Personally, I’m torn between wanting a National ID and hating the idea of National IDs.

Currently, there is a cobbled together system that work to imitate the functions of a National ID in the US (Social Security Number + state IDs with crossing data bases + FBI Crime tracking, Credit Scores, Voter Rolls etc). A LOT of our systems would feel more cohesive if they were properly integrated into a single system, attached to a single ID card, ideally with a passport-like code on the back for easy scanning.

That said, whichever government bureau maintains that database will have an INSANE amount of control over your life, not to mention it becomes a single point of failure (a mistyped digit in an arrest warrant and your whole life is done. Maybe its easy to recover…but that’s not how our government seems to operate) in a complex system.

So on to a digital version of this. With my notions of a National ID, I see those risks becoming greater while maintaining the same level of benefits. Maybe there’s a bit of a benefit on convenience factor in the benefits category, but the additional cost is that it becomes attached to your device (and I just don’t see a way to implement this that doesn’t get “attached” to a device), a device that already collects AND BROADCASTS insane telemetry about you to everything near it / that you connect to (see here for a big spook).

This is a broad overview of why I think going straight to a digital National ID system is a bad idea. Might be slow to do so, but I will eventually get back to you anyone wants to discuss more.