25% of the UK population don’t have broadband, this is higher amongst the poor and the old; it generally costs more than the BBC Licence. Also not all internet users are Facebook users. Facebook (& other social media providers) cannot act as a guarantor of identity in government and political business, partly because they’re proprietary, closed source systems and thus users, citizens and judges do not know what the code does. Digital inclusion is still one of the key political issues to be addressed in the internet age, governments and political parties need to step very carefully when they use social media platforms as a means of understanding people’s views; this is before we consider the anti-democratic nature of survey’s and referenda, you can only answer the questions asked, usually in a binary or scalar fashion. It’s not good enough …..oh yeah & open source. …
Was NO2ID wrong!
Was NO2ID a cul-de-sac? Who should be the identity assurers in the internet age? Today it’s code, that code is owned by someone and run by someone. Once we thought banks might run it, they don’t seem interested. The NO2ID campaign polarised the debate. We seem to be in a place that either the state does so on behalf of the public or private companies do so on behalf of their shareholders. Do we need a third way? Co-ops or P2P code?
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