this post was submitted on 13 May 2026
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Privacy
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Can you enumerate what the potential good you see it bringing.
To be up front, I strongly disagree with you, but I want to be sure I don't just have straw man arguments in my mind.
Aw shit I had a decent comment typed up on my pc and then I changed my wife and my bike tires. It's all the way over there, 2/3 of the way finished but I got little legs and I'm tired.
Short version I'll try to get you more complete thoughts when I get up sometime next decade. But the short version is that laughably presuming that a malicious government wouldn't be abusing this, secure digital identity verification, when people want it (not being forced on someone) like digital docusign but author requiring notaries and bullshit like that, could actually be very beneficial in financial, legal, medical, a bunch of different industries where verifying identity quickly is important.
Actually, the long version didn't have much more than that, just more words.
Personally, I'm torn between wanting a National ID and hating the idea of National IDs.
Currently, there is a cobbled together system that work to imitate the functions of a National ID in the US (Social Security Number + state IDs with crossing data bases + FBI Crime tracking, Credit Scores, Voter Rolls etc). A LOT of our systems would feel more cohesive if they were properly integrated into a single system, attached to a single ID card, ideally with a passport-like code on the back for easy scanning.
That said, whichever government bureau maintains that database will have an INSANE amount of control over your life, not to mention it becomes a single point of failure (a mistyped digit in an arrest warrant and your whole life is done. Maybe its easy to recover....but that's not how our government seems to operate) in a complex system.
So on to a digital version of this. With my notions of a National ID, I see those risks becoming greater while maintaining the same level of benefits. Maybe there's a bit of a benefit on convenience factor in the benefits category, but the additional cost is that it becomes attached to your device (and I just don't see a way to implement this that doesn't get "attached" to a device), a device that already collects AND BROADCASTS insane telemetry about you to everything near it / that you connect to (see here for a big spook).
This is a broad overview of why I think going straight to a digital National ID system is a bad idea. Might be slow to do so, but I will eventually get back to you anyone wants to discuss more.