As we have seen in
Chapter 1, in the section ???Hard Tokens,??? this is an action that
The presence of a
party in a transaction
must be justi?¬?-
able to the eyes of
the user
The Seven Laws of Identity 101
more and more often we can metaphorically perform in the
digital world, too. Here the reasons why the government is involved
in the transaction are obvious. The merchant needs to
know whether I am of age and won??™t take my word for it.
However, he is willing to believe what the government says
about me. Short of ?¬?nding another entity that the merchant
trusts, if I want to go on with the transaction I have no choice
but to accept government involvement. (Notice that I still must
be given the choice of opting out, when I learn the merchant??™s
policy). Again, there are ?¬?ner points to be made. The user is the
ultimate judge of the justi?¬?ability of the participation of somebody
in a transaction, and all information for making that call
must be made available. Consider this. What if every time you
use your electronic ID, your government keeps track of with
whom you are conducting business? Would you still say that
government involvement is justi?¬?ed? It probably depends.
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