This is a problem that the the Laws of Identity and things like the MS Identity Meta-System addresses.

There already exists an institution of heraldry, no less, the “badge”, “shield”, or “gorget”, which — as a “smart” device of some sort a citizen should be able to validate even more reliably than the police can establish the identity of a citizen.

My heraldic badge is not on the list of items acceptable to my bank: Why not!

Two reasons:

First, traditional and reliable parties for the authentication of claims-based identity are sort of out-of-it relative to modern technologies for doing what they could be doing today. They are antiquarian. From a philosophy-of-identity stand point, that is fine — a source of their authority and reputation. From a technology-of-identity standpoint it is self-destructive and subversive.

Second, pseudo-modern and quasi-progressive “high-tech” schemes, like the “National Identity Card” in Britain, or the “Real ID Card” in the US, bear an obscure political agenda of self-perpetuation for government concession-tenders.

That agenda is obsolete but not actually archaic. It is “New!” without being sophisticated at all in matters of advanced technology.

Were it otherwise, financial institutions would identitify you and, importantly, identitify themselves to you using reliable new technology but in a way that is still fundamentally a matter of ancient usage and custom.

The modern “gorget” would probably be part of the radio apparatus that police officers usually carry and would complement radio apparatus that almost everybody else carries in urban public spaces today instead of, say, a sword or — in Texas by right — a firearm.

A gorget today would reliably identitify and log official encounters to the mutual benefit and security of both parties. What it would do would be arcane and digital, but no more or less important than, say, …

“Good, day officer…” [tips hat]

“And, the same to you, Sir” [returns salute]

This is an anonymous and courteous, which is to say, disarming exchange that is actually important to the preservation of peace and order in society. It can be faked, but that is harder than one might think.

It could also be complemented by rf negotiation also of a harmless but comforting variety, if both sides to certain questions — like the LSE/Home Office controversy — were dealing with each other and Her Majesty’s subjects in good faith.

The NRA likes to claim that “a well armed society is a polite society”. I think they are all wrong about firearms, today, but not about arms generally. The term “arms” applies as much or more to heraldry than to ordnance. It is very much a category that seals and ciphers fall into, which is to say that an “identity meta-system” resides in.

So, I wonder what your Sovereign thinks of these controversies. They actually involve matters that are still privy to Her Royal Highness in the actual scheme of things yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Your unwritten constitution might be easier to keep abreast of new technology than our 1874 document here in Texas.

Kim CAMERON is clear on the difference between philosoph(ies) of identity — I would actually use admiralty terminology “custom and usage” — and a meta-system of identity — of which InfoCard is one.

I am very familiar with government-technology, especially military aircraft, being both brand-new and completely obsolete or, the opposite: aging aircraft, the C-130, B-52, F-16, and A-10, being far and away the most useful in the US inventory of costly folly.

I think that Identity v2.0 will work if and only if implemented in cell phones. These are, in fact, the modern “side-arm” already. I am looking forward, for instance, to the digital equivalent of the tip-of-hat returned by presentation-of-baton exchange.

Those are mutually disarming gestures which anonymously convey both respect for authority and dignity of the individual. Of course, a resident may want to know the actual name or, at least, unit designation a policeman on the local neighborhood beat and may want to identify himself or herself by name, also, maybe, to signal distress or duress silently.

The key to all of that is the distinction, hard to make, between unidirectional and bi-directional identifiers. (A badge number and unit designator are bi-directional.)

Identifiers and “beacons” have baffled me for a while, but I appreciate this blog as a means to clarify my thinking about both the technical and the political matters in play.

Another distinction that is hard to make is between privacy and security. These terms are casually used interchangeably. They are, indeed, complementary. But, they are not the same: Privacy is related to property and is a matter of personality. Security is a public good and a matter of social solidarity. I can have more property and buy more privacy than you. But, our security is in common. Your peril or safety are mine also in some contexts.

Sad about Lady Diana. But, all us Jacobites over here in the Montrose look forward to one of her sons ascending the throne at the Court of St. James.

“So, what sort of ID system protects people against crooks posing as policemen?”

The one in Hong Kong.