• calamityjanitor@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I think you’re connecting digital IDs with people’s online activity for some reason. In most countries, authorities can already connect online activity with an individual, since you register and pay for internet. Doing things that the powers that be don’t like will get you in legal trouble. Remember the 2000s when the music industry sued individuals for millions? In China they take down your post if it challenges social cohesion, in the USA they take all of your money and assets for challenging corporate revenue.

      Most digital IDs are options for people that already have their bank/credit card on their phone and don’t want to carry a wallet just for ID. Some places like Estonia go further with actual asymmetric keys that let you sign documents with your ID’s private key that proves you signed it.

        • calamityjanitor@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          I don’t understand. Police can track you down via your credit card, your phone, your licence plate on your car, rando security cameras. All of these are hard to avoid. How often does your ID not just get checked, but recorded? It seems like not much of a game changer.

    • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
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      7 months ago

      Digital IDs are not used for surveillance. You can just as easily surveil people without them (check out Online Safety Act). Having them does not mean you have to use them all the time.

        • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
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          7 months ago

          What people criticizing digital IDs are missing is that you can just as easily track normal ID cards.

          You know why that lower half is formatted like that? That’s for computers to scan.

          What’s that? That’s an ID scanner! Oh the horror! We’re all being tracked offline!!!1!

            • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
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              7 months ago

              We don’t have the scanners in shops. That’s my point. Just because it’s possible to scan an ID doesn’t mean the government will scan them. Even in countries that have digital IDs you still have normal ID cards you can show to verify your age. “You will now have digital ID” and “You will now have to scan your ID at store” are two completely different things. People that claim that they are the same simply don’t understand either of them.

                • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
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                  7 months ago

                  That obviously depends on where you live. Spain, Poland or Estonia have had digital IDs for decades now and no one is scanning them anywhere. No one is even mentioning that. If you have an issue with fascist government say that. Mixing the whole concept of digital ID in it just doesn’t make sense.

                  • jpeps@lemmy.world
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                    7 months ago

                    Couldn’t agree more. Obviously this system is unimplemented and could be abused, but if they wanted to scan your ID at every opportunity they could’ve already given themselves power to do so with other valid forms of ID.

            • jpeps@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              I appreciate a lot will come down to the implementation, but I haven’t understood the proposal to at all guarantee that checking the ID will require some online check. This is meant to be a ubiquitous ID that we can use anywhere. Would businesses really accept having to use an ID that might not work if there’s a spotty data connection?

              My read of it is that it’s intended, in most cases, to work like a railcard or digital bus pass does currently in the UK. Not unlike showing someone your driver’s licence, only the image of it on your phone is guaranteed to be valid rather than needing a specific physical card.

                • jpeps@lemmy.world
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                  7 months ago

                  I think there are some genuine benefits to be had (though reducing illegal immigration is obviously not one of them). I do think there’s potential for a much simpler ID system. One that includes people that don’t drive, and doesn’t include giving your address to a stranger via your driver’s license.

                  I have had issues with using cards in poor network areas, yes. It seems totally improbable to me that this system ends up using an exclusively online process for sharing ID.

                  Sure there’s potential that this will result in a mass surveillance system, and I obviously don’t want that, but I guess it doesn’t feel particularly novel. If you’re paying by card you’re logging all your payments anyway. The question on my mind is where you currently see government overreach with exising IDs? Why would a new form of ID guarantee any of that changing?

                  On your last question, I genuinely do hate handing over either of the existing IDs, as they do carry more information than the receiver generally needs.