This week we talk about the increasing difficulties with preserving your digital sovereignty and staying off the surveillance grid. We also dip into how the digitalization of currencies ensure there’s a permanent record of your transactions. Can this be used against you, and do you have anything to worry about?
The REAL ID Act of 2005 is approaching, and that it’s coming into play in October of 2020. It’s a law that is meant to “establish minimum security standards for license issuance and production. It also prohibits Federal agencies from accepting for certain purposes certain licenses and ID cards not meeting these new standards”.
So what does the compliance mean for ID issuers? On the DHS website, they explicitly say that “REAL ID is a national set of standards, not a national identification card. REAL ID does not create a federal database of driver license information”. Meanwhile, the Real ID Act specifies that states must share their databases both domestically and internationally.
Of course, the standardization of ID’s is just one aspect of how government uses technology in their enforcement efforts. Another substantial movement in this direction is the digitalization of currency. And what’s not to like about a fully digital currency? We’ll never have another bank run, never again need financial anonymity, because there is no intrusive government surveillance and we’ll never have issues with large banks de-banking wrong-thinkers! No Sir!
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