Moderators: carlson1, Charles L. Cotton
Stop the planet. I want off.STANFORD, Calif. - President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today.
It's "the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to centralize efforts toward creating an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said.
That last bit is the funniest part.."We are not talking about a national ID card. We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy, and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities," Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said at an event Friday at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, according to CNET.com.
Locke added that the Commerce Department will be setting up a national program office to work on this project.
The move has raised eyebrows about privacy issues.
"The government cannot create that identity infrastructure," Jim Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology told the website. "If I tried to, I wouldn't be trusted."
Schmidt stresses that anonymity will remain on the Internet, saying there's no chance that "a centralized database will emerge."
AndyC wrote:Darned cheek - show me the birth certificate first, then you can ID me.
