Who am I todayI have written about the silly/nasty/unworkable (delete as appropriate) ID cards system that the Government is trying to bring in. An article about Electronic Identity by Niels Bjergstrom looks at it from a number of interesting angles. The potential benefits, if it is done correctly are much greater than the headline grabbing ones the politicians mention, and include (to paraphrase) “enabling a better society.”
He also looks at the concept of identity and how it varies in different contexts but concludes that they all stem from a root identity obtained at birth, which is the only provable node in your life (and then, only in relationship to your mother, sorry dads.)
The conclusion is that the only reliable tag is an encrypted DNA code—it is verifiable and unique. But this is impractical/undesirable for regular testing except in the highest value cases (value here is not just monetary but could be privacy or other social value.) It can, however, be used to validate lesser biometrics and tokens for general day to day identification. A corollary I could add is that these lesser identities need not be unique so I can be Richard to my family, Rick to my friends, Richard John to the bank and “renowden” online without any suggestion of deception.
The drawback of going “back to roots” is that it takes at least a generation to implement and the best that can be achieved until multiple generations have passed (and for newcomers into the verified-ID zone) is that they are who they said they were at the point of entry.
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