On Tue, May 15, 2001 at 08:42:25PM -0500, Aimee Farr wrote:
> The author proposes a take on the "Dutch Digital PII-boxes" to combat ID
> theft with a validation system, as an alternative to "SSN secrecy"
> legislation, etc. (The Dutch are implementing a scheme where personally
> identifying information is stored with the government, including the
> elective storage of medical and employment information: PII escrow.)
For what it is worth, the focus of this Dutch proposal is not about
storing _new_ personally identifying information but about a new way of
providing centralized access to information already stored by the
government (name, place and date of birth, the Dutch equivalent of a SSN
etc). The idea is that this gives the citizens more control over the
correctness and distribution of the information.
It did note that such a centralized location _could_ also be extended
for storage of other information.
This proposal is compatible with the project to replace the current
version of the passports with a version that includes a smartcard (with
appropiate personal keys and certificates). The idea was that this
smartcard could be used for strong authentication to access these
"personal vaults".
In my opinion this is better then current situation where much of the
same information is already used by the various government agencies, but
is difficult to manage and audit due to its distributed nature. Just
changing your address in all these databases when you move is
non-trivial, even when most of these databases are interlinked now.
The information is already out there being used, so let it be in a place
I have some form of control over it.
> Open forum in the event anybody is interested @:
> http://www.quicktopic.com/7/H/DcC8ShvGDefu3
> I might sling this link around to other parties later, I think your comments
> would likely be "illuminating," ...that is, if there are any comments.
Frankly, I dislike webchats in general and this one in particular.
Declan's arguments hold for me too.
> ~Aimee
With kind regards,
Wouter Slegers
