European Nations Adopting National IDs Linked To Digital Wallets

The European Digital Identity system is rapidly being adopted with countries like Estonia and The Netherlands leading the way.

 From Estonia’s long-time running national identity scheme to the Netherlands’s foundational ID, Europe will soon be conducting much of its digital identity authentication and vaccination verification via an EU-wide shared app.

Estonia’s national digital identity system has been established for many years, and now that the European Commission plans to bring in a European Digital Identity in the form of a mobile app, the country is well ahead and planning further.

Under the new framework, proposed in June, national digital identities will be linked with digital wallets for ID authentication and personal attributes; for example, if Facebook wants age verification, the digital wallet should be enough to prove it.

Part of this plan for the European Digital Decade is to reach 100 percent online provision of key public services and 80 percent uptake of digital ID solutions. Each EU country will develop a separate digital wallet app for citizens, according to the Commission.

Estonians have had state-issued digital identities since 2002, and the country launched electronic vaccination passports in April, accelerated by COVID-19. According to Andres Sutt, the Minister of Entrepreneurship and Information Technology, however, Europe is in need of more ambitious digitization projects to meet the expectations of European citizens and the needs of companies.

“An Estonian citizen should have access with their ID card to the same e-services that a Belgian citizen receives today, and vice versa. The eID solutions and services created by the Member States must be available across borders,” Sutt comments.

A mobile application will form the basis of the wallet, says Sten Tikerpe, IT Law & Policy team lead at the Estonian Government CIO Office; “the proposal to update the eIDAS regulation, which regulates e-identification and trust services in the European Union, provides for the creation of so-called ‘identity wallets’ which are intended to be in the form of mobile applications.”

Estonia is currently seeking to tender a contract for a new mobile identification provider to replace the current mobile ID system, which may introduce biometrics to underpin the system’s security.

Though each country will maintain current national ID systems, these systems will form the basis of the European Digital Identity, and Estonia is currently drafting national positions to the proposal published by the Commission, says Tikerpe.

Dutch Government Plans Digital Identity Infrastructure

The Dutch State Secretary for the Interior and Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops says government has a clear task to facilitate a reliable national digital identity infrastructure for the benefit of citizens and businesses, via a letter to parliament on digital identity.

In the future, Dutch citizens will have a unique digital foundational identity (DFI) aiming to speed up innovation and give people sovereignty over personal data as well as providing freedom of choice in terms of digital identity market solutions. The DFI will contain verified identity data that can be used to fuel derived digital identities in the same way physical identity documents (such as a passport and driver’s license) do today.

Such a national identity system would allow users to leverage government-issued and verified attributes, and reduce privacy and security risks. In April Michiel van der Veen of the National Service for Identity Data (RvIG) said that accessibility for everyone would include a non-digital option of the system. The DFI could also boost economic performance by providing a way for people to interact with businesses across the EU under eIDAS regulation, and easing KYC and AML checks.

Though no timeline has been released for the implementation of a DFI, the Dutch government has a clear path forward, according to the digital identity vision document.

Smart Cities of the Future Will Be Like ‘Nazi Germany On Steroids’: No Privacy, No Freedom, No Free Enterprise

 

Making our cities smarter and smarter may pacify our enemies — the dynastic elites and other “globalist thugs,” that endorse Agenda 21 and the New Urban Agenda — but what will we do when those same cities disintegrate into no-go zones?

When you read this week’s headlines about problems in “progressive” cities like Portland, you may want to head for the hills rather than live in one.

A Fox News article headlined “Trouble in Portlandia” details the death threats, homelessness and rampant crime that is driving companies and families away from making a home in this oh-so-progressive city.

 At the same time, world leaders have adopted the New Urban Agenda to show us how a “fundamentally transformed” world should look.

And, surprise – the agenda promotes building Smart Cities just as liberal and progressive as downtown Portland.

Its message is, “Run — don’t’ walk — to join our utopian communities!”

But looking closely at the Agenda’s major goals, we can guess just how utopian these cities will be.

While supporters promise they will be “centers of cultural and social well-being,” the ultimate outcome will be the end of free enterprise and capitalism, moving us closer to a one-world economic paradigm.

In other words, people will live as one big, bland homogeneous society with a single-minded purpose that parallels that of Babel—to build a worldwide order without God.

While Babylon’s aims were high — right to the gates of heaven, in fact — the sky isn’t necessarily the limit for modern builders with today’s resources.

Just consider that the new urban cities will have cutting-edge technology to build “cyber systems” that can monitor and control everyday physical processes that we take for granted.

The danger is that liveability gives way to a Big Brother-type society where secrecy and paranoia abound, as in George Orwell’s book “1984”. Emerging technology could provide a way to punish individualism and independent thinking as “thoughtcrimes”.

Due to the widespread use of sensors and videos, data collection will abound in the cyber cities, according to an article on the U.S. Patriot website.

It cites research from innovative centers like the Qualcomm Institute where “we can look at future cities and imagine a world where cars and buildings are alive and function like a nervous system.”

“In these cities, you’ll see billions of sensors throughout all walls, frames, floors, and doors which track all forms of movement, and monitor every aspect of life,” the site reports.

“It’s like Nazi Germany on steroids.”

Estonia Expands Massive DNA Grab Of 100,000 Citizens

 

Alarm bells are ringing in Northern Europe, over the Estonian government’s latest attempt to take a massive number of genetic samples from its citizens.

Science, technology, and a government have usually been the perfect trifecta in every dystopian sci-fi thriller, as elected/unelected officials tend to gravitate towards all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful — over the mindless masses who unknowingly surrender their freedoms for comfort.

This seems to already be the case in the tiny former Soviet nation of Estonia, as its leaders have pushed for all things digital. The government has made it a top priority to embrace blockchain technology, provide internet access to all, and embark on the complete digitization of its citizens on one large platform — all owned by the government. So, it comes as no surprise, when the Estonian government has been quick to move in the creation of a biological database that collects DNA sequences of its citizen. Through mass surveillance programs, Estonian government will not only know what their citizens are searching on the internet, but will also have the knowledge of personal genetic information: ancestry charts, genetic composition, health history, and anything else that can be extracted from an Estonian’s double helix. So much knowledge in one organization is absolutely terrifying.

Starting immediately, the Estonian government will publicly launch the program to recruit and genotype 100,000 residents of the country as part of its National Personalized Medicine campaign. In the first run, the government projects an eight percent DNA grab of its total population. If successful, all indications are pointing to more massive grabs, as government officials are racing to construct its national DNA database.

The genetic testing initiative is a joint development program of the Ministry of Social Affairs, the National Institute for Health Development and the Estonian Genome Center of the University of Tartu, which currently maintains the nation’s DNA database of around 50,000 citizens.

In return for the precious genetic information, the Estonian government will offer citizens personalized health information that could prevent future illnesses. Each participant will receive a personalized genetic report, which offers lifestyle and health advice based on genetics. The reports can only be accessed on the government’s national e-health portal.

“The government wants to develop its healthcare system by offering all its residents genome-wide genotyping that will be translated into personalized reports for use in everyday medical practice through the national e-health portal. The country has many encrypted digital solutions incorporated into government functions that link the nation’s various databases through end-to-end encrypted pathways.”

“Today we have enough knowledge about both the genetic risk of complex diseases and the interindividual variability of the effects of medicines in order to start using this information systematically in everyday healthcare,” said Jevgeni Ossinovski, Minister of Health and Labour. “In cooperation with the National Institute for Health Development and the University of Tartu, we will enable another 100,000 people to join the Estonian biobank, in order to boost the development of personalized medicine in Estonia and thus contribute to the advancement of preventive healthcare.”

According to Estonian Genome Center of the University of Tartu, the Estonian Government has “allocated 5 million euros for the initiative during 2018.”

“The project will be coordinated by the National Institute for Health Development, whose task is to develop and implement procedures and principles for the effective implementation of scientific research in medicinal practice.”

Paula Dowdy, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Illumina, Europe, Middle East, and Africa said:

“As the technology provider for the Estonian Genome Center, Illumina is delighted that this ambitious project has reached this stage. Using our InfiniumTM Global Screening Array to further develop personalized medicine in Estonia will provide physicians with genomic information that will lead to better health outcomes in the future.”

Andres Metspalu, Director of the Estonian Genome Center at the University of Tartu, embraces the genetic initiative to triple the size of its national DNA database.

“We are glad that with the support of this project the results of the long-term work of the Genome Center will be transferred into practical medicine, and it will also give a further boost for our future research. The university will also contribute to the creation of a feedback system for the biobank participants, and to training healthcare professionals to give patients feedback based on genetic information.”

As it now stands, the Estonian government publicly launched the first phase of a massive DNA grab that aims to acquire genetic information from 8 percent of the total population. While it is still unknown why the government is suddenly rushing to triple the size of its DNA database, there is a risk that future DNA grabs could become mandatory. All of Europe should be watching the developments currently unfolding in Estonia because government DNA grabs could be coming to a region near you.

BRACE YOURSELF…