So I 100% agree with everything you’ve said, and to be clear, I’m not Estonian, have never been to Estonia, and have never seen the system in question, but:
gives the government a centralized means of tracking individual behavior
gives private sector actors a central immutable identifiers to associate behavior with that can’t be erased
I don’t believe that either scenario is possible in the Estonian system. At least, they’ve gone to great lengths to make those scenarios very hard to achieve at either end.
This is my (probably simplistic, and definitely not guaranteed accurate) understanding of the process using the example of age verification.
Porn Site A wants to verify User D’s age. D has previously registered their DOB in Govt. System B
A shows the request to D, which says: I would like to verify JUST that you are over 18. Not your exact DOB, and no ID’s, just enough to prove that you are authorized to view dem titties.
D then goes to intermediary system C and says: Please generate a 1 time use certificate that proves I’m older than 18.
C checks with B, and generates a “YES” token that it presents back to A.
A and B haven’t communicated with each other and B (the govt.) have no knowledge of the transaction, but A still has a valid method of authorizing D without identifying them.
The problem is C could be tracking the user. I believe in Estonia, this intermediary system is outside govt. control, but is regulated by them. They’re audited like banks. I believe this is supposed to be all local, and would just be a cryptographic wallet for your govt. issued certs, and requests should be between A and your device, not a 3rd party server.
Another problem is “This site uses cookies” style abuse, and users just agreeing without understanding what they’re agreeing to. They have authorities and laws in place to prevent that theoretically. No idea how effective they are
Anyway, I kind of went off a bit here. Point is, the Estonian system is pretty robust, and really cool
Yes, the idea of the physical ID card they discuss makes a lot of sense, however that has the problem of associating your device with your ID.
When it gets to cloud hosting the personal data and an intermediary validation service that’s where I get skeptical.
All this said, in the US there are private services that validate physical ID cards using the codes on the back or a scan of a photo of the ID, so clearly the information has already been made available to private industry from the government through some channel.
Absolutely, C is the weak link. There are ways to mitigate that, though. Like I said, there’s no need for a server. The intermediary can and should be all local.
As for cloud backups, there’s no reason to keep a log of requests, so there shouldn’t be anything to back up, other than the certs themselves. Even if there is though, that’s in the user’s sphere of influence. De-googling is becoming more and more popular, and there’s nothing preventing you from disabling cloud backups.
All this is just to take it back to my original point: The idea has some great benefits, but the implementation matters immensely
So I 100% agree with everything you’ve said, and to be clear, I’m not Estonian, have never been to Estonia, and have never seen the system in question, but:
I don’t believe that either scenario is possible in the Estonian system. At least, they’ve gone to great lengths to make those scenarios very hard to achieve at either end.
This is my (probably simplistic, and definitely not guaranteed accurate) understanding of the process using the example of age verification.
Porn Site
Awants to verify UserD’s age.Dhas previously registered their DOB in Govt. SystemBAshows the request toD, which says: I would like to verify JUST that you are over 18. Not your exact DOB, and no ID’s, just enough to prove that you are authorized to view dem titties.Dthen goes to intermediary systemCand says: Please generate a 1 time use certificate that proves I’m older than 18.Cchecks withB, and generates a “YES” token that it presents back toA.AandBhaven’t communicated with each other andB(the govt.) have no knowledge of the transaction, butAstill has a valid method of authorizingDwithout identifying them.The problem is
Ccould be tracking the user. I believe in Estonia, this intermediary system is outside govt. control, but is regulated by them. They’re audited like banks. I believe this is supposed to be all local, and would just be a cryptographic wallet for your govt. issued certs, and requests should be betweenAand your device, not a 3rd party server.Another problem is “This site uses cookies” style abuse, and users just agreeing without understanding what they’re agreeing to. They have authorities and laws in place to prevent that theoretically. No idea how effective they are
Anyway, I kind of went off a bit here. Point is, the Estonian system is pretty robust, and really cool
Yes, the idea of the physical ID card they discuss makes a lot of sense, however that has the problem of associating your device with your ID.
When it gets to cloud hosting the personal data and an intermediary validation service that’s where I get skeptical.
All this said, in the US there are private services that validate physical ID cards using the codes on the back or a scan of a photo of the ID, so clearly the information has already been made available to private industry from the government through some channel.
Absolutely, C is the weak link. There are ways to mitigate that, though. Like I said, there’s no need for a server. The intermediary can and should be all local.
As for cloud backups, there’s no reason to keep a log of requests, so there shouldn’t be anything to back up, other than the certs themselves. Even if there is though, that’s in the user’s sphere of influence. De-googling is becoming more and more popular, and there’s nothing preventing you from disabling cloud backups.
All this is just to take it back to my original point: The idea has some great benefits, but the implementation matters immensely