That is assuming it will not be used to control or infringe on people’s rights.
Or, conversely, “disappear” people; no digital identity, no existence. Think identity theft in reverse.
Considering this is the same bunch that came up with the link tax and meme ban articles, I think we can safely assume this will indeed be used to infringe in people’s rights.
True, but this is not a new issue. Remember those films where digital identities get wiped or stolen?
The assassin in Day of the Jackal stole the identities of dead children from parish records and used them to forge new identities (and that was based on actual real world Identity theft tactics). How many decades ago was that book written?
I’m not challenging the scepticism of state operations here, I’m challenging the (frankly astonishingly naive) idea that this stuff never happened before the digital age.
1. It happened all the time, everywhere, but there was absolutely no way for the normal mortal to detect it. The olden days weren’t safer at all, but we just didn’t have a clue how utterly prolific and endemic the abuses were because recording of evidence was close to zero and the criminal / malicious actors ALWAYS had control over the audit trail. Dead easy to cover their tracks.
2. I’m baffled by the cognitive dissonance between state does it = bad and Apple does it = good. If Apple decide tomorrow to ban an app, a chunk of your digital wallet goes up in smoke with no right of restoration.
A relative of mine runs a business, and is a massive Apple fan. Or was, until they pushed some updates out that borked her accounts. So much do that she was locked her out of her business accounts, payroll AND customer database. Had to go back to pen and paper while Apple’s self service haves 25 day SLA just to verify that she was whingeing about her own accounts before they’d help restore operations.
I’m just as bothered by giving private enterprises that much control as I am by the state.
And after the last year with all the shenanigans and cancel culture from tech media giants, it’s funny how quickly that gets forgotten in the “private good, public bad” dogma.