The European Commission is promoting what they call the “European Digital Identity”. See here for more. Basically it is a personal digital wallet, that people can link their national identity to, and allow the person to control how much information they want to share with online services, to: "
identify online and offline
store and exchange information provided by governments e.g. name, surname, date of birth, nationality
store and exchange the information provided by trusted private sources
use the information as confirmation of the right to reside, to work, or to study in a certain Member State"
It would seem that Holochain would be very well positioned to deliver such wallet app, possibly a very interesting opportunity to get people familiar with agent-centricity and take control over other realms of what is currently a private cloud infrastructure.
I’m aware that the HoloPort Host Console already has an identity or profile app in alpha stage, but I’m not sure how much work is needed to get to a level that we can provide something like an Euro Id wallet.
In any case, the info is in the linked page. Would be glad to dive deeper if needed.
Yes, I’d agree that Holochain is very well positioned to deliver such a wallet app, although designing something like that for usage by governments would be a very complex and interesting conversation. I’d be particularly interested in doing it outside of a governmental context but with inclusive and ethical community standards.
@wtebbens thanks for bringing this topic to my/our attention!
As a European and fan of technology, I’m hugely intrigued by such a project in general - and in my opinion we have seen and experienced enough situations here in Europe (and most surely in other parts of the world as well) where our conventional bureaucratic system has just made it very hard if not even impossible for us to engage in efficient, impactful cross-country collaboration and actually focus on “getting things done” as I like to call it (such as taking up and properly integrating refugees to name just one of many examples) — so what I’m saying is that I myself have been dreaming for (and since recently also actively working on) something like this come to life.
Nevertheless, I think that with great power comes also great responsibility and I just can’t help it that I have mixed feelings about such a project being initiated (and hosted?) by the government (and I’m not saying that those feelings are legit, but it’s just what it currently is and I know that a lot of citizens are sharing the same mixed feelings towards the actions and intentions of our governments in these days; in any case I think it might take some more time and surely some more mechanisms and alternative systems to help us all re-establish trust in our governments taking on such projects (if we don’t re-think / -invent governments completely, but that shall be a discussion for another thread ) — anyways, getting back to the point I wanted to make: I’m also very much interested in investigating this project more deeply and learning more about things like a) the technology the EU is planning to use for this and b) what the pros and cons for such a project running on Holochain would be.
@gcassel I’d love to hear more about what you meant with "[…] very complex […] conversation in that context and your thoughts on doing it outside of a governmental context. @wtebbens Do you have further intentions for your research on this topic and if so, what do they look like? I’d love to collaborate if wanted / needed.
Hi kjb and very glad we’ve met since this post! Briefly regarding “very complex conversation”, I meant to suggest the immense top-down bureaucracies which constitute territorial governments, which often make decisions by simple majority process and/or at the discretion of individuals who have complete authority over specific domains within the bureaucracy-- and, which are funded by election campaigns paid for by the key economic interests in today’s exploitative and extractive economy. In other words, politics is quite a mess, although I don’t doubt the good intentions of many officials.
Doing things outside of a government context is tricky; for example, choosing to not incorporate means that each person bears full legal responsibility for their actions within the context of a project, and can also expose the project to additional legal risks; however, I think this often might be better than incorporating, depending on precisely what mission is developed and practiced in which ways (so, so many variables).
The European digital ID is a worrisome project that, combined with central bank digital currencies, could spiral into a totalitarian nightmare, with social credit scores. Please stay away, and use Holochain to free people, not to enslave them.
) — anyways, getting back to the point I wanted to make: I’m also very much interested in investigating this project more deeply and learning more about things like a) the technology the EU is planning to use for this and b) what the pros and cons for such a project running on Holochain would be.
Briefly regarding “very complex conversation”, I meant to suggest the immense top-down bureaucracies which constitute territorial governments, which often make decisions by simple majority process and/or at the discretion of individuals who have complete authority over specific domains within the bureaucracy-- and, which are funded by election campaigns paid for by the key economic interests in today’s exploitative and extractive economy. In other words, politics is quite a mess, although I don’t doubt the good intentions of many officials.