[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.