> Facebook's real name policy, Youtube's real name policy, Twitter's blue checks..

These are all opt-in verification mechanisms, likely with the main purpose of protecting the rights of influencers and other content creators so that the platforms keep making money off them.

I'm talking about a single federal government-run identity provider that obsoletes all the above schemes. That's what we need and where we are headed, whether we like it or not. It is absurd that we still rely on SSNs and home address verification in 2022.

The last people you want running an identity provider are the federal government. You don't want to give them the power to make you an un-person if you some day are not supporting the correct party or agenda.

Sometimes you need to know who a person is, most of the time you don't.

I don't need to know who you are to sell you a cup of coffee, or really anything you are paying for in full.

If I'm lending you money, I need to know to my satisfaction that you are who you say you are, in case I need to find you later to collect. That's my problem and your problem to work out. The Federal Government has no role here.

> You don't want to give them the power to make you an un-person if you some day are not supporting the correct party or agenda.

Too bad. They already have this power -- and more, they can un-life you -- and always have, and always will until they get replaced in the next revolution.

Doxxing everyone by government mandate isn't the answer, nor should it ever be the answer.

It is just SSNs but updated for the 21st century. Your dox would probably be a lot safer, because they would be held by 1 accountable public agency rather than 10 unaccountable private for-profit corporations.

Let's not forget the OPM "breach", which was done so trivially they might have well posted the admin creds in the newspaper...

You mean like the IRS hiring a private shady biometric company to try and match you to a grainy drivers license photo before they canceled the whole thing due to the bureacratic nightmare hellscape it spawned?

That sounds awful. No, it would need to be an in-house thing, a proper government agency, complete with their own datacenters and software teams across the US.

Probably impossible with the current "print $$$ and outsource" culture in Washington.

So like India's system that was immediately filled with corruption, leaks and outages?

Facebook's real name policy isn't opt in.

Facebook is opt-in. Haven't touched the thing in a decade, with virtually zero inconvenience.