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Anonymous IDs – The Potential

Anonymous IDs – The Potential

  • January 27, 2025

In the digital age, governments and the citizens of those governments have been faced with an ever harsher pressing reality, the reality of online anonymity. It has its pluses and minuses to put it lightly, and often governments and individuals are approaching and attempting to deal with this reality in an all or nothing manner. However unlike the internet that spawned this issue, the reality of anonymity does not deal in 0’s and 1’s, all and nothing. In this article I want to suggest the potential of Anonymous ID’s, ID’s granted to individuals and unaffiliated (and therefore untraceable) with either the individual’s ID, SSN, biometric data, or other identifying info.

An Overview -The Benefits and Drawbacks of Online Anonymity

First let’s do a quick overview of what online anonymity is and its benefits and drawbacks. In case you were wondering what exactly we are referring to by “online anonymity”, we are referring to the ability of an entity to interact with other computers across the internet “anonymously” that is, without that entity’s interactions being traceable back to that entity. Online anonymity has often been argued as  a human right in the digital age, and that without it, entities (whether governments, mega corps, or random hackers) could track all of an entity’s (for instance your) online activity back to that entity or individual (for instance you) and violate that entity’s right to privacy. This post does not attempt to cover whether or not or to what extent “online anonymity” may be a human right.

The reality of online anonymity has presented humanity and it’s governments with several benefits and drawbacks. Benefits have included online privacy, individuals (like you and I) have not needed to worry about the potential of “Big Brother” tracking our every online move (or have we? I suppose that could potentially be argued), another benefit has been that online anonymity by defacto protects the rights secured us as Americans in the first Amendment, without online anonymity it becomes increasingly easy for entities (whether govs, mega corps, hackers, or foreign adversaries) to proactively silence political opponents and “disapproved” viewpoints, beliefs, and facts.

Drawbacks though have been many and non-negligible, however we will focus on a couple prevalent issues, the issues that Digital IDs in the first place aim to repair, the first of these issues is the ever increasing prevalence of minors engaging in harmful, violent, and explicitly sexual, media and content online (especially on social media platforms, etc.) A second is the growing prevalence of “bot actors” online, these bots may amplify certain viewpoints, swamping opposing viewpoints, and silence healthy public discussion around important subjects, events, etc. There is a third supposed “drawback” to online anonymity which I listed as a benefit, this is the way in which online anonymity facilitates the rights guaranteed to us as Americans in our First Amendment. Anonymous IDs do not aim to counter this “drawback” but rather protect it. Together these particular drawbacks are what have prompted legislation across the globe that cracks down on online anonymity.

Anonymous IDs -The Potential

Current thoughts and ideas on how to address online anonymity are treacherous to the humanity they aim to serve though. As til now two separate streams of thought have taken precedence over any others. On the one hand we have the entities that would enforce Digital ID’s that are tied to an individual’s identifying info such as their driver’s license, SSN, biometric data, or another form of their identifying data. While in the other hand we have those that say, “you can’t touch online anonymity without bringing down democracy”.  These are the exact ideas I would challenge. We can implement anonymity friendly technologies that preserve humanity’s right to privacy and that at the same time address the ever pressing issues of our kids being ruined by social media giants and of ever increasing numbers of fake “bots” online.

Anonymous IDs would be government issued IDs issued to citizens of a country that could be used across platforms online to identify an online “entity” according to legal requirements while maintaining the “entity’s” anonymity. These Anonymous IDs would not be tied to any personally identifying information of an individual. They would contain basic info such as “Age: Under 18” or “Age: Over 18, Under 21” or “Age: Over 21”. They would be password and 2FA protected and may or may not be associated with an email address. (Of course an email address is to some extent personally identifying info, however there are anonymous email providers such as ProtonMail). 

These IDs would be issued either directly via government agencies or via approved organisations. When an applicant applies for an “Anonymous ID” they would have to show proof of their identity, age, and any other required information. This identifying info while required to obtain the ID would not be affiliated with the ID. The issuer of the “Anonymous ID” would sign off on the ID (basically authorizing it). The anonymity of the ID would be ensured as the issuer / government agency would keep NO record, absolutely NO record of who applied for the ID nor who it was issued to. 

This type of “anonymized” authorization is already present throughout America. Every time a customer purchases tobacco or alcohol in an American grocery store, this principle of anonymous authorization is at work, the cashier may check the customer’s ID if they suspect the individual is under 21, if the individual is under 21 the cashier / grocer denies the tobacco / alcohol. The burden of verifying the age of the customer falls on the cashier, this principle would apply to the issuance of anonymous IDs as well, when an individual applies for an anonymous ID the issuer would verify the identity of the applicant etc. and then issue the Anonymous ID. Just as many if not most grocery stores across the US do not keep a record of every customer that purchases alcohol, the issuer of the Anonymous ID would also not keep a record of applicants, thus ensuring the anonymity of the ID.

Final Thoughts

I do not expect this article to be a “cure-all” for the issues addressed in this article, I just wanted to present the concept of “Anonymous IDs”, it may or may not be a new one (I am not aware of other articles on the concept). I realize this is a contentious issue and one fraught with different viewpoints. I think though that most people agree on two essential aspects of this argument, we all want online privacy and we do not want our kids accessing harmful content online etc. This topic should be presented to the public in a very open manner, we need discussion around it, we need to be reasonable, in the end this decision shouldn’t be made alone by politicians, but by a cohesive working of the people and governments together. I more than welcome comments, share this with your friends, criticize it, praise it, whatever, but let’s get this conversation moving.

Walter Miely is a tech entrepreneur and CEO of Phoenix Ignited Tech You can find him on Linkedin. This material is licensed under the CC BY 4.0 License LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The content provided here is provided AS IS, and part of, or the entirety of this content may be incorrect. Please read the entireLegal Disclaimer here.

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