This notion has been floating around for a while now and it seems less and less unlikely. I for one am not willing to accept a company taking charge of my ID. Actually, the day facebook asks me for my ID will be the day I quit it. It's total abuse.
A database that spans 1/7th of the worlds population. Facial recognition, relationships and locations. It really is the dream as far as fully validating an identity goes.
> It really is the dream as far as fully validating an identity goes.
It really is a dream as far as intelligence agencies (FBI, CIA and their less public counterparts) go. It used to be ridiculously hard to find the info about how to reach a person, or which buttons to push. Now, almost everyone offers it freely about themselves, and the few who don't get ratted on by their friends.
Validating identity might be a by product. But it's not anything that's hard to do anyway.
It can't. That's the whole reason they're having this problem in the first place. They don't do anything in an official capacity to verify that you are who you say you are. They're relying here on Gov't agencies that require more proof with official documents before giving you another official document(ID card) to certify that you are who you say you are.
It can never be a valid ID, because they are never involved in the certification and registration process of your "official" existence.
I'm fairly sure that most people could get a fake government ID without any significant trouble. A Facebook account it hard, because you've got to make up a lot of history and back story.
There are a number of startups working on products in this space, such as use of social media accounts as verification to screen for and prevent fraud.