I am briefly suspending my self-imposed Twitter hiatus to comment on the PM's softened stance on NIDS. He talks about how he has "learned" from the initial proposal and the new proposal will not be forced on Jamaicans under threat of jail and fines. http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20201216/new-nids-voluntary-identity-law-controversy-lesson-all-says-pm

Well, the article makes no mention of penalties for refusing to enroll but this is what was discussed and encouraged at the time. That last part of the previous tweet was really the issue with the initial proposal. To put it succinctly, NIDS 1.0 would have laid the groundwork

for the government to assert that, so long as there is a tangible, real-world benefit, it can (and should) infringe upon the rights of anyone. My issue with NIDS 1.0 was less that the government wanted to repeatedly collect & store biometrics and more that they feel they could

do this with impunity, as if the rights of the individual are not inalienable. The PM says that enrollment will be voluntary and collected biometrics will be only that which meets the criteria of being “absolutely necessary to ensure the efficacy of the process...”

The quotes from the PM in the article seem simultaneously ambiguous and unambiguous. The specificity of what will be required for NIDS 2.0 isn't mentioned and one wonders if this is a roundabout way for the government to get what it wants.

I'll just offer a brief thought on the

nature of privacy in contemporary society. It's no secret that tech companies (and governments) have been egregious in their data collection practices. The argument that, because collection of private data is almost ubiquitous, NIDS 1.0 should have been welcomed is erroneous.

Which are the other instances where we admit that practices are objectively bad but insist that the solution is to do more of the bad thing as opposed reigning in the proponents of said bad practices?

Anyway, that's that. The PM's words are encouraging. I still don't like him.