Mocking Surveillance
Sometimes a situation is so absurd, or even so dangerous, you gotta make fun of it to keep from getting too bothered.
Unfortunately, surveillance-enabled digital identity systems are springing up around the world in societies that have traditionally shunned such privacy-invasive things, like the U.S., EU, U.K., and Australia. The biggest problem is the “phone home” that’s a standard capability — whether active or latent — in most new systems: when either the identity verifier or user’s application interacts with or “phones home” to the identity issuer or another third party, enabling centralized tracking and other abuses. This is the case with all mDL implementations that utilize ISO 18013, and all implementations that utilize OpenID Connect (OIDC), among others.
When phone home is active the alarming result is far more than surveillance, it is total control, where authorities can allow or disallows citizens’ digital activities. With phone home capability, each identity usage is approved or disapproved by some authority. Seriously. That’s just dandy in cultures that tolerate or even expect surveillance, but it’s a large and surreptitious loss of privacy and liberty in cultures that don’t. And it’s not an incremental hop, it’s a huge leap.
So if you care about digital identity, you love privacy and liberty, and you loathe tracking and surveillance, The Phone Home Song is for you…
Link to song: https://youtube.com/shorts/9XvsHoZjBHI
Check it out, it’s 2 minutes that’ll give you a chuckle… :)
Lyrics:
Well I flashed my MDL at the grocery store,
Just buyin’ eggs, not startin’ war,
But somewhere in a server farm,
A red light blinks to sound the alarm.
“Verify!” the verifier cried,
And phoned the mothership worldwide.
Now Uncle Sam knows I bought jam —
And scoffs at how surveilled I am.
Don’t phone home, it’s a trap,
It’s surveillance with a friendly app.
They say it’s safe, just protocol,
But your ID’s got a silent call.
You think it’s off? It’s just on snooze —
Till panic strikes and pow! You lose.
So if your state says, “Scan that code,”
Yell, ‘Hey no way — that’s snitching mode.’
Now Europe’s got an ID game,
EUID — it sounds so tame.
But under EIDAS’ polite exterior,
Lurks a data vampire far superior.
ISO’s the blueprint fine,
18013’s the covert spine.
They say it’s good, just OID
Its users say: “Please surveil me!”
Don’t phone home, we ain’t fools,
Keep your data, you make the rules.
No lazy call to Daddy State,
Who tracks your swipe at Coffee Gate.
They say it’s off, but it’s not gone,
Just one “crisis” and it’s game on.
So build it right, or build it not —
’Cause once it’s on, you’re a moving dot.
Now bureaucrats in vests and ties,
Say “Phone home helps!” (surprise, surprise).
But basic rights aren’t things to tweak,
When politicians start to freak.
Digital ID’s got some flair,
But never phone home, if you care.
We need credentials, sure, that’s fair —
But not ones that stalk us everywhere.
Don’t phone home, make it clear:
Privacy’s not a souvenir.
We won’t trade our rights away,
For QR scans and TSA.
Tell your mayor, tell your mom —
This ain’t China or Pyongyong.
We like our IDs sleek and clean —
Not part of some trackin’ machine.
So raise your voice and pass the law,
That cuts Phone Home’s spyware claw.
’Cause when they track your every roam…
You’re just a dot, and they’ve phoned home.
