ID systems analysed: e-Estonia (X-Road)
As technically interesting as using a card to sign stuff may be, I don&#x27;t want that to be the government responsibility, as it then opens the door for it to be used in ways that limit our freedoms: a system that&#x27;s too perfect can uniquely identify you, in ways that prevent disassociation (ex: the place of birth on the passport is of great interest to some totalitarian places, while only citizenship should matter..)<p>So for me, the ideal ID system is decentralized, self-declarative, and the weight of the proof depends on the length of history, not on &quot;who&quot; says it&#x27;s true: there should be many such services where you could declare a name and an address and anything else you wish (phone, email...)<p>The value after a few weeks would be close to nil, so you could decide to &quot;increase it&quot; by having several people vouch for you (strength in numbers) instead of relying on a &quot;who&quot; (public notary).<p>Or you could totally decide that you care about your freedom&#x2F;independence&#x2F;whatever and NOT ask for any vouching. It may be hard, but after a few years of reliably receiving mail and orders at that address, it would acquire some serious weight - a bit like you tend to trust online accounts that have been open for some year.<p>Among many other things, this would also allow anyone the opportunity to &quot;change&quot; easily: want a new name&#x2F;move to a new address&#x2F;etc: create a revocation certificate for the old, sign it with the new, boom you inherit the credential history!<p>It&#x27;s just a quick idea, but it shows how IDs could be more like URLs (multiple competing services, and you could have a few at the same time, why not!) by moving away from the current system that&#x27;s a direct descendant of the census (give the lord a list of people to tax them) and the passport (limit freedom of movement during the war)<p>At the core, I believe people should be in control of their identity, not governments or states.