Comment by eru

Comment by eru a day ago

3 replies

Yes, so you get all the downsides of

> "Legal" protections can disappear in one evening, and then you are left with a centralized system, very practical for population control.

but none of the upsides.

Saline9515 a day ago

No, because with classic ID documents, the government doesn't know if I went to a specific healthcare provider, if I opened a social media account, if I bought a train ticket, or even where my bank accounts are (reporting is yearly, not in real time). Accessing all of this data is possible but bears a lot of friction, which prevents mass surveillance (or at least increases the costs).

Once the eID system is set up and becomes ubiquitous, it will be trivial for companies to use eID to open any online account or reserve plane/train tickets. Therefore, giving enforcement forces very convenient access to all of my activity and allowing automated monitoring. Just look at what is happening in China.

  • amarant 9 hours ago

    With digital ID, they don't either.. You just have no clue what you're on about and it shows

  • fragmede a day ago

    What is happening in China? I haven't been there in many years. There have been stories in the West about a social credit score system they had, but it turns out they didn't really follow through with that one.