Comment by niam
3 years ago
I don't trust the govt quite as much as you, but could see this being a useful govt function if the issuing body didn't maintain any record of when, where, or why an ID was used--and only acted to verify the authenticity of an ID.
I don't know if it's really a matter of "trusting" the government, but of accepting that they already have access to most of my data anyway. Between credit cards, IP logs, subpoenas, national security letters, warrantless wiretapping, etc., they already know everything there is to know about me.
What makes this tradeoff (of convenience vs privacy) acceptable to me is not that I trust the government, but that I already accept I have near-zero privacy right now, as it is. Making it slightly easier for them isn't a big deal. I'm not a very exciting person to begin with.
And frankly I suspect that outside of techno-libertarian echo chambers, this is the case for most regular people. They just don't really care if the government knows about them. Not everyone has the same degree of desire/need for privacy.
I also fit into that camp of un-interesting people you're describing, but I'd say the intersections between privacy and law are a bit more underhanded and dangerous than the intersections between privacy and corporations.
In legal circles, for example, there's the refrain that you should never share unnecessary information with police, even if you're well intentioned and have nothing to hide, because innocence isn't a preclusion from being royally fucked in court. It's true that "the government" as a homogenous blob has mountains of information on you, but I guess I'm not so eager to dissolve what few helpful divisions within that blob exist.
On the whole though I agree that my information existing somewhere in that blob isn't the hugest deal.