I agree with some of what he’s saying, but is seems like the main issue is surveillance, not digitizing IDs. I mean if you have a driver’s license you’re already in a digital database. Or if you were, know, born. If they wanted to track you, they can use your car (like Flock Safety) or just your face. They already know where you live and where you work. The problem he faced in China is being required to scan IDs everywhere (and get logged), and that the government has total control of their internet. Neither of which are happening here.
It seems like the current way it’s going to be implemented is basically storing ID information on your phone that’s signed by the government. So if the bank scans it they can see your information, that it wasn’t tampered with, and that it matches what the government has. Just some bytes that got cryptographically signed. Not much different from a physical ID that’s “signed” by having a bunch of security features. They already have to verify any identification you hand them, this will just make it more convenient.
Now if the government can see each time you use it and what for, that’s different. That’s what he’s against. But it doesn’t seem like that’s the way it will go. And it seems like digital ID is optional, you can just use a physical ID. So this seems very alarmist to me, IMO.
The average person is not going to sign up and pay for 10 different things, even if it’s slightly more private. Proton is similar to Google in that it’s free and has a lot of things with one account, but vastly different in the way the data is handled, probably the most meaningful difference. I mean the best thing you can do is self host but it’s obviously not something everyone can or wants to do. So there’s nothing wrong with taking the next best thing.