Responding to the inevitability of universal, global digital IDs

If you live in China, Australia, Great Britain, Ireland, Canada and any number of others,

•  You have already been "surrendered" to the curse of your digital ID and the absolute power of your "overlords" in government and beyond of being capable of censoring and penalizing you for anything you say, virtually or otherwise. 
• In the US the issue is a bit more in doubt, but I suspect that is but temporary for most of us, but a rear-guard action in our retreat as well. One of the key accelerants, of course, is AI. 

The ramifications of not only being fully digitized as an individual, as in China today, for example, but having the system managed by AI is mind numbing. So, I asked Perplexity AI to suggest how one best in this environment can still protect or preserve identity and things of value. With my edits and comments, here is the reply: 

“Living in a fully digitized, AI managed identity system shifts the default from “anonymous by default” to “tracked by default,” so self protection means deliberately rebuilding some autonomy, ambiguity, and resilience on top of that environment.” [1][2]

A. Core risks in AI managed ID and processes

   1. Linkage of everything: Centralized digital IDs and social credit style systems let states or platforms link financial records, location, communications, and behavior into one profile, often scored for “trustworthiness.”[3][4][5]

   2. Automated punishment and exclusion: Once access to travel, banking, or social services flows through digital ID, AI systems can quietly downgrade or block people (“un personing”) based on opaque rules, errors, or politics.[6][7]

   3. Biometric lock in: Facial recognition and other biometrics tie your physical body to the system, and leaks are irreversible because you cannot change your face or fingerprints like a password.[8][1]

B. Strategic posture: Key assumptions and operating principles

   1. Assume visibility, fight linkage: Act as if core actions are observable, but work to prevent everything from being tied to a single profile where possible (legal, technical, and behavioral separation).[9][10]

   2. Resilience over invisibility: In a world of mandatory digital ID, the main defense is not disappearing but ensuring revocation, scoring, or misuse cannot destroy your ability to live, work, and transact.[7][11]

C. Practical moves: identity and data management

   1. Minimize exposed data: Share only what is required; avoid posting detailed personal patterns (travel, routines, family identifiers) that AI can mine and link back to you.[12][1]

   2. Strong authentication and compartmentalization: Use hardware keys or strong multifactor authentication on critical accounts, and keep separate email/phone identifiers for finance, government, and social life to reduce cross linking and fraud risk.[13][9]

   3. Limit biometrics where optional: Prefer non biometric factors when you have a choice, and be cautious about handing face/voice data to commercial services that might feed large AI models.[2][1]

D. Legal, institutional, political and technical shields

   1. Support hard constraints on revocation power: Back laws and policies that forbid governments or ID issuers from remotely disabling digital IDs or making them a condition for all online activity.[10][7]

   2. Push for privacy by design ID: Favor systems with data minimization, purpose limitation, and strong audit trails over open ended data sharing with AI systems and third parties.[14][11] 

   3. Use intermediaries and advocates: Identity protection services, legal plans, and civil liberties groups can challenge wrongful scoring, misuse of data, and automated decisions when you are targeted or misclassified.[15][14]l

E. Preserving non digital value and self-representations

   1. Keep critical assets partly offline: Maintain some wealth, documents, and proof of relationships in forms that do not depend entirely on a single digital account or credential (e.g., diversified financial institutions, physical records in secure storage).[14][10]

   2. Cultivate alternative reputations: Build trust and standing in offline communities—professional, local, relational—so that your practical identity does not live only inside a state or platform score.[5][10]

   3. Practice “information asceticism”: Treat what you reveal—habits, networks, convictions—as a scarce resource; disclose intentionally, not reflexively, especially in environments that feed data directly into scoring or surveillance AI.[1][9]

My work with LegalShield and IdentityShield falls into D3, Identity protection services, legal plans: williamacton.legalshieldassociate.com. I have personally taken up the suggestion below and would recommend that strategy as well. 

(Additional offer by Perplexity) If you like, a next step can be a concrete checklist tailored to your specific institutions (banks, insurers, ID protection tools) and to the worst case scenarios you most want to be resilient against.

Clker.com

Sources

[1](https://www.dataguard.com/blog/growing-data-privacy-concerns-ai/)
[2](https://www.ibm.com/think/insights/ai-privacy)
[3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System)
[4](https://decodingthedragon.substack.com/p/34-the-evolution-and-truth-of-chinas)
[5](https://jpia.princeton.edu/news/social-credit-system-not-just-another-chinese-idiosyncrasy)
[6](https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/fileadmin/files/aam/Asia-Book_A_03_China_Social_Credit_System.pdf)
[7](https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/un-personing-with-digital-id)
[8](https://joinhorizons.com/china-social-credit-system-explained/)
[9](https://www.propelex.com/blog/ai-digital-identity-data-privacy-2025/)
[10](http://digitalgovernmenthub.org/library/digital-ids-must-be-safe-secure-and-accessible/)
[11](https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/trustworthy-digital-identities-can-set-the-standards-for-secure-benefits-provision-in-the-us/)
[12](https://www.idmanagement.gov/experiments/cdns/paper3/)
[13](https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2023/11/3-ways-state-agencies-protect-citizens-digital-identities)
[14](https://trustarc.com/resource/risk-management-brief-ethics-privacy-risks-ai/)
[15](https://www.odni.gov/files/NCSC/documents/campaign/DoD_IAPM_Guide_March_2021.pdf)
[16](https://www.cigionline.org/articles/taking-the-wrong-lesson-from-chinas-ai-strategy/)
[17](https://open.metu.edu.tr/bitstream/handle/11511/101891/Artificial%20Intelligence%20and%20Social%20Credit%20System%20in%20China%20-%20Turgut%20BASER%20-%202013605.pdf)
[18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps0Si4FhOPM)
[19](https://bigid.com/blog/identity-governance-for-ai-systems/)
[20](https://fpf.org/blog/minding-mindful-machines-ai-agents-and-data-protection-considerations/)