China Ponders Creating a National 'Cyberspace ID' (theregister.com) 52
China has proposed issuing "cyberspace IDs" to its citizens in order to protect their personal information, regulate the public service for authentication of cyberspace IDs, and accelerate the implementation of the trusted online identity strategy. The Register reports: The ID will take two forms: one as a series of letter and numbers, and the other as an online credential. Both will correspond to the citizen's real-life identity, but with no details in plaintext -- presumably encryption will be applied. A government national service platform will be responsible for authenticating and issuing the cyberspace IDs. The draft comes from the Ministry of Public Security and the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC). It clarifies that the ID will be voluntary -- for now -- and eliminate the need for citizens to provide their real-life personal information to internet service providers (ISPs). Those under the age of fourteen would need parental consent to apply.
China is one of the few countries in the world that requires citizens to use their real names on the internet. [...] Relying instead on a national ID means "the excessive collection and retention of citizens' personal information by internet service providers will be prevented and minimized," reasoned Beijing. "Without the separate consent of a natural person, an internet platform may not process or provide relevant data and information to the outside without authorization, except as otherwise provided by laws and administrative regulations," reads the draft.
China is one of the few countries in the world that requires citizens to use their real names on the internet. [...] Relying instead on a national ID means "the excessive collection and retention of citizens' personal information by internet service providers will be prevented and minimized," reasoned Beijing. "Without the separate consent of a natural person, an internet platform may not process or provide relevant data and information to the outside without authorization, except as otherwise provided by laws and administrative regulations," reads the draft.
Oh Good (Score:1)
Slashdot and Reddit will be thrilled.
Re: Oh Good (Score:2)
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So this is unlikely to have much impact on those sites.
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Like a social security number or citizen ID card? (Score:2)
Is this something like Korea where one has to put their citizen ID into a terminal if they want to use a web cafe or other resources online? (South Koreal... NK, they take care of that by just having an intranet.)
Or will this be like a credit card number that is (hopefully) tokenized?
Neither sounds like it would add that much other than being another column in a database on BitTorrent when it gets compromised.
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good questions ... if only they weren't answered in the first of the 2 paragraph abstract!
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Probably. Currently you have to use your real name when logging on to e.g. hotel WiFi. For that reason public WiFi is rare, it's more hassle than it's worth.
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No, EU... (Score:1)
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EU has it in development under the name Digital Identity Wallet https://github.com/eu-digital-... [github.com]
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I was going to comment that it sounds similar to the EU proposal. It depends on the implementation though.
It's a privacy win for citizens if they can verify identity in a way that limits information disclosure. Say a business needs to verify someone's identity, e.g. a car dealer offering a test drive. Right now they will probably want to make a copy of your driving licence and all the information on it, which they then have to store securely for a given amount of time, control access to etc. With a digital
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excessive collection & retention of personal d (Score:3)
Communist Party: "That's OUR job, buttheads."
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How evil! (Score:4, Interesting)
Well we did it first in an ad hoc way that we have almost no control over, thanks to Big Data. But it's evil when the CCP does it explicitly and in a way that is centralized and probably regulated.
What next, are they going to start using a tax id to track a person's credit history?
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We have examples of decentralized regulation in the US. An example is public health code is defined and enforced state governments, not by the federal government. But admittedly we're a bit of an oddball as far as countries go. But federalism is probably more resistant to despotism and authoritarianism, but corruption and incompetence will always bubble in some regions of our country meaning that the quality of government that people receive varies greatly from one state to another. But I digress...
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The current state of tracking in the West is that anyone can wipe their browser whenever they like and start over.
They also need to drastically alter other characteristics of their computer and OS - repeatedly - because of browser fingerprinting. Then there's location data, in the case of all those who don't use a VPN. So practically speaking, the "current state of tracking in the West" is a shit-show in which only motivated, persistent, tech-savvy folks who spend time, effort, and money have a decent chance of not being tracked.
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Without the equivalent of GDPR, wiping your browser history isn't sufficient. You can already buy IP and customer interface from ISPs. So need a VPN at the very least. On top of that. Browser fingerprinting without using tracking cookies has been demonstrated years ago and not solved. And we know it is being used in the wild.
Obviously making people use an online ID is an invasion of their privacy and liberty. If the government can track them, so can everyone else. It's troubling.
Doing nothing, not creating
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forces everyone on line to participate.
As far as I know I didn't consent to being tracked by private credit auditing agencies. And these private industries are not ran by people I get to elect. So doubly damning in my opinion. There are systems worse than government bureaucracies, even systems that are capitalists institutions.
Generally we need to do better all around. Better government. And better companies. And a fair bit of it can be solved by not investing so much authority into the wealthy. It's one thing to use the system of capitalism to
When IDs are stolen (Score:2)
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Just another way to track people (Score:4, Insightful)
“China has proposed issuing "cyberspace IDs" to its citizens in order to protect their personal information, regulate the public service for authentication of cyberspace IDs, and accelerate the implementation of the trusted online identity strategy.”
I’m sure it will do all of those things. Or not. More likely: the number will help China track down people who post online for whatever thought crimes they commit. This “fingerprint” will make it harder to hide and easier to certify that a certain post came from a certain individual.
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I'm sure it will do all of those things. Or not. More likely: the number will help China track down people who post online for whatever thought crimes they commit.
It is both. It will help the the CCP identify and silence troublesome dissenters as that is obviously the main goal. But it's not as easy as simply making it compulsory for everyone, those who wish to dissent will find ways around it. No, the CCP need some willingness on the part of the population to adopt this, so they use 'increased privacy from your ISP' as the carrot, and make it (initially at least) voluntary so it doesn't seem like scary surveillance. Once there's some critical mass of people alre
Smart on them (Score:4, Insightful)
Why on Earth would you uncritically echo them? (Score:3)
China has proposed issuing "cyberspace IDs" to its citizens in order to [stamp out the few remaining vestiges of free expression in their country, as part of their long-term plans to stamp it out worldwide.]
FTFY.
PRC Panopticon is what they're creating (Score:2)
Disappointed by the usual lack of Funny (Score:2)
Though the topic isn't intrinsically funny. The intentions are key, but of course the bad actors will mask their bad intentions behind good ones.
However it is not clear to me if the worst actors are in China or the States these years...
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What will it be called when implimented here (Score:2)
Why the 2 forms? (Score:2)
One is a national user account, with username and password... OK.
What is that other thing? How does it differ from a personal ID, like a social security number? Those don't do anything once the information leaks online, and they will.
And how is it any more secure than referring to the user's national account alone (however they plan to)? Or is that just the technical detail... that they're talking about the hash value as if it's something people should know about.
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