[mentalgear]

Not a fan, but unfortunately a "digital proof of citizenship" seems to inevitable due to the en-shitification of the internet, autocratic state actor's doctrines to destabilise free societies through disinformation that matches well with social media's en-rage-ment business model, and the more recent AI slopification / AI bots running wild.

The question is whether citizens can build enough pressure for such verification systems to be state-based and truly zero-knowledge (akin to the EU's) versus having the private sector 'verify' each user to siphon data, profit off it (Thiel's Persona) and fortify surveillance-capitalism and autocratic administrations.

[phatfish]

At the moment in the UK (where any mention of digital ID sends half the population mental) you have to email a whole raft of ID docs and personal data to estate agents, mortgage brokers, solicitors etc. to get an ID check done. Or use a private ID service that can have a cost associated and may not be any more secure than my passport scan sitting in someones M365 mailbox. You can't know.

I'd be happy to have a government service replace all that nonsense, where a one-time challenge code could verify my ID. There is now a UK.gov "One Login" authentication used by other government services that is essentially a digital ID as far as I can see. It just needs to be made mandatory for ID checks by law.

Such a service can also be used for age verification with the correct privacy controls in place, far better than all the dodgy age verification services that exist now.

Digital ID and age verification are going to be a part of the internet going forward. I'd rather have a government service that (in a functioning democracy) has accountability to the citizens that use it. ID verification is also a natural monopoly, so the government picks a winner anyway.