>I fully believe we should legislate against automated processes taking decisive actions.
There are certainly decisions that should not be fully automated. But this has very little to do with the account recovery issue we're talking about.
I believe that account recovery, and more generally proving your identity, can be done automatically with greater accuracy and far more securely than any process involving humans.
We have secure, electronic, government issued identity documents that are perfectly suitable for automation. Let's just use them! If we must legislate then let's introduce a right to prove our identity using our government issued ID.
There are other issues related to oligopoly accounts that are hard to solve. But proof of identity is not one of them.
> We have secure, electronic, government issued identity documents that are perfectly suitable for automation.
And what do you propose as a solution if your government-provided identity gets lost or stolen or hacked?
Or for people who have a hard time getting such a doc? (note: Sweden currently has a crisis because it can take over 1 year to get a passport).
Or for people who live in countries which don't have these systems?
Are you really ok with uploading a video of you holding your passport every time you want to log onto a service (see "id.me" controversy)?
Now, what might be nice is if the government used a highly secure crypotgraphic system to allow identity verification, but drivers licenses and passports aren't that.
>And what do you propose as a solution if your government-provided identity gets lost or stolen or hacked?
Report the old one stolen/compromised, get a new one, use it in the account recovery process.
>Or for people who have a hard time getting such a doc? Or for people who live in countries which don't have these systems?
This is a core responsibility of any government. It works well enough in many countries and we should not wait for the last government on earth to get its act together before using it. It can be gradually introduced country by country.
>Are you really ok with uploading a video of you holding your passport every time you want to log onto a service (see "id.me" controversy)?
Having a right to prove your identity using an official ID is not the same as having an obligation to do so. I would only use it with a few key accounts that I trust (and with financial institutions where ID checks are mandatory).
Also, I wouldn't have to hold up my passport at all, nor would I have to do it every time I log in. The platform would read the passport chip once upon registration or during account recovery and check if the picture on the chip matches my face.
>Now, what might be nice is if the government used a highly secure crypotgraphic system to allow identity verification, but drivers licenses and passports aren't that.
> Having a right to prove your identity using an official ID is not the same as having an obligation to do so.
I'm sceptical as to whether you can avoid it becoming an obligation.
You sign up for $SOCIALNETWORK. Some opaque 'bot detection' process deems your account 'suspicious' and locks it. They offer to unlock your account if you prove your identity using an official ID.
That makes it obligatory in practice, if not in theory.
I share your scepticism, but that's a political decision. Nothing protects us from bad political decisions besides participating in the democratic process.
What's happening right now is that we are sacrificing a lot for the financial benefit of corporations and for politicians' control obsession while we can't use some of the same technologies and capabilities for our own benefit.
We often have an obligation to prove our identity using a government issued ID, but we have no right to do so when we want to.
There are certainly decisions that should not be fully automated. But this has very little to do with the account recovery issue we're talking about.
I believe that account recovery, and more generally proving your identity, can be done automatically with greater accuracy and far more securely than any process involving humans.
We have secure, electronic, government issued identity documents that are perfectly suitable for automation. Let's just use them! If we must legislate then let's introduce a right to prove our identity using our government issued ID.
There are other issues related to oligopoly accounts that are hard to solve. But proof of identity is not one of them.