Slashdot Mirror
EU Exploring Idea of Using Government ID Cards As Mandatory Online Logins (softpedia.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Softpedia: Fears that fake online reviews might ruin the consumer market and damage legitimate businesses are making the European Commission consider the idea of forcing all EU citizens to log into online accounts using their government-issued ID cards. Details about these plans can be found in a proposal named "Online Platforms and the Digital Single Market Opportunities and Challenges," announced on May 25, 2016. According to this document, "online platforms should accept credentials issued or recognized by national public authorities, such as electronic or mobile IDs, national identity cards, or bank cards." The reasoning, according to the EU, is that "online ratings and reviews of goods and services are helpful and empowering to consumers, but they need to be trustworthy and free from any bias or manipulation. A prominent example is fake reviews."
While I think that, since we're all carrying chip & pin cards, that they should be useable as login credentials,
I don't see how that solves anything. My daughter makes money writing fake reviews, and she uses her real name. At most, an identity check will prevent someone from posting more than one review about the same product, but with millions of products and millions of reviewers, that is not much of a limitation.