While this bill is technically an alternative to the Kids Online Safety Act, it is a bad one. As we’ve said before, no one should have to hand over their driver’s license just to access free websites. Having to hand over that driver’s license to a government program doesn’t solve the problem. The world envisioned by the authors of this bill is one where everyone has less power to speak out and access information online, and we must oppose it.

A new bill sponsored by Sen. Schatz (D-HI), Sen. Cotton (R-AR), Sen. Murphy (D-CT), and Sen. Britt (R-AL) would combine some of the worst elements of various social media bills aimed at “protecting the children” into a single law.

  • HarkMahlberg
    2•10 months ago

    2/? Hey, real quick. You know how on old SSN cards it says “For Social Security and Tax Purposes - Not For Identification.” That was added in 1946 but removed in 1972. And uh… I definitely couldn’t get my current job without providing my SSN, I couldn’t open my bank accounts without it, and I couldn’t receive retirement benefits without it. So…

    If a national ID is required for employment, you could be fired and your employer fined if you fail to present your papers. People without ID cards can be denied the right to purchase property, open a bank account or receive government benefits.

    …We’re already there. Yes even the purchase property bit, because you get your credit checked for the mortgage loan. "… landlords, cable companies, cell phone providers, or even credit reporting agencies, which all habitually request SSNs simply >> because a number is more precise than a name. << emphasis mine.) And our 9-digit, unencrypted social security number is not even that precise or secure!

    Once biometric data is captured, it frequently flows between governmental and private sector users. … Private sector security threat models assume that at any one time, one per cent of company employees are willing to sell or trade confidential information for personal gain.

    We’ve already had the Equifax breach with SSN’s. That wasn’t a devious or disgruntled employee looking to make a quick buck, that was the entire organization choosing to skimp on security to save money. And no, I don’t believe the CEO of Equifax when he says this was all to blame on one person. A failure that big is never the result of one individual, but a result of the entire institution full of people who failed to recognize and remedy the problem. So I’m in agreement with @Nowyn, we should be judicious about who can access your ID and set some consequences for them if they abuse or misuse that access. (I think it would help if we had cryptographically secure ID’s, but that’s an extra layer I don’t want to jump into, I’ve ranted enough already.)

    We already sacrifice freedom for security all the time. We already sacrifice privacy for identity all the time, from dating profiles to driver’s licenses. We already have a national ID system, it’s called Social Security, and it sucks. We’re already there, so where do we go from here?

    • HarkMahlberg
      2•10 months ago

      3/? So here’s my biggest beef with the EFF article. In school I was taught the most convincing arguments are made with synthesis - you have to both support your thesis and interrogate your antithesis. You may notice I haven’t done that myself… guilty as charged.

      I see the EFF has a lot of one-sided arguments for why you should oppose national ID systems… in fact they just tell you outright to oppose them. But I’m not easily convinced by a series of negative arguments with nearly zero analysis of the purported benefits of national ID’s. This is the closest I think the article has:

      After 9/11, many governments began collecting, storing and using biometrics identifiers in national IDs. Authorities justified these initiatives by arguing that biometric identification and authentication helps secure borders, verify employment and immigration, prosecute criminals, and combat identity fraud and terrorism.

      …Maybe I’m just a certain kind of jaded or I’m just part of the wrong demographic, but whenever I see 9/11 being invoked, it’s like a magic spell. It’s such a universally terrible event that we can put it next to anything and taint it by association. “After 9/11, many video games began to feature 3D photo-realistic graphics.” It’s correlative, not causative. What else happened around 2000, 2001? Home computers became widely accessible? Google redefined the search engine? Yes, 9/11 is contextually important to the United States because it catapulted the PATRIOT Act through the legal process like a hot knife through butter. But was it also the catapult for “many other governments?” Or was computing power and data collection becoming more accessible, facilitating the collection of more information to increase the accuracy or security of preexisting national ID systems?

      In fact the entire article reads as if it was written only for an American audience, and specifically a FUD-driven American audience. In the sidebar are short paragraphs talking (again, only negatively) about national ID systems in Argentina, France, India, and Kenya. Why is there no mention of Estonia, or Malaysia?

      I’ll admit this is personal, but I am not easily convinced by arguments that only focus on stopping something from happening, especially after it has already happened. And EFF’s American-centric arguments ignore the fact that de-facto ID’s are a problem elsewhere in the world. “Ireland’s Public Services Card is not considered a national identity card by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection (DEASP), but many say it is in fact becoming that, and without public debate or even a legislative foundation.” It’s a form of American exceptionalism, as if we have nothing to learn and nothing to gain from seeing how other countries operate and determining if/how we could apply their systems, or improve on their systems, at home.

      Yes, the article presents a lot of problems with a National ID system. So… let’s solve some of them? “Administration of ID programs are often outsourced to unaccountable companies.” Social Security isn’t, so maybe we can create a public bureau to issue and administrate a freely available national ID. “Historically, national ID systems have been used to discriminate against people on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion and political views.” Alright, let’s write and enforce laws that prohibit discrimination based on protected classes.

      If we abdicate our ability to investigate and analyze complex problems, we don’t make the problem go away. We just invite less scrupulous actors to attempt to solve that problem and exploit a lot of people along the way. We don’t have a national ID system? The credit bureaus will co-opt the SSN. We don’t have a virtual public square? Elon Musk will take Twitter and twist it into his image. Every problem we ignore, the ones where we eschew imperfect solutions in pursuit of ideological purity, is an opportunity to a grifter. If you don’t trust the government to make a national ID… do you trust the free market more?

      What’s the cost of a national ID system? Privacy. Some freedoms. The government gets to collect more data about you. Build models of where you’ve been, what you bought, who you associate with.

      What’s the cost of not having a national ID system? A private interest can do all those same things, For profit.