alt Hacker NewsHaving a digital ID does not obviate that (in principle), thanks to zero-knowledge schemes.
To my understanding then, the issue is that the EU's implementation only has a ZK-based solution in the plans so far.
But then this initiative says "No Digital ID", not "No Auto-Deanonymizable Digital ID", so...
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account42 • yesterday at 1:32 PM
Zero knowledge proofs are not the magic fairy dust that you claim they are. They let you prove that you have some information without disclosing that information but that doesn't become a viable Digital ID scheme without putting other things like trusted computing so you can't give the "I'm over 18" token to literally everyone.
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> Having a digital ID does not obviate that (in principle), thanks to zero-knowledge schemes.
Yes it does, because zero-knowledge schemes take it as an assumption that all of the people who are supposed to have credentials can be trusted not to share them with people who aren't, since you're proposing a system that provides no means for that to be detected. And this context doesn't allow that assumption.
With a normal ID, the entity required to demand ID compares the picture on the ID to the person using it, which obviously doesn't work when they're not being provided with any identifying information. You thereby have no way to know that the ID belongs to the user and anyone can allow anyone else to use their ID, thereby defeating the system.
Which means that the proponents would never be satisfied with the result and the only thing building that system does is entrench something with the shape of a non-consensual identification system, which will then have any ZK features disabled (assuming they were actually implemented to begin with) when the consequences prove unsatisfactory.