Digital ID

I went to the municipal office this morning and fetched my digital ID card which had been waiting there for me since a few months (call me lazy). So, I now officially have a digital identity.

Of course, I already had a digital identity. My trusty GnuPG key that I use for my Debian work, amongst others, still has value. And I actually prefer to use that key for most things, really:

1. I prefer to use a trust system that is based on how I think things are done safely, rather than having to trust a third party—even if that third party is the government
2. The digital ID cards are made with my National Number as part of the X509 keys on them. This is a highly sensitive number wrt my privacy, so I prefer not to use it for everything and the kitchen sink.

These two things are unfortunate, though technically sound (if you want a key that is useful in a court office, having a government-signed key is of more value; and the National Number, though privacy-sensitive, already existed before the digital ID card and would be cumbersome to change; also, it would be silly to invent a new numbering scheme just for the sake of it). And technically sound is also how the rest of the card is built up—always nice if people with clue design something.