Dont attack me, genuine question. I’m just trying to understand the tradeoffs.
On the positive side, digital ID clearly makes some things easier. Faster access to services, less paperwork, fewer passwords, smoother verification. Countries that already use it seem to benefit from convenience and efficiency.
The concern I keep coming back to is the downside. Centralised identity databases, long-term tracking, and the fact that if your identity data leaks, you can’t really rotate it like a password. That risk feels permanent.
I’ve also seen alternative approaches discussed that focus on verifying you’re a real human without tying everything to your legal identity, with Orb often mentioned as an example that’s arguably less invasive from a privacy standpoint.
So what’s the real long-term risk here, and are we underestimating it?
What’s actually so bad about digital ID?
byu/Interesting_Peach_76 inFuturology
24 Comments
A single digital ID can be turned off at a central location
For political reasons
Living in a country with digital ID. Nothing. Nothing is wrong with it. In fact lots of stuff is easier with it.
It can be hacked, spoofed, and impersonated. Making it a requirement just makes a barrier to turn people away who don’t care enough. Logging into an account to create a new account is about as close as we need for a digital fingerprint.
>The concern I keep coming back to is the downside. Centralised identity databases, long-term tracking, and the fact that if your identity data leaks, you can’t really rotate it like a password. That risk feels permanent.
We have all these issues with the current system. Just try getting a new social security number. Your identity has long been centralized and that centralization is duplicated in a number of places.
As far as long term tracking you gave up your privacy the minute you decided to carry around a tracking device in your hand 24/7.
Digital ID is an efficiency improvement across the board.
Many points of possible failure, breach or leak. Every single person or service in every government department that utilises your Digital ID is a potential failure point, whether careless or malicious.
So, from the US aspect, the awful people in charge currently have enough information – we don’t need to go providing more refined information their way. That just makes it a non-starter for me. I’d be all for it if we had a centralized government I trusted with a whole lot more representation and accountability.
Would you give me absolute power over you? No, of course not. But you would… whoever… because.. they are good!Whoever it is, and however convinced you are that those people with absolute power are good guys that will absolutely be moral about it, i don’t share that belief, that’s it in a nutshell basically.
It always gets staffed out to the cheapest company with the most checkered security record because of the right political connections and then BAM the data ALWAYS LEAKS on the internet. Plus, with zero resistance or checks and balances, they will hand over your personal info to any police station that gets an itchy bum about you.
They still can’t do the voting machines right. Why would digital id be any better
1. If someone compromises that central ID database they can be you.
(They can also probably be someone far more interesting and wealthy than you, but if they decide to be you that’s going to ruin *your* day. You probably don’t care so much if they decide to be Elán Müskrat of Juff Bozos.)
2. So how am I presenting my ID to Mr. Police Ossifer?
Because if you think I’m handing The Agent Of State Violence my unlocked phone you’ve clearly lost your entire goddamn mind….
Everyone here talking about fraud or whatever is wrong. Paper docs are notorious for the ease of counterfeiting and lots of books and movies portray that.
That thing that people are concerned about is privacy. With paper docs and cash, I can live a life of relative anonymity to people and government alike. With digital ones, that’s gone.
> the downside. Centralised identity databases, long-term tracking, and the fact that if your identity data leaks, you can’t really rotate it like a password
LOL you forgot the main downside which is the social credit stuff. Programmable money, jobs, benefits, freedoms, etc
You might be missing some other issues. I am assuming you’re only talking about government issued IDs.
Who will pay for? It creates another layer for a system which already is overburdened and will require development of new processes, contracting it out (if going the path of digital plates) and creating a redundant process funded by taxpayers. The taxpayers will not support this.
Lets say that the country phases out physical ID, so it is only digital… what happens to seniors, the poor, etc. who cannot afford or are unable to use an electronic device to prove their identity? That creates a problem where there wasn’t one. Likewise, if you’re in a position where you must verify ages of people (stores which sell alcohol, delivery people, etc.) who will bear the burden of getting age verification devices to them? If they are supposed to trust a phone, it’s no better than a fake ID, arguably weaker.
Now you have the other topic… why would something which requires power and has more points of failure be better? There is an emergency, networks are down, but I need to verify who can and cannot come into an area. Plus, if I drop my wallet, I can just pick it up and board a plane. If I drop my phone my visit to the airport just became hours longer.
This is not a new concept it has been tried in the past and would be dictators will try it again. It’s a means to oppress people from participation in society. Isolation is one of the known tactics an abuser loves to use. The issue comes with not what the current regiment wishes to do but what will the future regiment do?
Put is simply [history has warned us against digital id](https://youtu.be/KvJV07XrREQ?si=2VX4rkfZEmwbYJEQ)
Further notes and thoughts:
Do you or anyone you know suffer from a medical illness?
are you or have you got any friends who are part of any form of minority group?
Are you or are any of your friends a part of any minority religious community?
Are you or any of your friends not part of the most common skin complexion in your country?
Each of these items are indicators that due to your id can be determined mined and acted upon by parties who may not care too much for you. It would be ill advised to hand this sort of data publicly. Put it this way would you openly share this data with your employer I don’t mean some of it I mean all of it “no hide my browsing history ”.
You should NEVER use a personal device to present digital ID to LEO.
Once they hold your device in their hands, they can search it. I mean, you just willingly handed your device over to them.
Sure, a good manufacturer would create an option to have the digital ID sandboxed from wireless communications access AND to have the device on full lockdown while the ID is displayed on the screen.
… Good luck with all that. There’s no way a government is going to allow you privacy and security.
Even without getting into all the political stuff covered, keep it simple.
You’re pulled over by a police officer and have to show your ID. Do you want to hand over a plastic card or *unlock your phone and hand it over*?
The biggest problem is who is designing the system. Greedy hands show up whenever there’s a national scale project.
It’s going to be designed by corporations that want vendor lock-in complexity, the hardware will require intellectual property payments, the government will want to track everyone, advertisers will pay to collect data from it, and everyone wants their own hidden backdoor.
It dooms so many technological advancements. The original goal is lost.
What can it be used for and what can it not be used for?
I don’t want to be carded to go to a bar or a strip club or some place that would be frequented by political undesirables and get on the list.
Texas is already making a list of trans people starting with those that applied to change the gender marker on the driver’s license. Do we want to streamline and simplify that kind of behavior?
How do you make sure it’s not another data point for marketing? Want the student or senior discount, scan your ID card and let them know you like buying Lucky Charms.
How do you audit that data isn’t being retained or shared?
And then at what point from it becoming available does it become ubiquitous and eventually mandatory?
**If we wanted, we could build IDs with all of the benefits you see in digital ID now, while also fully prioritizing privacy and security for users. We just don’t.**
Tech companies have built an entire trillion-dollar industry on exploiting the lack of privacy and pay our government very well to look the other way.
*(They also have all the data on every politician that’s ever been on their devices and platforms. So it may not be any more expensive than reminding them their search history can very easily become public knowledge if proposals they don’t like threaten their power.)*
100% of the frustration people have towards the way it’s used today is how it is utilized in an exploitative way with no clear, fair, easy options to avoid the data harvesting for those who don’t wish it, besides “don’t use our site, our device, our internet service, etc.
You can’t even buy your way out (i.e. “I pay $1,000 and get a permanent opt-out to all tracking, guaranteed”).
Further, what the ID is used for us expanding. What started as a small tool to remember identify out of convenience and to serve ads efficiently is now being tied to the same broader social elements of your identity that we saw in China.
Your activities in social media could harm your job prospects, as automated systems scan applicants for far more than just their qualifications.
It is gradually being used to socially condition (rewards and punishments) those whose “behavior” is seen as acceptable within the increasingly fewer places decent jobs can be found, and there’s little reason to think it won’t soon be tied to governmental interactions as well.
The Trump administration has already stated they plan to start scanning international visitors’ social media history, presumably to make sure they don’t say anything the administration doesn’t like.
How much longer do you suppose it will take (given the influence of Palantir and the like) before those same tools are monitoring your online behaviors?
The EU has gone in the other direction with this, and their policies prioritizing individual privacy and liberty at home have not resulted in more vulnerability to violence or infiltration.
They just have more space within their borders to enjoy the world around them without fear that a shift in national politics will turn them from law-abiding citizen into wanted criminal and subversive.
I believe the current implementation of Digital ID as demonstrated by Apple on iPhone should not result in a centralised ID database. Supposedly the ID is stored encrypted on the phone to only be presented visually with user authentication or via certificates to prove an assertion via a digital query i.e. Is the person over 16 years of ages etc’. Your experience may vary if your implementation differs.
The major issue I do see is that in the above there would be no way from a typical user’s POV to differentiate a secure privacy maintaining system from one that creates a centralised possibly weak database or valuable ID.
Thus I believe there should be no implementation of any digital ID systems for age verification or other use cases until there are strong, binding privacy laws that punish severely any party or group thereof that collect information without necessity or collude to bypass the e2e privacy protections thereof.
Short answer, fear of government over-reach in tracking basically everything that you do and buy.
If a digital ID replaced the current physical ID and that was it, then nothing would really change. Things could even improve because theoretically bureaucracy could be made easier. In a perfect non-corrupt world.
But how long in the name of safety will it take for your digital ID to be tied onto your credit card and then every purchase you make and where you made it is now tracked by the government.
Nothing, except your form of authentication (prints, face, retina, etc) is tied to a physical aspect of your body. It is already used in many parts of the World, especially for international travel.
The convenience is real, but the risk isn’t just hacking. it’s how identity quietly becomes a control layer over time. once access to services, travel, payments, or platforms funnels through a single system, the question shifts from “is it efficient” to “who decides the rules and how easy is it to change them.”
You’re right about permanence too. you can’t rotate a face, fingerprints, or a legal identity. and even if a system starts voluntary and well governed, incentives change. future policy, mission creep, or private partnerships can turn neutral infrastructure into something much more restrictive. the concern isn’t that digital ID is evil by default, it’s that it concentrates power in a way that’s very hard to unwind once normalized.
Firstly, doxxing becomes a lot more serious, same with data breeches which happen daily. You roll unlucky and bam! Your digital id is now in the scammer circle. Do you like identity theft? So do the criminals trying to sign you up to things and either ransom your shit, or use it to bait you into something deeper.
Best part is that’s the smallest part, the bigger part is that the very same moment digital id becomes normal, you can bet your ass you’ll get people figuring out your location and half the shit about your history.
With ai they could easily make fake scams using your voice if you’re online at all anddd suddenly you and everyone you love is at risk of getting scammed, stalked, doxxed, and plastered on the internet all because some fucking idiot didn’t get the memo that digital id is a terrible idea in 99% of application.