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Comment by Dylan16807

1 day ago

> Do you think identifies never need to be verified? Seems like a central function in operating an accountable society, hence birth certificates, passports, etc.

Verifying identity for specific services tied to your finances or body is a whole different topic.

> if a website owner only wants to provide access to their website to people with verified identities, why is that not their right?

I like the GDPR's general point of view that the right to privacy is more important than the right to trade privacy for access. An anonymous verification might be fine, but this system is not, and random websites needing your specific identity is not.

A mechanism to verify identity does not preclude a mechanism for anonymous verification of other attributes. I do not see why someone else should be able to tell you (a business or person) who you have to allow access to your computers and your bandwidth that you pay for. Costco has the right to verify my identity when I walk into their store, I don't see why computing resources would be different.

  • > I do not see why someone else should be able to tell you (a business or person) who you have to allow access to your computers and your bandwidth that you pay for.

    The spirit of the law isn't to tell you that, it's to limit how much you can track people without their consent.

    > Costco has the right to verify my identity when I walk into their store, I don't see why computing resources would be different.

    That falls under "Verifying identity for specific services tied to your finances or body". You bought a membership, they're checking your membership.

    If it was a store without a membership, then for practical purposes in real life we let them look at your ID but they shouldn't be allowed to record any identifying data off of it. When it's all done by machines we should use cryptography to make it anonymous from the start.