The idyllic promise of a one-stop electronic digital door to all of Hawaiʻi’s government services, myHawaii, couldn’t be more enticing. One login, one stop to 96 services, greater efficiency – the aloha spirit, digitized. But beneath the surface of convenience lies a troubling question: are we trading ease of use for an unacceptable level of risk? I'm skeptical, and you should be too.
Centralized System A Ticking Time Bomb?
We are assured that myHawaii is protected by “industry-standard encryption” and “multifactor authentication.” Great! That’s as misleading as saying a volcano isn’t dangerous because it has an escape vent. Encryption can be cracked. Multifactor authentication can be bypassed. In fact, ask yourself, how many times have you heard of “secure” government databases being hacked? The OPM hack, for example, exposed sensitive, personal data of over 20 million federal workers. Are we really that much safer here in Hawaiʻi?
Think about it: all your personal information – name, address, maybe even financial details – concentrated in one centralized location. That combined makes myHawaii a hacker’s honey pot, a single point of failure with disastrous potential. If a bad actor were to break through that system, the impact could be catastrophic. Are we truly ready to place our entire faith in a single digital panacea? History tells us that this lock is notoriously breakable.
Decentralization The Better Way Forward
There's a better way. It’s past time we began looking into decentralized solutions, technologies that give you control of your data over the government’s control.
Picture a future where your personal identity lives on a blockchain. Unlike national IDs or other credentials, it’s protected by cryptography and isn’t maintained in a central repository. Consider NFTs – Non-Fungible Tokens – not as markers of owned digital art, but rather as keys to a digital identity. You own it, you control it, and no special interest or government agency can take it away from you with the stroke of a pen.
With property data stored on a distributed ledger, like a blockchain, there’s another layer of security. Conspiracy theories aside, data isn’t just stored anymore on one giant server farm in Honolulu. Instead, it’s spread out over a distributed network, which in turn makes hacking it infinitely more difficult. This isn’t a far-off pipe dream; these technologies are available today. Sure they take greater initial investment and a change in the status quo mindset, but the long-term security payoffs are indisputable.
Take the example of Singapore, well-known for its incredible hawker centers. Now picture all those hawker stalls replaced by one huge, centralized “Hawker Mega-Mart,” owned and operated by the government. Sure, that would be efficient – until there’s a food poisoning outbreak. Or if a venal official just decides that one must go? The entire city's food supply is compromised.
Now, consider the real Singapore, with its hundreds of independent hawker stalls, each with its own specialties and loyal customers. If one stall is out of order, the others gobble up the demand. The more resilient and diverse our system is, the better protected we are in the long run. Decentralized data control is like a vibrant hawker center. It’s strong, flexible, and makes us less vulnerable to the impacts of single points of failure.
Demanding Transparency Above Everything Else
Now, the Hawaiʻi government needs to be transparent about what security measures myHawaii has taken. What we’re asking for We need for independent audits— by cybersecurity experts with no connection to the state —to identify where the platform is most vulnerable. It’s time to know who inherits the burden of storing our data. We need to know how it’s being protected, and what’s being done if a breach happens.
Are the stated security features truly adequate? Are they being implemented effectively? Where is the documentation that proves this? Do we, the people of Hawaiʻi, then have the appetite to incur the risk of a more centralized system? It might save us a little hassle, but we should think through what’s at stake.
myHawaii might be a well-intentioned effort to modernize government services. Without a true commitment to security, transparency, and investigating decentralized options, we are headed towards building a digital albatross. Otherwise, it might become a perpetual monkey wrench of economic distress, growing debt burdens, and possible catastrophic failure. Demand more. Your digital aloha depends on it.
