Dutch Propose Digital Information Safes

spam-it-to-me-baby writes: "Telopolis writes The Dutch Government is considering a commission proposal to offer the country's citizens a 'digital safe-deposit' box for personal and financial data as a means of speeding up the government's administrative process. The article says the Dutch Government's current register of population "holds on every Dutch citizen about two hundred items of personal data, like name, date and place of birth, tax number, partners, children and other parts of the 'administrative course of life'." "The police, tax office, pension funds and other organisations which are allowed to access these personal data should get an interface for direct access to the digital safe-deposits. The commission thinks this will discourage fraudulent behaviour," it says."

Comments

Friend Computer

[xixax]

"Friend Citizen, why have you not taken advantage of Friend Computer's facility for storing your medical records? We realise it is totally optional, but your decision to do this has increased your treason by five points, initiating a tax audit."

There's optional and there's "Optional". You want to live in something other than a cardboard box? Better play nice or we'll think you're suspicious...

A lot of the security we currently enjoy (in my country) stems from the fact that there is no easy way to get a compiled list of my person details without someone expending a considerable amount of effort to collect medical records from my doctor and to visit my bank. This has real potential to be a honeypot for opportunistic snooping and later ammendment, "of course you employer's insurer should be allowed to see your medical records to stamp out insurance fraud..."

Xix.

Re:Good idea!

[HiQ]

Disclaimer: I'm Dutch, and not very happy with this plan.

From the perspective of efficiency it may be a good idea, but from the perspective of theft, misuse and privacy it's perhaps one of the most stupid ideas I've ever heard of. It's funny though that after fifty years the Dutch are planning to centralize their data again (not storing data in one central location is a leftover from WW II. The Germans could lay their hands on all public records in an matter of hours or days, and the Dutch government vowed to not let that happen ever again)

Anyhow, if the public can have a say in this, they are not going to have my vote!

Stop in the name of ...?

[deran9ed]

I find this to be a bit disturbing idea, and I'm glad I'm not dutch. Personal information should be kept personal, and not not stored online by any means, especially not this amount of information. With the increasing amount of security incidents its a miracle this thing wasn't laughed at from the beginning.

Whats more disturbing is the fct that companies will lie in efforts not to disclose these breaches as some UK banks have done, which is an utter disservice to their clients. When will people get their heads right?

But the Commission also proposes that Dutch citizens get the possibility to store other information in their digital safe-deposit, like medical and financial information. Citizens can decide to whom they will give access to these types of information. The digital safe-deposit should be located at the web sites of the municipialities. For the protection of the safe-deposits the commission suggests to give each Dutch citizen an electronic identity card with biometrics information. Citizens who are not on-line should get access to their digital safe-deposit through public terminals at the municipal hall.

As if Biometrics is the answer to all problems. "some biometrics are easy to steal. Imagine a remote system that uses face recognition as a biometric. "In order to gain authorization, take a Polaroid picture of yourself and mail it in.We'll compare the picture with the one we have in file." What are the attacks here?" (taken from a Bruce Schneier article)

The Commission thinks that the introduction of the system will give a boost to the digitalisation of Dutch society. New developments like electronic commerce and payment systems for driving have a clear need for the availability of reliable personal data that easily can be transferred and checked.

Personally I see a huge influx of identify thefts occuring there if they do go ahead with this system. Its bad enough its extremely easy to get information on anyone as it stands, and now you have the Dutch become more receptive to irresponsibly giving it away for free, to those who can manipulate their (often easily accessible) networks.

One thing I can say is, I'm glad we have groups in the US that counter these types of actions from seeing the light of day out here in the US. Your privacy should be guarded with your life, since it ultimately is your life. Not some stored bit of information legislators wanna use for political agendas such as pushing for an ecommerce or "digitalization" boost to their economies.

AntiOffline -- Securing the world from itself