Belgium plans mandatory eID for social networks | Hacker News Reader

Belgium plans mandatory eID for social networks

techpulse.be

33 pointszoobab11 comments

I feel sorry for people who have to implement this, because neither I nor ChatGPT can find the bill, regulation, or gazette document under discussion. I am not even sure this ministry even has a website?

If approved, it will be published in the “staatsblad” in Dutch, French, and German.

Hah well I would hope so!

But do we even know if it's a law, royal decree, or ministerial decree? Will it be receiving parliamentary scrutiny? Do we know if it's in process or already enacted? If a decree that amends another decree, do we at least have an idea where the consolidated (as-amended) version is?

ChatGPT Deep Research mode was pretty thorough, but couldn't find the proposal document yet. Plausibly this was still an internal document being circulated for review before being submitted?

That's my best guess. Oddest thing is that eID appears to be under their interior ministry, but that's not in the portfolio of the minister identified?

Trading freedom for security sounds familiar and usually doesn't end good

As we have to keep repeating -it seems- banning anonymity doesn't help against the world's biggest bullies (as we can see eg certain billionaires who post on social media every day) ; but removing anonymity can suppress "little people" who try to stand up to them, and the 'weaker' members of society who are in the minority or who have less popular ideas. [1]

So when someone comes up with this idea, you always need to ask 'Cui bono?', both in the cynical and the non-cynical sense.

[1] Political dissidents, Whistleblowers, LGBTQ+ individuals in non-accepting environments, Abuse Survivors, People discussing sensitive health issues, Those with unpopular but legitimate viewpoints, etc...

This makes complete sense, we have the system and both itsme and eID readers can be made to only provide age and a uuid. If implemented correctly this would be both secure and privacy preserving.

I'd rather keep the government out of the loop completely.

Interesting!

Is that UUID also bound to just the requesting site? (that is to say: can't be matched to an ID on a different site?).

Do you happen to know where to find docs?

At this point with the prevalence of bots and its impact on spreading misinformation, I support this.

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