David Thunder has a worthwhile Mercator piece on the EU digital identity wallet. Those who pay attention will have their eye on it already, but it's worth reminding ourselves of it every now and then.
Europe's new digital identity wallet: guarantor of digital security or backdoor to tyranny?
Last Wednesday, Thierry Breton, EU’s Internal Market Commissioner, proudly announced on Twitter/X that he had struck a deal with MEPs to create a European “digital identity wallet”, which would permit all EU citizens to have “a secured e-identity for their lifetime”.
According to the European Commission’s own website, the European Digital Identity can be used for a whole range of transactions, including providing personal identification on and offline, showing birth certificates and medical certificates, opening a bank account, filing tax returns, applying for a university, storing a medical prescription, renting a car, or checking into a hotel.
The whole piece is well worth reading because as ever it's worth knowing which fingerprints are on this totalitarian wheeze. The biggest and most suspicious fingerprints being the EU itself, but Thierry Breton is in there too:-
PARIS — As the EU's top official in charge of industrial affairs, Thierry Breton has often brought up his past as a tech CEO to show how he's particularly well-suited for the job.
But now that Atos, the French tech company he led before joining the European Commission, is in the midst of collapsing and being sold off for parts, that private-sector track record is starting to look more like a liability than an asset for the Frenchman who's made no secret of his political ambitions.
An even more dubious fingerprint is Ursula von der Leyen's, with her remarkable ability to fail upwards.
Politicians like Thierry Breton and Ursula von der Leyen, and those MEPs and member state governments that cheered them on during the pandemic, were prepared to treat citizens like cattle or disease vectors to be vaccinated and tested en masse, with scant regard for their personal medical history and risk factors. It is surely only a matter of time before people with this sort of contempt for individual liberty would be inclined to take advantage of a technology like a universal digital ID as a lever to control people’s private choices with a view to advancing their own careers and policy goals.
As ever - check the fingerprints.
Politicians like Thierry Breton and Ursula von der Leyen, and those MEPs and member state governments that cheered them on during the pandemic, were prepared to treat citizens like cattle or disease vectors to be vaccinated and tested en masse, with scant regard for their personal medical history and risk factors. It is surely only a matter of time before people with this sort of contempt for individual liberty would be inclined to take advantage of a technology like a universal digital ID as a lever to control people’s private choices with a view to advancing their own careers and policy goals.
As ever - check the fingerprints.
9 comments:
If ever we have a Tory government I recommend it introduce a "dignity identity wallet" which will contain a card you can show to whomsoever enquires, emblazoned with the words "None of your bloody business!"
Back in the days of the proposals to have a British ID card I was against them - on the basis that no matter how soft the original requirements, such as not being obliged to carry them, eventually businesses and jobsworths would insist that people had cards, carried them, and would receive nothing without presenting them.
I later softened a bit towards the idea but then I realised with the pressures to sign up to some adult check app for the internet we were back in the State Control arena again. Imagine how much coercion could be applied to 'encourage' COVID vaccination or restrict lockdown? Imagine how easy it would be to 'cancel' some person for being out of step with government thinking?
So that's a NO from me.
That's the big problem - it might be great now, no problems and lots of advantages. But then something changes, things turn ugly. And they've got your details.
dearieme - give the card an official and slightly sinister look and it will probably work.
DJ - the pressures to sign up initially will be wrapped in a narrative about convenience, security and health benefits. Many people will just go for it on that basis and the totalitarian aspect will come later. As things stand it seems inevitable, but maybe bungling will mitigate some of it.
Sam - that's it, lots of advantages to begin with and some may even be real. Then the screw is turned - bound to be unless we see a major culture change.
They are nibbling at our freedom all the time from all angles; WHO with its vision of control of our “health”, the push for cashless transactions.
We need to put a stop to it.
Most interesting, shall quote, AKH.
Timbotoo - at the moment it isn't easy to see what might stop it apart from some kind of political upheaval. Unfortunately too many people are likely to see the velvet glove long before they see the iron fist.
James - thanks and thanks for the link.
I refer my right honourable friend to the answer I gave a moment ago.
Tammly - you mean John Major? Seems an eternity ago now.
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