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Comment by seniorThrowaway | Hacker News Reader

it would likely be built into the ID, like a PIV/CAC card. I thought about this same thing many years ago, the state DMV's could be in a PKI web of trust with a federal signer/issuer/cross-signer above them. Proving your identity online would mean inserting your ID into your computer so it could be crypto-graphically validated. Yes there are genuine privacy and other concerns, but we'll probably end up there anyway and could have avoided all the mess of having these crappy third party for profit companies involved. The tech already exists, and has existed for some time.

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> the mess of having these crappy third party for profit companies involved

I think the problem that lots of people, including all the people involved in those companies, don't think that's a problem but a feature. Adds "jobs", GDP, filling their own pockets and a whole host of other "benefits" they're willing to look past any drawbacks in order to get.

This is essentially how my Estonian ID card works. The ID card is inserted into a USB smartcard reader and grants access to identity verification an thus access to services.

But the American public is petrified of systems like that because of the leftovers of frontier settler culture and fear of communism. They're apparently far more comfortable with the similar but worse systems being set up by corporations.

Government is wasteful and could never run an efficient [Industry]. Instead, private companies that can be efficient should run [Industry]. They will be more efficient [and turn the surplus into private profits instead of public savings].

Why on Earth does everyone speaks about Estonian ID cards? Same ID-1 sized eID cards are now issued in many EU countries.

Estonia wasn't even the first, Belgium was.

They do because Estonia made the best use of them for their eGov, including for election voting.

Given that gp says “my” Estonian card, you can assume it’s because they have one and don’t have one of your country of choice.

It's also how the entire US DoD does things so it's not as though the US doesn't have in-house expertise.

> Yes there are genuine privacy and other concerns,

Not for government services. The only problem is if the government makes it overly easy for private companies to integrate with and make use of the system. Pretty much no website except perhaps my bank or health care provider have any business collecting my PII.

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