How Boosting Your Privacy Will Make America More Secure – nationalinterest.org

How Boosting Your Privacy Will Make America More Secure  nationalinterest.org

New digital identity tools could give individuals greater control over personal data while helping combat fraud, illicit finance, and AI-enabled threats. A woman uses a smartphone as facial recognition technology scans and maps her face. Privacy-centered digital identity could help verify individuals, combat fraud, and strengthen national security without exposing unnecessary personal information. (Shutterstock/Trismegist san) In the era of big data, big tech, and big government, privacy is getting smaller. Our phones know more about us than our families do, while emerging artificial intelligence (AI) tools are making it easier than ever for hostile actors to harvest information. Criminals are eagerly adopting AI to boost their ability to find fraud victims or cyber vulnerabilities.

As we enter a world of AI-amplified surveillance, the window for designing a meaningful solution to re-enable privacy is rapidly narrowing. Reinvigorating privacy starts with fixing our outdated system of identification. Weak identity controls provide fertile ground for criminals, facilitating money laundering, sanctions evasion, and state-sanctioned hacking. In 2024, the Treasury Department reported that more than $200 billion in identity-related suspicious transactions went through the banking system in a single year. Drug cartels, human traffickers, and fraudsters are among the known beneficiaries, moving vast sums through the financial system without revealing the entities behind the money. How can the government follow the money and catch the