European e-ID Announced

gbjbaanb writes in with a story about plans to introduce an electronic identity system in Europe. "On Wednesday, the European Commission published a strategy document aimed at setting up systems to protect children online. In the document — but not in the accompanying press release nor the citizens' summary — the Commission mentioned that it will soon propose a 'pan-European framework for electronic authentication,' full details will be announced on 30th May. The launch of the strategy follows a push to strengthen internet security in the EU. It also outlined legal measures to make it easier for people to use a single e-ID for online services across borders, which would underpin a move toward a pan-European framework for electronic identification, authentication and signature (Pefias) framework."

Comments

Mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

The only problems with these systems is once they're in place they come up with the idea "Hey, why don't we mandate the usage of said systems to stop evil XYZ?"

Re:Mandatory

[moeinvt]

That's very interesting. I hadn't looked at the EU from this perspective, but it appears that you could following the same trajectory as the USA. Be warned!

The USA (under The Constitution) began as a voluntary agreement between independent states. Exactly as you described, we delegated certain authorities to a central government in a few areas (e.g. a monetary system and military) where it seemed we could be more effective as a unit.

As you can see from our example, the system was ultimately corrupted to the point that we now suffer under the reign of a massive, self-serving central government which has trampled the sovereignty of the states to serve its own self interests.

You're absolutely right to be skeptical of your government and extremely wary of any attempted EU power grabs. I'd caution you not to allow the destruction of your existence as independent states.

Re:Mandatory

[MightyMartian]

As events progress it's hard not to look at the EU and the Eurozone and see them as formative tools for a German dominated Europe. As the golden rule says, he who has the gold makes the rules.

Now admittedly Germany is backing into it, but one gets the feeling that the old Kaiser and Hitler got it wrong and that the best way to dominate Europe wasn't shooting, it was creating vast capital reserves and waiting for everyone else to become insolvent, so Germany can "save" them.

The Euro in particular is the most powerful weapon yet invented for German domination of Europe, and the French, rather than taking on the traditional role of counterweight, has become a lapdog.

Children Don't Need Protection

[erroneus]

Children need to be taught. They should be taught by their parents.

Once those two things are done properly, the need for "protection" diminishes to nearly zero.

And, in other news...

[DeathToBill]

The UK Border Agency's biometrics system crashed on Thursday, leaving hundreds of previously-legal UK residents without the right to live or work there...

No, I can't see anything that could go wrong.

Re:Thread over.

[Hyperhaplo]

I am very sure that the dead horse is good for another round.

Native American Indian philosophy is that when your horse dies you should jump off.

In modern corporate society this is not the case. After all, the horse is a company asset and ... We can lower the requirements and state that the dead horse its in fact exceeding expectations ... We can claim the dead horse as a tax write off and send it on retraining ... We can promote the dead horse to management and submit it a fine example of the breadth of our equity and diversity program ... We can classify being dead as the perfect state of calm and transfer the horse to manager of HR

this could go on..... I am sure that with this crowd not only can we spend days flogging this dead horse... But we can do it creatively and in techno geek style

Now.. I am late for a meeting to fire a jockey for allowing his mount to.die...

These people won't give up until you need a licence to use the internet. At that point we will need a new internet.

Finally... but not far enough

[staalmannen]

As a European citizen (Swede) working in another country (Belgium), I have often felt that there are a couple of things that actually would do well to get centralized at a EU level. One such thing would be the social security number. All the sillyness that you have to go through before you get a local ID card and then that you have to carry two ID cards, one for each country, makes it rather strange. Especially upon repatriation when social security is transferred and you somehow have to show that the person with one ID is the same as the one with the other ID. There are several other examples of stuff that are still national that simply would be better to put at a federal level (and other things that would be better to transfer down to regional level).