Digital ID Enforcement.
A much bigger problem for everyone.
It's a sort of predicament that it's all happening at a time like this.
In South Africa, privacy might be a tongue twister but for the government and the common folk, it is not. It's a data harvesting machine being updated every single day.
Why would anyone trust, "We will not use this for tracking people"?
If anyone is on their right mind, they should be very wary of the words the appointed officials use when they say, they will not track people. Today the police use social media to surveil and track citizens, why wouldn't they use digital id's to surveil and track people. It's a sort of predicament that's its all happening at a time like this.
The people database at Home Affairs has been exploited and manipulated for many years already, and most of them are desperate immigrants that have swarmed the nation in yesteryears but the reality of it all, is that to mitigate the problem caused by them, they urge people to accept digital ID's so that they can see where the problem is and the can avoid making the same mistake twice at the cost of our freedom! Who is to say freedom is a part of democracy when we have the digital ID system already being built out.
They're using the excuse that having digital ID's will actually deter impersonations and fraudulent activities to be carried out by criminals and hacker networks, but it's all a big problem once your phone is intercepted. The most easiest thing to do to one's phone is to steal it and you have their identity compromised, when you rely on an app and a database.
It's a User Economy, not a Consumer Economy
Most people already have phones now and they can use the internet to connect with loved ones and also purchase things on web stores. Once a consumer installs an app on a phone, they are now a user. They're rights change immediately and you can be regarded as a user of apps. A digital ID that lives on your phone as an app can also be compromisd as well, it is not much easier to stop an attack as a user. The rights are different for users and consumers.
So the real question lies with, why would a digital ID be implemented in a society and used to surveil and track users?
The very same question can be asked to the many apps on one's phone that track users, because they can, and once you accept the terms of service and proceed to install, you are agreeing to them. So they can do whatever they want with your data and sell it, track your daily habits, track you because why wouldn't they tie specific device permissions to the app? The digital ID app is a trap, and most people that don't mind or question the rollout are complicit to tracking and surveillance.
Already a Misstep
Google is heavily rolling out the disability to sideload apps on their operating system which includes GMS (Google Mobile Services), that have Google Maps, Google Carrier Services, Google Messages and Google core app already installed. All these apps overide the user's privacy by using location based system permissions. Regular android users can't remove them, and if you are tech savvy you can use tools to remove these particular apps and still be able to use your phone.
Apple itself has never allowed the ability to sideload because they use a different roadmap with their user base. Although they love saying "Privacy First", it doesn't equate to complete privacy as some services and apps require a user to drop their guards and allow these specific permissions to persist without they're knowledge.
Graphene and Linux Mobile are already excluded in the operating systems required to have the digital ID app to install them. Both these OS's really keep users safe from surveillance and tracking by using sandboxes for everything that you do on the phone. You can't even have any banking app on these OS's because they have stripped out the permissioins in the runtime itself, making the OS very hard to crack open, or track without these particular tracking features.
Digital ID Framework
The digital ID framework only works when citizens are compliant and obedient. Once the digital ID is agreed upon that it's rolling out to everyone, who is to say that fake digital ID's will not be included in the people database? Employees in these government institutions have been compromised before by accpting to participate in allowing outsiders residency in our beloved country, who is to say that it won't happen again? The framework is also not being explained to citizens in a friendly way, they just want everyone to listen and keep quiet, and if then we don't say anything it means we are saying "yes" we want digital ID's.
How Will It Work?
How will having a digital ID even work? Will everyone be required to have one on their persons daily?
The country is riddled with homeless people that live off of donations and organisations that offer food but where will they get phones to download said digital ID app? It's a win lose game where citizens lose and the government wins. Having no phone will mean you don't get an ID, and having no ID means you are an immigrant, and they can deport you, even if you are not an immigrant.
Another question is, if you are a citizen but have no phone, will they give you a phone so you can install it just to have a digital ID app in it? More trackers installed without the user knowing if the phone itself has trackers and have your rights revoked because you have a phone you never bought but donated to you. Then it means they can catch you without wasting resources, by just locating you on their database of digital ID trackers.
Will the Officials Enforcing Digital ID's get one?
The law states that officials must not have surveilling apps on their devices and state issued devices regardless of whether they are working or not. So they will not be using digital ID's like the citizens themselves. It's working out well for the people enforcing these laws on citizens but then they're families too, might not be installing these apps on their phones to keep the officials safe and free form surveillance and trackers.
To find out more about what you could do to save yourself surveillance infrastructure, please see the services page and lockdown your private life from snooping.