European e-ID Announced 155
gbjbaanb writes in with a story about plans to introduce an electronic identity system in Europe. "On Wednesday, the European Commission published a strategy document aimed at setting up systems to protect children online. In the document — but not in the accompanying press release nor the citizens' summary — the Commission mentioned that it will soon propose a 'pan-European framework for electronic authentication,' full details will be announced on 30th May. The launch of the strategy follows a push to strengthen internet security in the EU. It also outlined legal measures to make it easier for people to use a single e-ID for online services across borders, which would underpin a move toward a pan-European framework for electronic identification, authentication and signature (Pefias) framework."
Let's get Godwin out of the way (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, feel free to carry on with a sensible discussion of the merits and pitfalls without resulting to overused memes and trolling.
Its about tracking and logging (Score:5, Insightful)
Children Don't Need Protection (Score:5, Insightful)
Children need to be taught. They should be taught by their parents.
Once those two things are done properly, the need for "protection" diminishes to nearly zero.
Re:Mandatory (Score:5, Insightful)
Now we have yet another measure to "save the children" because anyone who might be against such a measure is an evil kiddy fiddler. I highly expect this to become mandatory and sprawl into not just children but everyone needs to be on this system. Perhaps I've just become skeptical of my own government and politicians willingness to sign over our hard fought independence that anything the power hungry EU puts down now is another attempt to control the people of Europe under a single entity.
The article itself states that this is likely to become mandatory but that there no clear definitions regarding the limits of the system.
Re:on thursday (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody asked what you want. This is about corporate control, pure and simple. They're not looking to protect you, they're looking to exploit you.
See, anonymity on the Internet is causing lost profits, and we cannot have that. When the Internet became a shopping mall, control was given over to the corporations, and now it's all about what they want. And they want to know exactly who you are and exactly what you're up to.
Re:Mandatory (Score:5, Insightful)
Meh. I was always told the EU was originally set up to stop Germany ever becoming too powerful again.
Well, that worked well didn't it.
The fear being that Germany (or anybody that got too powerful) would start another war. Considering that we are in the longest time of European peace in recorded history... yeah, i would say it worked pretty well...
Re:Mandatory (Score:5, Insightful)
Now the problem for Germany came when their banks tried to use that surplus cash, they lent it out to institutions for practically nothing. These institions then could then lend to riskier and riskier prospects because the cost of the risk was so reduced by the cheap and availability of money being provided by German and other major European banks so that even if those risky loans collapsed, they could simply avail of the cheap money to correct for such fluctuations.
The EU didn't make Germany weaker, it made Europe stronger as a whole, until they started some high risk enterprises. I'm willing to say that I don't think the EU was designed from the start to become what its become today, but certain financial interests have a way of corrupting things to their way of thinking
Re:Children Don't Need Protection (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not really about children at all. It's about control. Those in power want control to see and hear everything you do, they are simply using your children as a way to sell the idea.
Re:Mandatory (Score:2, Insightful)
You realize more often than not those "power grabs by the evil EU" are simply the member states' governments pushing unpopular laws through by the back door, then turning around and telling their populace "look, we don't want to do it, but we have to implement this EU directive"?
Re:Mandatory (Score:5, Insightful)
That's very interesting. I hadn't looked at the EU from this perspective, but it appears that you could following the same trajectory as the USA. Be warned!
The USA (under The Constitution) began as a voluntary agreement between independent states. Exactly as you described, we delegated certain authorities to a central government in a few areas (e.g. a monetary system and military) where it seemed we could be more effective as a unit.
As you can see from our example, the system was ultimately corrupted to the point that we now suffer under the reign of a massive, self-serving central government which has trampled the sovereignty of the states to serve its own self interests.
You're absolutely right to be skeptical of your government and extremely wary of any attempted EU power grabs. I'd caution you not to allow the destruction of your existence as independent states.
Re:Mandatory (Score:5, Insightful)
Government are so terrified by the loss of structural loans and trade loss that they are unwilling to challenge the EU on these thing, why run the risk of losing out on revenue, we'll sell our sovereignty instead, that has a far less tangible impact on our budgets... until now. Again in my own national case we're told, you have no choice, you need another bailout, do what we want or we pull the trigger on the economic gun to your head. Whatever about the individual directives the EU issues, the macro effects of EU policy is killing national sovereignty and soon we really will have no choice, that "the man in Brussels/Frankfurt" says we have to do it so we have to do it.
Re:Mandatory (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought it was democratically based
But it's not. If you want it to be democratically based you need to give the power to elected representatives instead of having positions of power filled by deals between national governments. Or alternatively transfer those powers back to the national governments so you have control via the national parliaments. As it is now specific EU issues like the one in the article aren't much discussed during national elections - because that's not the main topic - and not much during EU elections - because the EU parliament doesn't have much power.
We need to make up our minds where we want to take this - make a decision and stick with it.
Re:Mandatory (Score:3, Insightful)
"Irish people voted No, until they were told, no that was the wrong answer, vote again."
This argument is really sickening, in a normal parliamentary setting a complex legal document will undergo scrutiny by the MPs, the MPs may then make amendments, so if they are against the initial proposition from the government, the amendments may make the proposition acceptable.
For plebiscites, the same thing should naturally hold. However, it is not practical to crowd source amendments (or protocols as they are usually called in a treaty setting), if you then have a referendum and it is a reasonably close call, what the heck is wrong with adopting a protocol that address the major issues that the people had with the treaty. There is nothing wrong with this, it is not re-asking the same question until you get a yes, but more like: Is this proposal acceptable for you? If not, what if we change this into this, would that be acceptable?
The main point of this, is that agreements, treaties and law in general can be modified to suite the different parties that are stakeholders in it. There is nothing undemocratic about having a second plebiscite if you change the question, or the text that you are voting about.
In the Lisbon treaty case, Ireland secured an amendment (protocol) that essentially made the treaty acceptable after it cleared up a number of major issues that the voters had with the initial text.