Java-based ID cards in Taiwan

Everyone is getting one.

Each card contains a microprocessor with 32 kilobytes of memory that allows data such as allergy information, emergency contact numbers, medication, and personal insurance to be stored.

Let’s not forget Thailand:

In an even larger scheme in Thailand, the government plans to issue a Java-based national ID card to all 61 million citizens, according to a report in the Bangkok Post. The card will contain biometric identification, as well as insurance, tax and welfare benefit information. The scheme is expected to be launched later this year.

For more information read here.

My favorite book on privacy is David Brin’s thought-provoking The Transparent Society, for an interview with Brin, summarizing the book, click here. He says you’re not going to have your privacy anyway, get used to it, besides most people don’t even care about you, and this new world will prove liberating. I also am taken by Richard Posner’s point that few people truly want privacy, rather than want to selectively control how their images are presented to the outside world; they use talk of “privacy” as a rhetorical device to attempt to gain such control.