Picture yourself next to a warm turf fire, regaled by wonderful stories of the Emerald Isle. Of stories where a handshake was a holy commitment, and a man’s word, their good name, was their most treasured wealth. Now, flash forward to 2024. We’re all being told that these digital IDs are the future of more convenient and streamlined public services. But can we really trust them? Can a string of code ever replace that ancient, visceral sense of knowing someone is who they say they are? I believe that Irish folklore contains the answers to that question – and the mystery – and creating genuinely trustworthy digital infrastructures.
Folklore's Echo in Digital Trust
Think about it. In those ancient tales, identity was based on place. People were aware of your bloodline, your ancestry, your actions. Verification was not a technological process. It was embedded in the lived experience of reality. After all, a stranger coming into such a village would be highly suspicious, their claimed story verified against the knowledge of the locals. Lies had consequences, often severe.
Today, we are up against a similar challenge, but one with a global impact. How do we establish identity in a world where just about anyone can set up a fraudulent account. So, how do we recreate that same sense of communal trust, only this time through the use of algorithms and encryption. Well, I think the answer is going back to learning why those old ways worked. It’s not enough to just automate those things with technology.
Wards Against Digital Sprites
The concern around digital IDs goes beyond breaches and hackers. It’s a different, more visceral, more primal fear of losing control, of being vulnerable to forces beyond our control. It’s akin to being afraid of the Sidhe, the fairy people of Ireland’s heritage. Or they might trick you with illusions and steal your soul.
This is where security becomes paramount. We do require safeguards against digital wards to prevent them from being abused. Adopting technologies, such as zero-knowledge proofs, is key. These powerful new tools give us the power to validate the veracity of something without exposing the original data. Now imagine you’re trying to prove you’re over 18 to use a service, without showing your real birthdate. It’s as good as giving a fairy a piece of rowan. This mundane gesture functions as a real world counter spell to their sorcery. Decentralized storage replicates data across many different networks. This strong redundant architecture minimizes and in many cases eliminates the risk of a single point of failure or attack.
Your Digital Soul Belongs to You
At its core, success for any digital ID will depend upon user control. In medieval Ireland, a freeholder would own outright their piece of ground. Much in the same way, we need to take back control of our digital identities. We must be able to make the decisions about what data we want to disclose, and who we disclose it to.
This isn’t only a privacy issue, but a question of agency. Digital ID systems must promote individual agency. We need to emphasize their advantages, rather than defaulting to how we can most conveniently allow governments and corporations to surveil us. The new mobile-first approach is a major step forward. It gives low-income people the tools they need to verify their identity, regardless of their location or access to conventional identification.
Consider the unbanked, the undocumented, those who live in rural communities that have no easy access to traditional offerings. When conceived and implemented in an inclusive manner, digital ID can be a transformative tool for inclusion. It gets folks involved and it provides avenues they’d never been exposed to previously. So this move is a moral imperative, not just a technological one.
We need to be wary of the "shiny object syndrome," where we blindly adopt new technologies without considering the potential consequences. The private sector’s influence, especially coming from areas such as online entertainment and iGaming, is a double-edged sword. They can give us great insight into user experience and all the ways to do a passwordless login. Their true purpose is profit over the public good. So let’s make sure we regulate the heck out of public-private partnerships, and always put the public interest first.
These are lessons we can learn from countries like Estonia, Nigeria, and India. We need to forge our own course that genuinely reflects our unique cultural priorities and community values. In addition to this rich tradition of skepticism towards authority, Ireland is a deeply communitarian place. This distinct perspective gives Ireland the opportunity to position itself at the forefront of developing a new, innovative, and trustworthy digital ID system.
Wherever digital ID goes from here, the future starts with calling for transparency, accountability, and inclusive public participation in the creation of these policies. It requires us to be vigilant, to question everything, and to ensure that these systems are designed to serve us, not the other way around. Let's weave a new tale, one where technology empowers us all, while honoring the ancient wisdom of trust and community.
