I really REALLY hope this takes off at a EU level. And that the Estonians will reap some benefits by being the first to pave the way, so maybe some healthy competition on providing the best services to citizens will ensue between EU countries...
What is the major benefit of something like this? I can't think of a single transaction I've undertaken in the past few months (either online or offline) where it would have been to my advantage to authenticate my real name. I frequently need to authenticate an ongoing relationship (my gym membership, logging in to Amazon Prime), but in none of these situations does it matter who I am, just that I'm the same person I was before. Generally those counterparties get that information anyway, but I consider that information leakage an artifact of the authentication process, not a beneficial feature of the system.
We already have solid methods for identifying ourselves as the same person as we used to be (various public keys, for example), and if we want to establish a consistent identity across multiple contexts/domains, we also have that option. This really doesn't benefit consumers in any way.
Maybe in the past few months you never transacted with your Country's public administration. I have, and I would like very much to do 90% of those interactions online, without having to personal relay information from one part of the administration to another part.
It's very easy for me to make a single in-band communication with my government (show up one day, show that I'm me) and establish login credentials proving that I'm me. I see no advantage to a general online identification system that goes beyond that.
So you can show up once at one institution and after that do everything in your life online using those credentials you acquired, either with private persons, companies or state/public institutions?
I'm from Belgium where we have a national electronic id. It's main use to me is filing my tax online. Supposedly I can also do certain administrative task with it but I have needed it at the moment.
The level of tracking and privacy violations online is already disturbing and downright creepy
This would take it to a whole new level.
There are other bad things possible, for example, I can already see Media Industry lawyers rubbing their hands, tie National ID cards to ISP database and overnight suing people would become easier.
the problem to solve here is that for each government service you get a different account.
One for the entity managing your retirement funds, one for the national healthcare, one for the tax filing, one for requesting a certificate etc, one for filing a request with the police etc, one for the city council services, one for the district, one for the region, one for the university, one for the separate agency that manages scholarships etc.
I am, honestly, listing the ones I had to cope with.
In my country, each entity manages their own system, with different bugs, varying level of security and screw ups, incompatible data, delays of up to two weeks to receive a PIN when signing up for a new service and the occasional "wait, you are not supposed to exist" moments.
I'd take a unified, compatible multifactor auth system like the estonian one every day. Heck, there was even an OpenID bridge some years ago!
