If digital identities are introduced in the U.S., which looks increasingly likely, they will be inextricably linked with financial services. Financial institutions, after all, are being encouraged to lead the way in the development of comprehensive digital identity solutions. Digital IDs, we’re told, will become more critical as online and mobile banking becomes more popular.

Recent headlines make it easy to see why so many people, fearful of the enforcement of political/ideological conformity through financial control, are hesitant to embrace digital IDs.

These IDs are ripe for abuse and that the threats of implementing them far outweigh the benefits.

Citing his decade of experience tracking the perils and promise of technology for human rights, Solomon wrote in a 2018 Wired article that “digital ID, writ large, poses one of the gravest risks to human rights of any technology that we have encountered.”

Coupled with “facial recognition technology and other identifiers,” Solomon warned, digital IDs have “the capacity for geo-location of identifiers.” In other words, tracking citizens’ every digital movement.

Solomon’s ominous warnings tie in with fears that someone, somewhere is always watching, and if Big Brother doesn’t like what you’re doing, punishment will surely be served — fears that have only been heightened by recent headlines.