this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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Privacy

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Lobbyists Call For Increased Digital ID Funding (reclaimthenet.org)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Washington-based Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) has called for more money to be set aside for digital public infrastructure (DPI) including one of its elements, digital ID – and this means not only the funds earmarked for the technology portion of it.

Currently, DPI projects can count on $400 million by the end of the decade – that is the figure “stakeholders” have already committed to “the cause.”

Essentially, DIAL is advocating for money to be steadily spent on promotion of its mission via seemingly “trustworthy” messengers such as civil societies, academics, etc. Apparently, this would also allow their participation in governance, as well as the design and deployment of various DPIs.

Among those sitting on DIAL’s board are the director of USAI, an organization known for its involvement in setting up the digital ID in Ukraine, as well as the president and CEO of the UN Foundation, and a Gates Foundation senior adviser.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This. We already rely on digital, currently through a rather small number of payment providers who, at the end of the day, suck at privacy and security. I'm not terribly well educated on digital ID, but i generally don't get why it is any worse than our current system (in the US, at least) of a bunch of corp run finance systems which are already very transparent to government surveillance, and care more about appeasing shareholders than security or privacy.

Comparing visa/mastercard/discover/credit reporting/banks etc to a government based digital option, at least the government option can be beholden to voters and at least the government, as a whole, isn't serving shareholders wants over privacy/security.

It certainly means an authoritarian government could abuse the system more easily, but its a mistake to think that an authoritarian government can't already abuse the current system to the same extent.

Whether the US adopts their own stablecoin and bans/doesn't ban other crypto, and whether this digital ID thing is the harbinger of that, it wont change what the vast majority of people reach for at the end of the day. Which, pending massive societal upheaval, will be whatever the government backs.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

There is a vast sea of difference between our existing banking infrastructure and the nightmare scenario of a CBDC. For example:

  • Currently, the government does not get 100% transparent view into all digital and banking transactions. They are only notified of transactions meeting certain criteria generally based on whether or not the recipient of the money is a US citizen and the amount. If they want any more information, they have to ask and theoretically obtain a warrant or other permission from a judge. You have an inherent right to some privacy about who you associate and transact with. Outside of the NSA, the government generally has to prove they should have the right to over-ride your rights.
  • A CBDC would enable the government to not only see everything all the time without any justification required but also control where you spend your money and how. Not in the sense that they could say "don't spend your money on x because x is illegal" and arrest you after the fact, but because they could literally prevent you from spending the money in the first place. Good luck getting an abortion. Or maybe during an economic downturn, the government decides that people can't spend money on certain products or services because it's bad for the econmoy. The level of control this would grant them is unprecedented.
  • It also opens backdoors for any other party who can breach the government's servers. If somebody wants all transaction data in the entire country they currently would have to breach every single bank in the entire country. Good luck. With a CBDC they likely have to breach one server. Name a single government database which has been around for more than ten years and hasn't been breached. You can't, they all have been. And now your purchase history and a graph of your entire social network will basically become public knowledge the first time a breach happens.

A digital ID system would solve many existing problems with how people interact with the government. It could enable massive efficiency gains and more secure, transparent voting. But it's also a requisite step to a mandatory CBDC.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the detailed response, definitely a lot to consider there.

I think part of where I'm coming from is that i see the negative points, especially around preventing money being spent or gaining unfettered access to information, as items that are only a few laws away in event of a ultra-conservative majority, regardless of a digital ID system. With a MAGA-driven majority at some point there is not much in the way of patriot act 2: electric boogaloo, patriot act 3, 4, etc. So i tend to see the CBDC fear mongering as being distracted by the trees instead of considering the forest in total. There's not much to be done to prevent it, but whether its mandatory or not, the bigger problem is who ends up in charge of it and especially who ends up writing the initial laws for it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

at least the government option can be beholden to voters and at least the government, as a whole, isn't serving shareholders wants over privacy/security.

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