Aardvark Daily

Please visit the sponsor!

The argument against Digital ID

Age-gating inevitably requires some form of authoritative ID to implement.

This is why it's a very bad idea.

We all know that, based on mountains of hard evidence, it is almost impossible to build any kind of computer system conencted to the internet that is 100 percent hack-proof and secure.

This means that *any* identifying information presented for the purposes of establishing someone's age is at risk of being stolen and resold on the dark web.

That is simply not acceptable.

For those who say "nah, not likely" should need look no further than the news this week to see how wrong they are.

A recent security failure in the USA has seen the scans of over 153 million US and Canadia drivers' licenses being flogged online.

Where did these scans come from?

Apparently it was a US-based identity verification company whose systems had been infiltrated by hackers.

So all those who thought they were safe by offering up their government-issued documents in order to prove their ID and age are now finding that they've become potential victims of ID theft.

It's looking very much as if this wasn't a single breach and that other repositories of such identifying documents have also been hacked. This is because there are medical records and even UV scans of cards included in the data being sold online.

The sad reality is that anything we put online has the potential to be stolen and nothing is more attractive to those who would seek to exploit such material than a large repository -- such as those run by these ID verification companies or even government agencies.

I suspect that the job of breaching cyber-defenses is becoming much easier these days when for a few dollars you can hire a very powerful cloud-based AI system to come up with novel and effective ways to bypass the security mechanisms being used.

Can you imagine what will happen if/when someone actually unleashes the quantum computing genie from its bottle? At that point, nothing will be safe and those with access to the tech will effectively find all doors open to them.

In truth, the safest way to protect your identity and your personal data when online is anonymity but such freedoms will be relegated to the history books if the current crop of politicians have their way. Having a public that is free to act with anonymity is seen as a threat. Far better that every individual is tracked and data collected on them so that any politically dangerous dissent can be identfied and nipped in the bud.

If you think my views regarding the increasing authoritarian attitude of Western governments is a little OTT, take a look at the direction the EU is taking. Brusses is eyeing private savings with Ursula Van de Leyen stopping just short of suggesting the nationalisation that money for use by EU businesses.

Ultimately it is the job of every citizen to remind politicians who they work for. If we don't then they forget very quickly.

Carpe Diem folks!

Please visit the sponsor!

Here is a PERMANENT link to this column

Rank This Aardvark Page

Change Font