RE: [public-credentials] <none>

Hello Tim,

While I share the idea to have easy access to governmental services and a way to refer to my citizenship-based identity, we should be cautious about
a) connecting them too tightly, and
b) assuming it works the same for the industry and people’s relationship to services and merchants.

With respect to our history, Germany has a strong federalist setup for many processes. Centralization is prohibited in several instances. Again, I think modern identity management technology and authentication methods can help across almost all thinkable states services. Taking a user-centric course could help to make things acceptable in a variety of legislations and cultures.

Our electronic ID project has resulted in a pretty secure, but for non-governmental services nearly inacceptable overhead and costs. Furthermore, handling for users (including the fact that you have to buy an NFC reader) is pretty much a no-go. Alas, for the ‘business case’ (as far as governments have to have and fulfill one ;-) industrial take-up would be crucial.

This is, why we tend to separate identity and entitlement as good as we can. Entitlements work even under severest privacy restrictions and verification of identity can always be added if needed – but you have to have it, of course (so de-facto, Germany doesn’t have a ‘working’ online-ID solution). And again, if the government
1st) accepts their role as an identity provider for a person’s legal identity which is
2nd) usable for all digital transactions which require some quality of it,
3rd) is under full control of the user and
4th) also supports government services
I’d be very happy.

The tendency to first think of ID proofs for governmental services usually creates ‘closed shop’ approach and renders these solutions often useless for further applications. (BTW: this works in many companies just the same – focusing on ‘own customers’.)

So far my theory ;-) What are your experiences?

Cheers,
                Jörg

From: Timothy Holborn [mailto:timothy.holborn@gmail.com]
Sent: Freitag, 23. Januar 2015 13:06
To: W3C Credentials Community Group
Subject: [public-credentials] <none>

FYI


"My ideal is to be in a situation where the MyGov platform was available to every level of government and people could have a single, secure, digital identity that enabled transactions from the local council, the state government, so everything from childcare allowances, to your rates, stamp duty, traffic fines," he said."

SOURCE: http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/tony-abbott-promotes-malcolm-turnbull-to-take-charge-of-egovernment-20150123-12wstp.html


Tim.H.