On May 19, China’s top law enforcement agency released measures for the roll-out of “cyber IDs” (网络身份认证), a new form of user identification to monitor internet users. Although the measures were released as a draft over the summer last year, they have only just been finalized, and will come into effect in mid-July.
According to the measures, introduced by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), each internet user in China will be issued with a unique “web number,” or wanghao (网号), that is linked to their personal information. While these IDs are, according to the MPS notice, to be issued on a strictly voluntary basis through public service platforms, the government appears to have been working on this system for quite some time — and state media are strongly promoting it as a means of guaranteeing personal “information security” (信息安全). With big plans afoot for how these IDs will be deployed, one obvious question is whether these measures will remain voluntary.
Aktually, for most Internet services in China today, one already needs a phone number to create an account, which is linked back to the national ID. So, there isn’t any anonymity to begin with.
Oh no! That is exactly what the EU wants to do.
Are they trying to be as horrible as us?All governments are moving this direction as the march towards authoritarianism accelerates and it’ll take VPNs, meshnets, encryption, and other alternatives to push back.
Even blue states in the U.S. are going this direction.
Hoard your data folks!
Even the EU is. It’s looking bleak in that department.
In Australia it was proposed by the Labor government and it was the Greens who passed the Digital ID bill. (Labor needed either the Greens or Conservatives on board).
It was the conservatives who opposed it (similar to when Conservatives opposed the Australia Card in the 80’s).
Go figure.
My best guess is that like 99% of Aussies don’t seem to give a rat’s ass about politics so as long as the parliament does things that loosely resemble working nobody’s gonna ask questions 😅
VPNs, meshnets, encryption, and other alternatives
All of which will, of course, soon become illegal and the simple use/possession/knowledge of which will verify that user as an “anti-govt” subversive worthy of deportation, incarceration, or worse.
🤷♂️
VPNs are already illegal in China!
Fuck that noise
What noise are you talking about?
Needing an ID to go online.
If they ever use biometrics for this, mine are for sale. Cheap… I’d like to know what happens when I can’t use who I am as my ID because it’s public.
Smartcard authentication, probably. But that does not protect against other people using your computer via malware.
That sounds like a you problem, not a them problem, as far as they’re concerned
You’d likely get scooped up for reeducation within 12 hours of posting it.
Would there be any way around this?
