Courtesy of Dr. J we have this report.  Generally I think this is a bunch of speak-think from the White House. 

President Obama is putting plans in motion to give the Commerce Department authority to create an Internet ID for all Americans, a White House official told CNET.com.
White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt told the website it is “the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government” to centralize efforts toward creating an “identity ecosystem” for the Internet.
The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace is currently being drafted by the Obama administration and will be released by the president in a few months.
“We are not talking about a national ID card. We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy, and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities,” Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said at an event Friday at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, according to CNET.com.
Locke added that the Commerce Department will be setting up a national program office to work on this project.
The move has raised eyebrows about privacy issues.
“The government cannot create that identity infrastructure,” Jim Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology told the website. “If I tried to, I wouldn’t be trusted.”
Schmidt stresses that anonymity will remain on the Internet, saying there’s no chance that “a centralized database will emerge.”

First, there are a couple aspects of “privacy” that we should consider: (1) specific details or information about an individual that are sensitive for various reasons (SSNs, date of birth, place of birth, mother’s maiden name, etc.), (2) activities or actions by an individual that they do not want revealed without their consent or only by their control.  So the White House is proposing to create an online identity (specific details about a person) that could/would be used to track one’s activities on the internet (actions/activities by an individual).  Right.  Remember this is the same administration that has floated the argument that people should have the assumption of privacy with regards to aspects of your cell phone usage possibly to include the data (both voice and non-voice data) that it sends. 

Now, the one benefit of such a scheme would be to propel us closer to a paper-free environment – financial documents and other binding legal documents could be electronically signed.  Of course, some caution needs to be employed as many schemes could (and would) be used to try to counterfeit these.

Bottom line – nothing concrete will come of this from this administration.  It might, with a very small chance, spur commercial efforts towards implementing something similar (i.e. PKI or SSL certificates on a personal level).  So, Dr. J, your online identity is just fine – we look forward to more emails from you!

GorT

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