[governance] germany plans citizen email

[Ian Peter]

Crossposted on this issue..puts the other side of the argument elegantly

 

Ian Peter

PO Box 429

Bangalow NSW 2479

Australia

Tel (+614) 1966 7772 or (+612) 6687 0773

www.ianpeter.com

 

 

  _____  

From: Johannes Ernst [mailto:johannes.ernst at gmail.com] 
Sent: 11 October 2008 15:57
To: Bill of Rights Dynamic Coalition
Subject: Re: [Bill-of-Rights] germany plans citizen email

 

It's also a step in a very dangerous direction, from a civil liberties
perspective.

 

First you create a universal digital identifier for each citizen that they
have no control over (e.g. they can't have more than one for different
purposes, change it to something else, run it on a different computer,
decide not to show their name in it etc.)

 

Then, you create compelling functionality around it (here: encrypted,
presumably largely spam-free e-mail due to their presumed use of digital
signatures) And you mandate it as the only means of getting certain services
in a certain way, such as certain government services.

 

The next thing you know is that schools are requiring you to use that e-mail
address for parent-teacher communications. Libraries use it instead of
library card numbers. Credit card companies to get your bills to you.
Department stores as a better means to get special offers to you and let you
buy with a single click.

 

And you have perfect data mining for all of everybody's activities all the
time -- because all you did on the internet, and increasingly off-line, can
be trivially correlated. You do not have to be a conspiracy theorist to
think that this has "potential"...

 

If you thought the US social security number was bad for privacy, it is
nothing compared to this kind of proposal.

 

To mitigate: we need a plurality of competitive operators of communications
endpoints like that. Where I as an individual with individual rights have a
choice which to trust, and which to "vote out of office" for my activities
tomorrow. 

 

[I've been lurking on this list for some time. I'm a technologist by
background currently intimately involved in a set of open/free/libre
technologies called OpenID now supported by many leading internet companies.
They have been built from the ground up as decentralized technologies, and
one of the reasons for that is the avoid exactly this kind of situation.]

 

 

 

On Oct 10, 2008, at 19:27 , Parminder wrote:





Max

 

That is an interesting piece of information. Presumably, if one has a
certified email ID as a citizenship enabler, some kind of basic connectivity
also looks very much round the corner as a necessary citizen entitlement.
Feeds very well into a rights based approach to the Internet, in terms of
the positive rights aspect, of what got discussed earlier here as a 'right
to the Internet'.

 

Best

 

Parminder

 

  _____  

From: bill-of-rights-bounces at ipjustice.org
[mailto:bill-of-rights-bounces at ipjustice.org] On Behalf Of Max Senges
Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2008 12:26 AM
To: Bill of Rights Dynamic Coalition
Subject: [Bill-of-Rights] germany plans citizen email

 


In germany the Ministry of the Interior has announced a plan to give each
citizen an 'governmentally certified' email address which allows more
extensive practices with official governmental institutions. Potentially
this could be a huge step forward in enabling/facilitating online citizen
participation.

Unfortunately i couldn't find information in english, but here is a german
article covering the initiative
http://www.thexblog.de/?p=4916

I will send more info as i find it 
best
Max 


-- 
-------------------------------------------------

"I am, You are, We are information"
                            Camille de Toledo - Coming of Age at the End of
History

-------------------------------------------------
Dr. Max Senges

US-Mobile: +1 650 714 9826
Spanish-Mobile: + 34 693343837

www.maxsenges.com
www.knowledgeentrepreneur.com
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