Can the UK have its identity strategy back, Mr President?
Jerry Fishenden writes in The Register about President Obama’s plans for online identification in the USA:
The President’s cunning plan is that by using OpenID and Information Card technologies, US citizens will be able to use their existing online digital identities rather than having to register yet another ID and password to make use of online public services (as is the case with the UK government’s online registration and enrolment service, the Government Gateway).
Equally important is that citizens will be able to have full control over how much (or how little) personal information they share with the government. The use of the combination of Open ID and Information Cards offers strong privacy and security safeguards, including being able to use pseudononymous IDs with government sites when needed. Smart thinking. As a result, lots of envious eyes are looking to the US and wondering why we can’t do something savvy like that here, instead of flapping around in the embarrassing death spasms of the UK’s national ID card fiasco.
