President Obama Looking at Internet ID for Americans
President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today. It’s “the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government” to centralize efforts toward creating an “identity ecosystem” for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said. It is hard to stay anonymous on the internet today and I don’t really see the point of government getting involved in online identities. Many of the issues that revolve around spam and hacking come from outside the US, so besides online transactions what is the point? Should American tax payers be required to pay for those that can’t come up with and remember strong passwords? I don’t think so!
“We are not talking about a national ID card,” Locke said at the Stanford event. “We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities.”
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