> After that happens, we should hopefully then feel okay about sharing that personal information publicly.
Setting aside how comfortable I feel with the rest of your suggestion (I don't), this seems to miss a fundamental point: part of the reason that some information needs to be private is that it is how you authenticate yourself. In a world where you can easily get your welfare check, and where everyone else knows all relevant information about you, how do you stop someone else from getting your welfare check? (For the near future, anyway, presumably a physical presence will trump any information-based authentication; but having to be physically present for these transactions seems like it would erase the very convenience that is your goal.)
In the movie There Will Be Blood a stranger shows up to Daniel Plainview's doorstep pretending to be his half-brother. The stranger relates some story about their childhood together and that's enough to convince Plainview of the stranger's identity(which isn't his actual identity) and relation(half-brother) to Plainview. It's false of course, and Daniel isn't happy when he finds out. But it's interesting comment on the times they lived in. There was no LinkedIn or FB or even a Driver's License for that matter to verify someone was who they said they were.
Regardless, I really don't know how you actually identify someone. Likely, as you say, physically being present(retina scan, fingerprinting, both?). You raise an interesting philosophical question; that is, what is identity?
>Regardless, I really don't know how you actually identify someone. Likely, as you say, physically being present(retina scan, fingerprinting, both?). You raise an interesting philosophical question; that is, what is identity?
It's not really a philosophical question being raised. The question of identity is always, "Is the person trying to authenticate the same person as someone with whom I have some relationship?" Online, you set up a username and password, and the presumption is that any person with that username and password is the same person who set up the account. If you want to prove your "real" identity, you're basically doing the same thing, but you're instead trying to prove that you're the same person as the one who was awarded your driver's license, or the same person whose birth is certified by your birth certificate.
Not that I'm a fan, but here in Portugal we're all issued national ID cards with a private asymmetric key (ISO 7816), with which you can authenticate both offline and online. Technically, it's still hidden information, but it's not about you, just happens to be linked to you.
Replacing the card requires physical presence, of course.
Setting aside how comfortable I feel with the rest of your suggestion (I don't), this seems to miss a fundamental point: part of the reason that some information needs to be private is that it is how you authenticate yourself. In a world where you can easily get your welfare check, and where everyone else knows all relevant information about you, how do you stop someone else from getting your welfare check? (For the near future, anyway, presumably a physical presence will trump any information-based authentication; but having to be physically present for these transactions seems like it would erase the very convenience that is your goal.)