Are you working with a specific org or initiative? I'm also an American interested in this (and an e-resident who formerly worked for the Estonian government).
I intend to apply at the USDS for the Login.gov team in some capacity to help on the tech side if the necessary legislation can be put in place to support such an initiative. Their system already supports the DOD CAC (common access card), which is a short walk away from a citizen digital ID card (would be a different org and PKI root to administer and govern citizen cards, to grossly simplify).
Login.gov recently expanded to support city and local gov IAM needs (when they have ties to federal programs) [1] [2], so there is roadmap momentum and executive branch will. "Digital identity is a big deal. [3]" They're already serving 30 million users, and 500k DAUs, really just a matter of scaling up.
[1] https://www.gsa.gov/blog/2021/02/18/logingov-to-provide-auth...
[2] https://www.govloop.com/login-gov-expands-use-to-cities-stat...
I think you’re glossing over two major implementation factors that need to be part of the discussion from get-go:
* how much CAC use is dependent on fairly specific govt tech infra to be widely deployed, and how will that work for everyone (ever tried to setup a CAC on a civ computer)
* key control, either extremely decentralized like the iPhone (lock yourself out of your passport?), or extremely centralized and the newest honeypot OPM holds (root cert for all e-citizen PKI). US currently doesn’t have the internal cybersec chops to run that at all (closest equivalent is CISA).
I'm not arguing for such a system without robust support and reasonable downgrades for failure scenarios (identity reproofing if you lose your digital ID, for example). I'm arguing for, admittedly challenging, digital ID modernization without disenfranchisement. I genuinely appreciate you pointing out the challenges, as they must be addressed.
US DHS CISA is absolutely a resource that needs to be leaned on heavily to implement what I describe, and to ensure a strong security posture throughout the federal government's infrastructure.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aw3.org+%22funded+by+t...
[2] https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/
[3] https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/
Additional notes regarding credentials (certificates, badges, degrees, honorarial degrees, then-evaluated competencies) and capabilities models: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19813340
westurner/blockchain-credential-resources.md: https://gist.github.com/westurner/4345987bb29fca700f52163c33...
Value storage and transmission networks have developed standards and implementations for identity, authentication, and authorization. ILP (Interledger Protocol) RFC 15 specifies "ILP addresses" for [crypto] ledger account IDs: https://interledger.org/rfcs/0015-ilp-addresses/
From "Verifiable Credentials Use Cases" https://w3c.github.io/vc-use-cases/ :
> A verifiable claim is a qualification, achievement, quality, or piece of information about an entity's background such as a name, government ID, payment provider, home address, or university degree. Such a claim describes a quality or qualities, property or properties of an entity which establish its existence and uniqueness. The use cases outlined here are provided in order to make progress toward possible future standardization and interoperability of both low- and high-stakes claims with the goals of storing, transmitting, and receiving digitally verifiable proof of attributes such as qualifications and achievements. The use cases in this document focus on concrete scenarios that the technology defined by the group should address.
FWIU, the US Department of Education is studying or already working with https://blockcerts.org/ for educational credentials.
Here are the open sources of blockchain-certificates/cert-issuer and blockchain-certificates/cert-verifier-js: https://github.com/blockchain-certificates
Might a natural-born resident get a government ID card for passing a recycling and environmental sustainability quiz.
So I get the direction you're going, but then this stands out: > if you have mobile apps that can perform the identity proofing
This is assuming folks have a certain tech pattern of: a) smart phones on the right OS version b) smart phones properly patched such that an Android vuln on a cheap phone doesn't lead to your e-SSN getting compromised c) number locks on their phones to prevent SIM swapping, if there's a non-app option d) have a smart phone in the first place!
The risk model there just gets nuts when phones are involved (as a specific counter), at the benefit of including 2FA reqs and somewhat hazy income equality judgements on users (a lot of folks don't have smart phones). If you're really into this, definitely look into mobile security concerns and the ideas around tying identity into it. Cellular network security is... not like internet security assumptions.
That's on top of some really generous trust in US identity security practices... the OPM hack really has to be accounted for in this discussion, if in fact we're unifying IAM.
Also, didn't Estonia's root cert get popped or something to do w/ low entropy keys on their ID cards from the manufacturer, leading to a total reissuance?
Totally on point.