Breitbart has a headline that caught Joe Cadillic’s eye:
The European Commission Wants You To Log Into Social Media Accounts With Govt-Issued ID Cards
Wait, what??
Leaked documents from within the European Commission revealed a call for the roll out of a more extensive use of national ID cards across the EU. The documents have since been uploaded to the Commission’s own website.
Breitbart reports that this less-than-brilliant idea seems to be the work of the Vice President for the Digital Single Market on the European Commission, former Communist Andrus Ansip. Ansip is from Estonia, which has a more intensive and extensive use of national ID cards.
The paper outlines that: “In particular, online platforms need to accept credentials issued or recognised by national public authorities, such as electronic ID cards, citizens cards, bank cards or mobile IDs… for every consumer to have a multitude of username and password combinations is not only inconvenient but becomes a security risk.”
One need only look at DataBreaches.net on the massive data breaches being reported on a daily basis to recognize that entering any national ID credentials on a social platform is almost guaranteed to get your credentials stolen and sold on the dark web eventually. Does the EU really want a situation like the US where our Social Security numbers have been hacked so many times that we really need a start-over?
“This intrusive and seemingly authoritarian EU interference in social media and the internet is not new,” said Diane James, a Member of the European Parliament and the UK Independence Party’s spokesman for Home Affairs.
“In 2013, the European Parliament spent almost £2 million on press monitoring and trawling Eurosceptic debates on the internet for “trolls” during euro-elections amid fears that hostility to the EU was growing.”
They claim that “institutional communicators must have the ability to monitor public conversation and sentiment on the ground and in real time, to understand ‘trending topics’ and have the capacity to react quickly, in a targeted and relevant manner, to join in and influence the conversation, for example, by providing facts and figures to deconstructing myths.”
So it’s “We’re the government. We’re here to help you” argument?
Thanks, but I’d pass.
Read more on Breitbart.