Digital ID
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Digital ID refers broadly to one's unique digital identifiers and online software systems that recognize them. Recent developments have been targeting biometrics (identification and authorization using physical characteristics) and reducing the need for card-based IDs.
Background
Trust Problem
2 strangers do not automatically trust each other.
Imagine a stranger asking to borrow 1000$ and him expecting one to trust him to return it? Although this example is about money, sometimes a trust issue is about identity.
Identity
Knock-knock expression might not have become a joke if it wasnt so easy to deceive with words.
Trust of identity is brokered through a previously-trusted 3rd party, in one form or another. Young children often are introduced to each other by a chain of trust of 3rd party entities --typically a parent or trusted friend.
Identification
To drive a car, a driver's license (A physical object provided by a trusted 3rd party bearing that vouches for the person present) is required to be present on the person.
E-Commerce
2000-2019, E-commerce evolved to need trust established at multiple levels of protocol, from TLS certificates to Multi-factor authentication (more needed on MFA etc).
(more needed on history, developments, who are the primary sources and more.)
Centralization, Access Control
In the IT world, a computer workgroup has a problem: a known user Bob is trusted by (account on) only the few computers he used to-date. For each additional computer Bob wishes to use, he must register a new user account with a new password to memorize. This is one of the many scalability problems in IT is being able to add new computers without having to manually set up the account for that user. Directory Services software and protocols deliver a centralized set-and-forget approach to storing a users account in a central database, against which devices added to the network can directly trust/authenticate.
The government and business world claim to see problems that parallel the workgroup model. For example it could appear to save a lot of administrative overhead if a new hospital was built nearby and could access individual files of the whole country, automatically. Another value claimed is that the entrance could be automated using facial-recognition (a biometric ID) and perhaps reduce wait-times and increase throughput.
Composite Primary key
In the realm of Relational databases, an entity (ie an online shopper) is and must be uniquely identified by its 'primary key'. When 2 or more attributes are required to uniquely identify an entity, this collection of attributes is called a composite primary key.
Virtualization
To financially survive regional lockdown policies, many businesses made services accessible over the internet as much as possible.
Training institutions delivered streamed lecture content and web-based assessments. Fast food and retail establishments promoted mobile-apps and online services with slogans like 'skip the line' or 'order online, pickup in person', or 'curbside delivery' all of which use some sort of phone-accessible ordering system.
Biometrics
Biometric identification, broadly, includes fingerprints and manual descriptions eye colour, hair colour, height, weight and other crude descriptions which served as crude identifiers in centuries past.
Modern biometrics have advanced to include retinal scans, facial-recognition, fingerprint-scanners, voice ID and more.
Automation
Automation brings together many of the above topics. Automation can refer to the collection of Biometric data without the need for human supervision, but can also refer to server-side software which might be concurrently serving 100000s of users.
Purpose
Through the beginning of the twenty-first century, identity was typically affirmed by the use of paper or plastic cards, issued by third parties. In the United States, the Department of Motor Vehicles issues Driver Licenses, and other government identification cards. States may also issue ID cards of some form as well, such as welfare cards, gun permits, and fishing licenses. Organizations such as libraries, and membership-only clubs may issue identification cards as well. Additionally, independent companies may issue ID cards of a sort, such as insurance cards, gym membership cards, credit and debit cards, and other customer identification cards (for "rewards programs" and customer behavior tracking for marketing purposes). A digital ID system is designed to serve multiple purposes, eliminating the need for each separate identification card.[1]
It also provides much greater control to a single authoritative party, rather than a diverse collection of entities, each for their own purposes. This could theoretically be useful in fighting crime. However, that same single authority can use their power for negative purposes as well. For example, an opponent of the politicians in power could suddenly find their digital ID has been revoked, meaning that they can no longer travel, buy food, earn money, or do much of anything else, all at once. The single ID authority would yield incredible power over its citizens, which some people see as a benefit and purpose of digital ID.[2][3]