. To us it is quite bizarre.

Some have explained it with a lack of trust between citizens and the country.

But without such digital id it is impossible to have such digital government services as we have here. The government services need to verify and autheticate the citizen, so they only access their own data and not someone who has the same name and birth date by accident.

I don't see how such a system gives the government more powers. It already has all the data on its citizens, but it is spread out, fragmented, stored with multiple conflicting versions, maybe some of it is stored in databases where no one cares about security, etc.

[AnthonyMouse]

> I don't see how such a system gives the government more powers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State

When the state is more likely to cause you problems than help you out, you want them to be bad at it. The corrupt cop going on a fishing expedition to try to bust you for something because you're dating his ex, who can't find anything because it's "spread out, fragmented, stored with multiple conflicting versions" -- that's what you want to happen.

It's also not just about the government. If you give everyone a government ID which is easy to use over the internet, private companies will then demand that you use it over the internet and use it as a tracking ID. Which is the evil to be inhibited.

[reorder9695]

The UK government has justified this with reducing the amount of illegal workers. To work legally currently you need an NI number, this is not an improvement on that system other than requiring everyone to have a phone (probably with safetynet checks to ensure it can't be running a custom rom).

I personally do not trust the government one little bit and am sure they'll find some way to abuse this, as they have just about everything else they do at this point. This possibly sounds far fetched, but why couldn't they ask for GPS permissions on the app then use it to quickly find out who was at a pro Palestine protest for example given their recent penchant for arresting protesters?

They have given us no reason to believe things will improve with it's introduction, and have given us plenty of reasons to believe it will be abused. It's almost perfect for that, "install our software on the device you have most places you go, or you can't earn a living anymore".

[tomatocracy]

> To work legally currently you need an NI number

More than this, employers are already required to verify right to work when they employ someone, either by physically seeing a passport or by means of an existing government system which allows them to verify visa status with an online "share code". They can be fined if they don't.

There's zero reason to believe employers which currently ignore this requirement (and likely minimum wage etc as well) will suddenly start complying because there's a "digital ID" instead.

[cowboy_henk]

Currently enforcement is expensive, because in order to prove that somebody is/isn't allowed to work, you need to first identify them. Without any way of identifying workers, how could the government make the case that a company is employing people illegally? Generally crime incidence is higher when chances of getting caught are low, so as long as the government cannot practically enforce these kinds of laws, employers are more likely to continue breaking them.

[stuaxo]

The companies breaking the law aren't going to be putting employees through the current or next system.

Since the Tory gov you have to supply various ID to work in (legitimate) businesses or rent from (legitimate) land lords.

The only extra kind of enforcement this enables for these cases is demanding ID cards off people where they live or work.

[username332211]

The crackdown on immigrants is just an excuse. The real reason is different, the government is out of money and it doesn't believe most of the current welfare bill goes to people in genuine need. (Hence why the previous misadventures of a left-wing government involved 2 attempts at cutting welfare - first the winter bonus for pensioners, then a type disability payments).

The direct attempts at a crackdown failed, and the civil service keeps telling them it can't find any welfare fraud, (which looks fairly unlikely, given certain regional patterns), so they are trying to attack the problem indirectly - by synchronizing the identity numbers of different government record-keeping systems - HMRC, national insurance, the NHS, the land registry, council records.

[phatfish]

Most pensioners don't need financial help. The fuel allowed was introduced by Gordon Brown when they were the poorest cohort in the country. Now they are they amount the most well off. Pensioners that need it still get it.

Strangely there was no fuss when universal child benefit was taken away in 2015 (or maybe later I forget). The media was full of stories about how rich people were getting £20 a week when they didn't need it.

Now apparently pensioners that have a larger income than most working families are desperate for the fuel allowance and they will be freezing to death without it. Its nonsense.

[71bw]

>probably with safetynet checks to ensure it can't be running a custom rom

And they can, forgive me for my rather vulgar language, fuck right off with this thinking. Problem is it will still go into place, because for most people giving up the right of being able to govern their own device that they paid for is not a problem for whatever reason. Neither will it be until it touches something that is important to them - that's when, hopefully, some more people will be able to see that we are rapidly spiralling downwards toward a complete techno-authoritarian dystopia.

[pbhjpbhj]

>given their recent penchant for arresting protesters?

A protest group attacked a military base causing £millions of damage. They got censured, as a terrorist organisation.

"Protestors" decided they wanted to support that specific organisation, taking focus away from their message and chasing after something the government simply can't countenance: allowing protestors to ruin our defensive capabilities, at immense expense to the taxpayer, just to make some headlines.

If these people cared about Palestinians then they should have given up supporting the proscribed 'terrorists' and protested in a way that didn't require the government to crack down hard. Plenty of other non-proscribed protest groups are perfectly allowed.

Private corporation's already know everywhere you go, if you have a mobile phone, or use a debit/credit card, or drive a car. The government already know where you work and when, if you pay your taxes.

What Reform/Tories/right-wingers didn't want was any solution that would ease the problems they're using to try and rile the people into full culture wars. Labour are giving them what they [say they] want: making it harder for illegal immigrants, making it harder to claim benefits. But Farage isn't really there to solve a problem, here's there to create one as a means to weadle into power (presumably so he can refuse to do any useful work with that power, as he did in the EU) so he can fuck up the UK trying to be Trump 2 Fascist Boogaloo.

[beeflet]

It's messed up that they wasted millions of pounds that should have been sent to israel instead. If they were really serious about their cause, they should have protested in a manner that is convenient for me and totally harmless

[orwin]

Terrorism is targeting civilians or civilian infrastrucure to further a political goal.

Terrorism have a bad rep, but it was used successfully in South africa to remove apartheid, with the French resistance and a lot of anti-colonization movement. Targeting fuel depots and the Crimea bridge can also be considered terrorism (and is, by the russian).

I personnally think we ought to distinguish terrorism which mostly target civilians from terrorism on which civilan death are side-effect, but the US state department calling terrorists people who only killed military targets during the Irak/Afghanistan war diluted the meaning of the word further. I'm trying to push back on that, because when the meaning of terrorism is diluted enough, it stop to be a good word to describe a phenomenon we ought to stop, and start to be a word used by politician to target what they don't like.

[oneeyedpigeon]

In glad you used scare quotes around the word "terrorists", suggesting you are as cynical about this absurd misuse of the term as the rest of us. That's the actual issue here. Yes, PA's acts of civil disobedience should be punished according to law, but classing an organisation as "terrorist", based on one (?) incident that appears to have spread literally zero terror, is appalling behaviour from a pitiful, authoritarian government.

[rawling]

> one (?) incident

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0mnnje4wlro

[SXX]

Russia also have very good digital services. Now in one go government can send you conscription notification and immediately block your from leaving country as well as revoke driver license, block your banks and even phone numbers.

Also since all the data available about you in one place any malicious actor who can bribe someone with access can immediately get all your data: passport info and tax id, addresses, work history, all cars and all owned properties, everything.

Having centralized system with information about everything can very easily be used for oppression.

[tpm]

> Also since all the data available about you in one place

Note that having a 'Digital ID' and 'all the data available about you in one place' are two completely different things. You can have a electronic ID system and separated specialized systems. In fact I think Germany is going in this direction, also giving the citizens the ability to request deletion of all information held about them in a particular system.

[DanielHB]

The judicial system is the one who is supposed to prevent abuses of power like this. What you are proposing is essentially security through obscurity, if the data is fragmented all over the place on different institutions it is really hard to be exploited in the government, but still totally can be.

Confidential data can have better security checks and encryption layers so it is accessible only by the citizen itself or whoever the citizen grants access to (please don't bring up blockchain, it can be done without it). The technology exists.

[throw10920]

> essentially security through obscurity

Not quite right. This is defense in depth. The judicial system is supposed to prevent abuses like this, but just in case, you also limit the ability of the government to track you.

> Confidential data can have better security checks and encryption layers so it is accessible only by the citizen itself or whoever the citizen grants access to

The countries that these discussions are about (the UK and RU, with the subtext of the US) have not demonstrated that their legislators are trustworthy enough to implement digital ID in a privacy-preserving. Unless and until that happens, then discussion of it is off the table. When you advocate for a thing being implemented, you are implicitly advocating for its current real-world implementations.

[DanielHB]

> Not quite right. This is defense in depth. The judicial system is supposed to prevent abuses like this, but just in case, you also limit the ability of the government to track you.

My point was the government can still totally track you as an individual, the data is just fragmented all over the place. But if you are high profile the government can totally put some investigator to track down everything.

[philipallstar]

> What you are proposing is essentially security through obscurity

It's a great way to combat bureacracies. It only doesn't work against smart people, such as computer hackers.

[DanielHB]

This kind of security benefits the general population against mass-scale crackdowns (like dodging conscription in Russia) of course, but it can still be weaponized against individuals (like journalists, dissidents, political opposition). Which are the main people who needs this kind of data-protection.

[philipallstar]

They're the main people who need it because mass-scale crackdowns don't work. They're the only reachable targets.

[yaro330]

As if this wasn't possible before digital ID was introduced. The only difference was that you got a conscription notice after you tried to leave and realised that you can't.

[SXX]

Blocking all the banks and everything? Nope it wasn't possible. You need to build a lot of tech first to implement digital Gulag.

[username332211]

I really doubt that. America's Congress seems to have very little difficulty in debanking people all across Europe, and obviously, they have no access to any European identity system. Canada infamously froze the bank accounts of anyone donating to anti-government protest movements and it's one of the nations without a comprehensive identification system.

KYC has already killed any financial privacy people may have had.

[spoiler]

I agree with what you say, but I still think people should push back on this. It shouldn't be convenient for governments to abuse their citizens.

However, a bad actor (depends on how well funded/connected they are) would still have a harder time getting information.

As for the KYC thing, right now it's mostly to ensure you're not funding terrorist/criminal enterprises (at least it was the case for one of my previous companies). The data isn't just readily available to any political party who asks for it (I guess most companies will comply under certain conditions, but the legal friction is the point I think).

[Avamander]

Not possible? You're saying countries without digital IDs can't freeze assets in the same country?

[yaro330]

unless you are 100% card-less you can already get locked out of banks easily. Your digital ID already exists, it's just that you don't have a card with it yet.

As others stated: KYC killed private banking. Good.

[notarget137]

Exceptionally good. Sometimes I even think it's worth it. Need a specific statement or a document - here you have it in PDF in 2 minutes in an android app with somewhat decent usability.

The only saving grace for us is incompetence. Tyrannies breed incopmetence in goverments since competent people are able to ask troubluing questions. At least I hope so.

[SXX]

The only problem is that any scammer who can pay $100-200 bribe can reset your password without you there and immediately get all these PDFs, then mess up your whole life.

[madeofpalk]

I'm somewhat indifferent to the concept of a Digital ID. The problem is that the UK government's reason for introducing it doesn't make sense - to 'solve' illegal workers, when the UK already has a (digital) system for proving right to work https://www.gov.uk/prove-right-to-work/get-a-share-code-onli...

[reaperducer]

I'm somewhat indifferent to the concept of a Digital ID. The problem is that the UK government's reason for introducing it doesn't make sense - to 'solve' illegal workers, when the UK already has a (digital) system for proving right to work

I saw some British politicians discussing this on Sky last week, and I really don't see the point of the British digital ID.

They say having yet another new ID number will make things "easier." But didn't really say how. Brits already have ID numbers for lots of things. It wasn't spelled out how having yet another number will make things better.

My tech mind tells me that it's just going to save some DB admins from having to JOIN some columns. But a number is a number. Why yet another number?

And the whole thing about having a number will somehow stop people from working illegally seems like a red herring. I believe Brits already have to have a national insurance number in order to work. That hasn't stopped people from working illegally. They talking heads didn't explain what's so magical about this new number that will suddenly do things that the old number or numbers didn't.

/Not a Brit. Just bewildered by what appears to be a solution in search of a problem.

[tpm]

> They say having yet another new ID number will make things "easier." But didn't really say how. Brits already have ID numbers for lots of things.

They don't have a national ID system though. Having a lot of different ID systems that are IDing other things for other purposes doesn't address this.

> My tech mind tells me that it's just going to save some DB admins from having to JOIN some columns.

I don't know how this works in the UK but I do know a bit about how this works in other jurisdictions. The data in the current systems are there because there is a law that says what data is collected and for what purpose. You can't lawfully use it for a different purpose (there might be a loophole for public safety or whatever, but that would be an exception). Your organisation would break the law and the bosses could go to jail. But also, it was designed for one purpose and if you tried to use it for a different one, you would run into a lot of data quality issues.

[bamboozled]

Sky is a really right wing partisan channel though, ofc they are going to say negative things about the incumbent government or basically anything it does.

Not to say the idea is good or bad, but how people watch hyper-partisan media and draw any conclusions from it is beyond me.

[agedclock]

> Sky is a really right wing partisan channel though, ofc they are going to say negative things about the incumbent government or basically anything it does

You are pretending as if Sky is like Fox News in the UK. It is more like a slightly right of centre network.

[reaperducer]

Sky didn't say anything. The two talking heads from two different political parties said things.

As an outsider, I have no idea if Sky News is "right wing" or not. I watch Sky and BBC because those are the two British services I can get where I am.

(And occasionally ITV, but it seems to be all potatoes, and no meat.)

I note that instead of addressing the topic of discussion, you deflect into another topic. Why is that?

[bamboozled]

Sure, but it’s not like there media outlets just select any old person to discuss any old topic. They can choose who they want to be the mouthpiece for a certain topic and make sure they get plenty of airtime to say whatever is required…

[agedclock]

Legally they have to provide "Due Impartiality" on the TV network. So they normally invite several people so they can claim they have provided balance.

I actually don't like that they are legally required they do this as often it becomes a shouting match between two participates. I want to hear someone's argument in full.

[reaperducer]

Still off topic. Why is that?

[candu]

As a Canadian-American living in Denmark, I've seen both sides of this. In short: trust and mistrust are _both_ self-reinforcing concepts.

To take an example - would I want the current US government to be better at compiling information across all its agencies / departments? Absolutely not. What it does with its current level of consolidation is authoritarian enough that I'm not moving back there any time soon. I hear similar sentiments from my Hungarian colleagues, who are quite familiar with competitive authoritarianism in their own country.

Of course, this mistrust becomes self-reinforcing. I don't trust the US government, so I want it to be bad at its job - but then it's bad at its job, so I see it as ineffective and bloated and continue to mistrust it.

IMHO the only way out of this spiral is the hard way: a system must do the hard work to show itself trustworthy, and it must do so _before_ people will entrust it with the information that would make the job of being trustworthy easier. As with human relationships, it takes a _lot_ more work to repair trust than it does to break it. Unlike with human relationships, you also have systemic factors: the system needs an unbroken series of good, principled leaders; it needs to visibly and credibly punish corruption, not turn a blind eye; it needs to de-escalate divisions, not inflame them; it needs various institutional safeguards to work properly, not chop away at them; it needs to allow meaningful dissent and criticism, not crack down on it; it needs to learn from expertise, not undermine it.

Most importantly: the system needs to learn from its failures, and adjust the rules and incentives of the system itself to prevent those failures from recurring. This is generational work.

[gslepak]

> I don't get the resistance to a digital/national id in other countries. To us it is quite bizarre.

It depends on the country and its relationship with the people. If the people trust that their government represents the people's interests, there is little push-back. In countries where citizens have reason to believe their government is hijacked by interests that do not have their best interests at heart, then every move is viewed with suspicion.

In this case people are tying Digital ID to CBDCs and social credit systems, which is a reasonable thing to do, given this is exactly how China uses them to enforce 15-minute cities with checkpoints between them. All citizens conversations are tracked, their movements are restricted as well [1], and their ability to purchase goods & services are tightly regulated based on their behavior via the social credit system. This is the world that people who are pushing back against this are trying to avoid.

[1] https://x.com/songpinganq/status/1972382547427590401

[enlightens]

that Twitter account famously posts nonsense

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/jordan-petersons-chine...

[gslepak]

Think you'd be hard pressed to find a single Twitter account that hasn't at some point posted some nonsense.

[ffsm8]

So all Twitter users are terminally online?

[stephen_g]

Wow, crazy seeing the "15 minute city" conspiracy theory on HN! For those who haven't seen it, the idea of 15 minute cities is that a lot of people think it would be great to structure development of cities with the ideal of a person being able to access most of the services they want to (workplaces, schools, supermarkets, doctors) within 15 minutes (whether walking, cycling, using public transit etc.) of where they live. It's basically a target for how easily you should be able to access services without needing to travel far, and a push-back of massive suburbs zoned solely as single-family housing that force you to drive a long way to get to anything.

The more conspiratorial among us have baselessly decided the idea of "hey it would be great to build schools and things near where people live" must actually be a globalist plot to restrict people's movement to within 15 minutes of their home. It's wild!

[agedclock]

If you are going to mock conspiracy theorists can you at least articulate the conspiracy theory correctly.

People are worried that it would be made difficult for you to travel outside 15 minute city via a combination of mandated digital payment system for all transactions that are tied to you identity and removal of personal vehicles (e.g. cars).

e.g. Person A is allowed by authorities to buy a train ticket, while Person B is not due to <arbitrary criteria>.

I've been told this has been done in China to stop people travelling to protests, but I don't actually know if that is true.

Do I think this is the intention behind 15 minute cities? No. I do however think that what they are describing is possible since I've had problems making transactions electronically for legal purchases because my transaction was flagged by the bank for being fraudulent.

Also in the UK the bank can refuse to give you your money.

[xp84]

I have also had a problem before with a transaction being inaccurately flagged as fraudulent. This could either be because an anti-fraud algorithm isn’t perfect 100% of the time, or it could be the result of a vast government conspiracy to limit my travel.

I have my doubts that China, which has many of the densest cities in the world, would get much mileage (pun intended) out of restricting travel to try to quell protests. They have tons of cities that each have millions of residents. If the CPC manages to piss off a significant fraction of the populace to the point where they’re interested in marching down the street demanding regime change, there will be enough of them in those cities that no amount of travel restrictions is going to matter.

Arguably much more important would be that I don’t think most people in China own any significant weapons, and we’ve seen decades ago how shy that government isn’t about just running people over with tanks until protests dissipate.

[agedclock]

> I have also had a problem before with a transaction being inaccurately flagged as fraudulent. This could either be because an anti-fraud algorithm isn’t perfect 100% of the time, or it could be the result of a vast government conspiracy to limit my travel.

I never said it was part of a government conspiracy. What I am saying is that your ability to transact freely is infringed by opaque mechanisms.

If that is added with digital only payments which is tied to your gov id, it isn't difficult to imagine a scenario where your ability to transact freely be taken away to stop you from travelling for political reasons.

[xp84]

Sorry, I didn't interpret your comment correctly.

I admit you have a fair point here. I'm a political independent but started out left-wing. It's hard for me to accept the reality that a government that starts out well-meaning definitely can tilt toward totalitarianism, and that the lack of good chokepoints on the citizens (such as this hypothetical ability to control payments) may well be a key prevention mechanism. I think the left wing in the US likes to frame suspicion of those kinds of things as silly preparations for a future that won't happen, and the right frames roadblocks to government power as being in place to make that bad future harder to bring about.

[71bw]

No conspiracy is needed to observe the current world, the state of political affairs and to notice where all of it is headed.

[tombot]

UK already has a social credit system with our credit score, we even need to pay to see it.

[pipes]

That's a financial score based on previous financial transactions and contracts. It's a bit of a stretch to call it social.

[lmm]

I like to call it one's capitalist credit score. It's different but very much analogous.

[asdff]

Well, in the U.S. at least it literally determines where you are allowed to live. I don't know how you couldn't call it a social credit system.

[animal_spirits]

It’s not a social credit system because it doesn’t weight your social involvement in the society (political party, school credentials, race) but rather payment history, amount of debt, types of credit

[asdff]

Simply things that correlate to social involvement I suppose. Quacks like a duck and all.

[AlecSchueler]

Your involvement in capitalist society, it tells you everything.

[SXX]

UK credit score system don't even have "nationality" in it so not discriminating non-citizens that much. Neither it hold any ID card or passport numbers.

Yeah there is electoral roll, but you can still access credit without being on it and afaik all residents of scotland are on it since even non citizens can vote in local election.

And unlike US there not even a "score" number since lenders only get records but not some magical number. Whatever credit agencies sell you as credit score is just random number they come up with and it's not being used by lenders btw.

[majormajor]

Seems like a red-herring. Does a government need a digital ID to do that? Many do that with the "free market" of publicly-tradable information + pre-existing government IDs already used for certain things. I don't know for sure how much the UK government is purchasing all that, but there's a lot of cameras and tech tracking in the country already, like those of us across the pond also are watched with.

It won't reverse surveillance states but fraud is also a huge problem that deserves addressing.

[iamnothere]

Yes, governments do need a centralized common identity if they intend to build something like a social credit system. Those without adequate experience dealing with the US system, for instance, may assume that the government already has your info and thus such a system is redundant. However, this is simply not the case. US government systems are a hodgepodge of different systems built by different vendors, over different computing eras, many of which lack a primary key relationship with something like your social security number (the current “default” identifier). Many are plagued with duplicate records, data problems, and other issues that prevent easy correlation of records without human verification. Talk to some people in the IRS or Social Security and you’ll quickly get a sense of how many problems this can create! Maybe it’s improved since I last talked to people about it, but I doubt it.

A central ID enforced on all systems by statute would significantly reduce the barrier to creating “airtight” oppressive systems. While the inefficiencies in the US system have a cost, certainly preventing the implementation of more efficient social benefit programs, they also provide a barrier against more efficient social repression. Given the political animosity present in the country right now, it’s probably good that we don’t have the ability to create a turnkey totalitarian system. Things are bad enough as is!

More generally, in nations where the population feels suspicion towards their politicians and bureaucrats, the people may prefer to leave inefficiencies baked into the system in order to hamper potential oppression. Those social tensions and trust deficits should be resolved before proceeding with any ambitious central ID schemes.

[reaperducer]

US government systems are a hodgepodge of different systems built by different vendors, over different computing eras, many of which lack a primary key relationship with something like your social security number (the current “default” identifier).

This is a feature, not a bug.

Even though we're only at the very beginning of the various U.S. systems being merged, we're already seeing it being abused.

(One example: States using license plate reader data to prosecute women for getting abortions in other jurisdictions.)

[xp84]

Honestly with things like abortion, where there are sincerely held beliefs with good points on both sides of it, I think it would be less work for literally everyone to truly leave it to the states and everybody just moves to the nearest or most convenient state that aligns with their values. I’m so sick of this one issue being a perennial divisive force. Both sides have a point. Go live wherever you agree with the policies. And if the blue states want to operate abortion clinics for runaway teens from red states that’s fine, then they can also build dorms for them and pay for them to stay there. Red states can do the opposite and build state-sponsored birthing centers and pay for childcare for the runaway teens from blue states whose parents want to force them to terminate.

[Avamander]

> Yes, governments do need a centralized common identity if they intend to build something like a social credit system.

Which the US already has to a very large extent with the Social Security system.

[iamnothere]

Please read comments in full before replying to them:

> US government systems are a hodgepodge of different systems built by different vendors, over different computing eras, many of which lack a primary key relationship with something like your social security number (the current “default” identifier). Many are plagued with duplicate records, data problems, and other issues that prevent easy correlation of records without human verification.

[Avamander]

Please understand that supposedly poor data quality is not a defence against an authoritarian country wanting to implement a social credit system.

Some national ID system won't make such ambitions significantly easier, but lack of such a system causes exactly the issues you quoted.

So is this hypothetical social credit system in the hands of an incompetent government worth it all? Over identity theft and the multi-billion industry around it?

[majormajor]

> Yes, governments do need a centralized common identity if they intend to build something like a social credit system. Those without adequate experience dealing with the US system, for instance, may assume that the government already has your info and thus such a system is redundant. However, this is simply not the case. US government systems are a hodgepodge of different systems built by different vendors, over different computing eras, many of which lack a primary key relationship with something like your social security number (the current “default” identifier). Many are plagued with duplicate records, data problems, and other issues that prevent easy correlation of records without human verification. Talk to some people in the IRS or Social Security and you’ll quickly get a sense of how many problems this can create! Maybe it’s improved since I last talked to people about it, but I doubt it.

IMO this is another non-sequitor.

Let's say you had a digital ID in the form of a smart card for your SSN with a USB connection that was required to be plugged in when you auth'd to a government website to file your taxes. No new number would be required for a digital ID card in the US. Tax return fraud to get people's refund sent to someone else, though? Probably down! Does everyone have an SSN? Who cares, let's improve things for the vast-majority case where we have an extremely insecure little piece of paper.

That smart card doesn't magically reconcile and rationalize the sprawling hodgepodge of government systems.

Or, let's go the other way: not having a digital ID card does not prevent the government from rationalizing and tying all those systems together.

You might look back to the recent past when the executive branch sending employees to all those disparate agencies to grab that data and make changes to those systems! They didn't need a new digital ID to do that, and they wouldn't need a new digital ID to improve the use of SSN-as-PK-for-cross-system-joins.

Being more rigorous about tracking the existing numbers already assigned to you does not require smarter, cryptographically-sound, identification tokens. And those tokens do not require the government improve their processes for connecting things *after the "give us your SSN for identification" of their various separate web-based services (or the non-government entities that also use those SSNs) that people love to abuse for fraud.

Nor does any of this make it easier or harder for the government to take "absence of evidence of identity or citizenship" as "evidence of absence of identity or citizenship" - if you fit the non-citizen profile, the burden's already on you to prove it, and what makes you so sure that the courts wouldn't happily let this or a future administration expand the boundaries for "we picked you up because we were suspicious, now YOU have to prove who you are if you ever want to get out" regardless of if a digital ID card exists?

[exe34]

if they want private information, they should buy it on the open market like every other company!

[Fade_Dance]

In the US we use a short number written on a paper card - social security numbers. It's a huge source of compromised security on every level from government services to corporate to personal data security.

[mulmen]

The US does not have a national ID. SSN was overloaded to fill the gap because “everyone has one”.

[raxxorraxor]

Problem with a digital ID is that I don't want to use it beyond government service. But now there is discussion that people need to identify themselves for any and all online services.

If an ID is proliferated the legislative change to force ID checks is minimal. If it weren't just Estonia and government ID would be more widely spread, it would take less than 24h for the EU to enforce borders online.

[xp84]

I’d point out that the privilege to break the law simply “because online” is a pretty new thing. People in 1980 couldn’t automatically conduct transactions that were illegal, and access materials, their government deemed illegal, etc. If a book was banned in your country, it was likely just not available for you.

I really think people need to stop believing that the Internet solves all the problems of sovereign states doing anti-freedom things. That’s a part of life, and enabling people to evade laws, which may indeed be democratically voted upon, is not an automatic virtue. I don’t even think laws get changed because of this type of evasion, it just makes citizens more complacent about the laws that get passed because they know they can evade them anyway, but also it means most everyone is technically a criminal. Does anybody think people in those states that outlawed Internet porn stopped consuming it? But how many people are doing anything to change those laws? I don’t think very many. They’re just using a VPN. So the problem of oppressive laws isn’t being solved this way.

[KoolKat23]

The UK doesn't have a codified constitution and changes can generally be made with a simple majority. It's a bit more high stakes.

[dijit]

Just like Britons can’t imagine Estonia, I know you can’t imagine Britain.

In the UK there’s a bunch of government and company databases, and coalescing them isn’t just hard, in some cases it’s not even possible.

You can ask a company for specific details on a person, and they can make a “reasonable effort” to get the data. But if they mishandle the request (maybe your name has accents?) then the government gets no information.

The easier it gets, the easier it can be for them to excercise power over you, and right now there’s sufficient reason to be worried about that. The current government is liberally using the fascistic powers that the previous government created.

[reaperducer]

without such digital id it is impossible to have such digital government services

And now we know what Estonia's single point of failure is.

An adversary only has to hack one system to bring an entire country down. That sounds a bit scary to me.

[Avamander]

Having an ID issued by a central authority does not mean it can only be used by the central authority in a way that it becomes a SPoF.

Attacking the DMV doesn't make licenses vanish into thin air either for example.

[reaperducer]

Attacking the DMV doesn't make licenses vanish into thin air

Nevada's DMV was part of a hack a couple of months ago, and it caused chaos beyond just drivers licenses.

https://www.2news.com/news/local/nevada-restores-fingerprint...

This is an excellent real-world example of why having all your data eggs in one basket is a terrible idea.

[Avamander]

Nevada's DMV is a great example what happens without eID. Agencies that have a better idea about people's identity have been forced to do things like background checks and fingerprinting. Your data eggs in one basket, or a few.

If you attack the DMV in a country that has working eID it will only affect the DMV. Maybe you can't sign up for a driving exam or order new plates. That's it. It won't affect the police in cases that don't concern the DMV (like insurance) and vice versa. Sure if you attack everything at once everything will be affected, that's always an option, eID or not.

Fundamentally a digital ID does not mean a single "basket", just that wherever those "eggs" are that you know it's one single "chicken". That "chicken" can also have multiple ways of identifying themselves (including offline methods). That's how it is in countries that have a working eID implemented.

[SXX]

This. It will certainly be used by Russia in case of invasion.

[jve]

Baltic fellow here.

Good thing no one asked us about the digital identity when they implemented it.

It makes a difference as much as electronic money does. So instead of having to physically be able to pay someone we can transfer it, pay by debit card and lots of other ways now.

With digital identity we get the same - we can do paperwork remotely and securely.

Well people in Germany are also slow to get away with physical money and they are miles behind in digital services, so... some still enjoy the snail speed of everything (or not).

Meh, instead of days of paperworks, we can sell a car remotely (paperwork-wise). I tick some checkbox in my phone, the buyer ticks and off he goes - he has X number of days to acquire new technical passport for car and that's it. Also can be mailed if he wishes so.

[TiredOfLife]

Majority of users here are american. Americans made trump president. Twice. Americans are not sane.

[Avamander]

I suspect that lack of an electronic ID won't hinder insanity, but does hinder a lot of everyday actions and businesses.

[antihipocrat]

Governments change. Any group in society has the potential to become marginalized, and if all services are funneled through a single system it becomes very easy to selectively switch off access.

[goalieca]

> I don't get the resistance to a digital/national id in other countries. To us it is quite bizarre.

Imagine if you were a large country, say 10x to 100x larger. Your government would be equally more resourced and probably have more hands controlling more parts of your business and lives. This is where digital id becomes a scarier prospect. This is where opportunity and ability finally collude.

[idkfasayer]

You don't get the resistance?

Imagine a Russia-friendly party getting elected. Doesn't have to be overtly pro-russian. Can be someone very nationalist like Marine Le Pen in France. Or socialist like Sarah Wagenknecht in Germany. Just someone with financially dependent on Russia, or simply owing them favour. Now imagine them accidentally leaving some loophole in the system, such that Russians get read or maybe even write access to data.

[Avamander]

If they get elected they can fuck everyone over the exact same way.

The fact that there's something akin to a unique identifier or that it has a corresponding certificate or some means for authentication will and does not stop any malicious government. Never has, has it?

[mulmen]

> I don't get the resistance to a digital/national id in other countries. To us it is quite bizarre.

I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that this is a language barrier issue but this comes across as astonishingly narrow minded.

[pepa65]

It's obviously a cultural difference issue that might create the impression of narrowmindedness.

[mulmen]

Yeah I get the cultural difference. Being unaware of other cultures differences is the part that comes across narrow minded.

I can imagine why a person wouldn’t be afraid of their government but I’m having a much harder time with their inability to reciprocate.