Swiss parliament approves digital identity despite popular opposition

mpr21
September 16th, 2024

The Swiss rejected the digital identity project in a referendum in 2021, in the midst of the 'pandemic', and yet now the media are trumpeting its implementation.

In 2021, the project was rejected by 64 percent of the votes because of private management and the centralisation of data. To justify the manipulation, the media reinterpreted the meaning of the votes. The rejection was now said to be due to the digital identity technology being managed by private companies, rather than by the state itself.

The manipulation was announced in November last year by the Federal Council. To ease guilty consciences, Bern declared that such a digital identity would be “free, optional, easy to use and entirely in the hands of the state.”

Anyone with a Swiss identity card, passport or a residence permit for foreigners can apply for an electronic identity card, online or via the passport service. This option was requested during the consultation procedure.

It will be possible to use it on the Internet, for example, to request a criminal record extract, a driving licence or a certificate of residence. But also in the physical world via a smartphone app to prove age when buying alcohol.

The Federal Council has learned the lesson of 2021, Elisabeth Baume-Schneider, Federal Councillor in charge of Justice, told the media in Bern. “The law has been reconsidered from A to Z, in particular on the essential issues of security and data protection,” she added.

But beyond the argument of respect for privacy and data security, those who oppose these new identification methods also see other risks. The concentration of digital tools around electronic identification is the key to the establishment of a form of global surveillance and global government, which will put an end to public freedoms.

On April 30th of this year, the European regulation on digital identity was published in the Official Journal, which “obliges Member States to develop at least one mobile application that allows European citizens to store and use data linked to their identity.”

A first attempt to implement such a system in the United Kingdom was called “GOV.UK Verify.” Faced with a lack of adoption by the British and the numerous criticisms received, the system was finally abandoned in April of last year. The government immediately relaunched a new project, this time called “One Login For Government.” 

 

Source: https://mpr21.info/el-parlamento-suizo-aprueba-la-identidad-digital-a-pesar-de-la-oposicion-popular/