Centralized eID May be the Target of the Next Nordstream Pipeline Attack

With the vast centralization of government digitization in general, and issuance and operation of Digital Identity services in particular, the Nordic countries have made themselves unnecessarily vulnerable to attacks by actors such as those with the resources to blow up the Nordstream pipelines in the Baltic Sea.

With the new Danish digital identity, MitID, as an example, I will discuss

1. How governments and/or banks centrally attempt to strike a balance between vulnerability and user adoption,
2. Why compliance and certification may only take you so far, and finally,
3. How concepts such as wallets and Verifiable Credentials may decentralize the digital identity ecosystem not only for increased privacy but also for more robust and secure infrastructures less prone to attacks by bad actors.