We have too many online logins. Governments are looking for a way to not only mitigate that problem but also to find a way to verify the people who use the internet. Here’s what they’ve come up with so far:

• Poor countries and several European countries prefer government issued ID cards.
• Those in America, England, and Canada though are suspicious about the government controlling all that information. They’re also skeptical about the cost.
• Instead they prefer to give over identification responsibilities to corporations. The reasoning is that institutions such as banks and mobile operators already have a fair amount of information about us and can use that information to identify us online.
• The way it would work is that there would be one standard adopted by all. You could choose to verify your identity through your bank or your mobile operator. The company behind it would earn a small fee every time your identity is verified through them, and government would save on the costs of running the system themselves.
• The American government has given $9 million to a pilot project that tests this out. The aim is to have half of all Americans using this system by 2016.

Read more about the conundrum that governments face, the privacy issues that this raises, and why this might improve (or hurt depending on your face) your dating prospects over here.

Source: The Economist