[GA - Passed] Prevention of Identity Theft

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Chipoli

Security Councilor
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Chipoli
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Prevention Of Identity Theft
Category: International Security | Strength: Mild
Proposed by: Chipoli | Onsite Topic
The World Assembly,

Believing identity theft to be a global problem that if not addressed, can lead to serious consequences for all those who fall victim to this shameless act,

Recognizing that identity theft can occur through a variety of means, including the theft of personal information, the use of stolen personal information to commit fraud, and the use of altered or counterfeit identity documents,

Noting that while past resolutions were passed in this august assembly with good intentions (GA Resolution 110, “Identity Theft Prevention Act” and GA Resolution 576, "Preventing Identity Theft"), their flaws rendered them ineffective at combating this problem, and thus replacement legislation is required,

Determined to prevent identity theft and protect the victims from its consequences,

Hereby enacts the following into World Assembly Law:

1. Defines “Identity Theft” as the acquisition of another person's identifying or financial information to use their identity for financial gain without their consent.

2. Establishes the World Assembly Identity Database (WAID) to log and track stolen identities.

a. Law enforcement organizations in member states and member state governments are given full access to all of WAID's identity data within their nation. All data must be kept confidential and encrypted from any person or organization that isn't explicitly allowed access to the data.

b. Those entrusted with using WAID must undergo training to gain knowledge and understanding about using the database. Staff must be ensured to have passed the training before receiving access to the database.

c. Any individual that believes themselves to be a victim of identity theft and other agencies may submit their information to the database. All submitted information must be reviewed by administrators at WAID to verify their legitimacy and importance.

d. Depending on the severity, WAID itself may impose sanctions on any organization or person who abuses the database. In serious instances, the offender can be forbidden from using the database.
i. The WAID commission shall not leak or sell any identity data from the WAID.

3. Member states may share WAID data to apprehend the suspect(s).

4. All businesses and institutions that save personal data are urged to implement updated anti-identity-theft technology to counter any possible identity theft.

5. The act of identity theft or aiding someone in committing identity theft, shall be outlawed in all member states effective immediately.

a. Member states must combat identity theft as much as they possibly can within the scope of their jurisdictions by investigating identity theft reports, responding to them, and cooperating with identity theft victims.
Note: Only votes from TNP WA nations and NPA personnel will be counted. If you do not meet these requirements, please add (non-WA) or something of that effect to your vote.
Voting Instructions:
  • Vote For if you want the Delegate to vote For the resolution.
  • Vote Against if you want the Delegate to vote Against the resolution.
  • Vote Abstain if you want the Delegate to abstain from voting on this resolution.
  • Vote Present if you are personally abstaining from this vote.
Detailed opinions with your vote are appreciated and encouraged!


ForAgainstAbstainPresent
10302
 
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Overview
This resolution intends to act as a replacement for the now-repealed "Preventing Identity Theft". It establishes a number of mandates which do this; including creating the World Assembly Identity Database (WAID) in order "to log and track stolen identities"; establishing mechanisms for the distribution, addition, and protection of information within the WAID; and directly prohibiting the act of identity theft within all member nations.

Recommendation
We believe that these mandates are complete, effective, and overall necessary in the protection of identity theft victims around the world. While there exist concerns relating to the possibility of hacking of the WAID, we disagree with these arguments in the same manner that we accept fantastical elements of World Assembly roleplay: if magical gnomes can staff the World Assembly, surely they would be able to already enact otherwise-fantastical measures to prevent hacking of the WAID. We therefore find that the proposal's measures are overall highly beneficial to identity theft victims.

For the above reasons, the Ministry of World Assembly Affairs recommends a vote For the General Assembly resolution at vote, "Prevention of Identity Theft".
 
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Present as author. If you have any questions, I'll give you an answer.
 
For, as per discussions I had over discord. I was concerned about the WAID itself getting hacked but I'd defer to Chipoli that this should not be possible.
 
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Against (Non-WA, edited by Magecastle), the user is conservative
 
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(Non-WA) I am entirely for this, with little to comment. With regards to the WAID being hacked, I concur with Chipoli that this would not be possible, for much the same reasons as committees are assumed to be incorruptible.
 
Against. Any law enforcement officer is given total access to the database within their nation at all times. The resolution references a "WAID Commission" that isn't defined in the resolution. WAID can impose mysterious "sanctions" of an unclear nature.
(Non-WA) I am entirely for this, with little to comment. With regards to the WAID being hacked, I concur with Chipoli that this would not be possible, for much the same reasons as committees are assumed to be incorruptible.
This is nonsense. We may as well legislate a WA committee to govern all member states perfectly if this is the case. Pretending that problems will go away because the gnomes are somehow absolutely perfect in every way is absurd. Member states are given the ability to share WAID data - it must be presumed that this can be any data from the database as the resolution establishes no restrictions - to apprehend "suspects". Suspects of what?
 
Additional comment: I am keeping my For vote at the moment, but looking at Comfed's comments and the torrent of, erm, discussions on WALL, I really want to know: are we absolutely sure we are OK on this from a technical standpoint? Internet security is not a strong suit for me.
 
This is nonsense. We may as well legislate a WA committee to govern all member states perfectly if this is the case. Pretending that problems will go away because the gnomes are somehow absolutely perfect in every way is absurd. Member states are given the ability to share WAID data - it must be presumed that this can be any data from the database as the resolution establishes no restrictions - to apprehend "suspects". Suspects of what?
It is long-standing GA precedent that WA committees are presumed to be efficient and effective, otherwise every proposal involving committees would have to specify such matters are staffing requirements, oversight, operational procedures, and other minutiae which would go beyond the limit of one proposal and generally be tiresome to define. I’m not saying that any proposal should be justified on the grounds that committees, whereof I include the WAID as an example, are absolutely perfect. However, for the sake of simple convenience, I think that there should be caution in condemning proposals for the sorts of issues that become technical practicalities rather than substantive concerns of policy.

Incidentally, not specifying that the suspects are suspects of relevant criminal activity is certainly an oversight. That is a legitimate flaw in the proposal.
 
Against. Any law enforcement officer is given total access to the database within their nation at all times. The resolution references a "WAID Commission" that isn't defined in the resolution. WAID can impose mysterious "sanctions" of an unclear nature.

This is nonsense. We may as well legislate a WA committee to govern all member states perfectly if this is the case. Pretending that problems will go away because the gnomes are somehow absolutely perfect in every way is absurd. Member states are given the ability to share WAID data - it must be presumed that this can be any data from the database as the resolution establishes no restrictions - to apprehend "suspects". Suspects of what?
I’m not sure you understand how this game works. Read up on gnomes and committees. Or find a game that wastes time getting lost in the minutiae of setting up and defining in detail the committee we just throw around in these resolutions. That isn’t how we do things in the WA.
 
Against

I find that this resolution does very little at all, and what it does actually enforce is somewhat bizarre - the database thing seems half-baked at best. I will note, however, that I am not opposed to this out of concern of the database being hacked.

also there's a comma in clause 5 for some reason
 
Against

I find that this resolution does very little at all, and what it does actually enforce is somewhat bizarre - the database thing seems half-baked at best. I will note, however, that I am not opposed to this out of concern of the database being hacked.

also there's a comma in clause 5 for some reason
Can you explain how this resolution does “very little at all”? It bans identity theft, and creates WAID, creates protocols for it, and ensures that ID cases are properly investigated and those who commit it are punished. I think it does more than enough to prevent identity theft.
 
Against. Any law enforcement officer is given total access to the database within their nation at all times. The resolution references a "WAID Commission" that isn't defined in the resolution. WAID can impose mysterious "sanctions" of an unclear nature.

This is nonsense. We may as well legislate a WA committee to govern all member states perfectly if this is the case. Pretending that problems will go away because the gnomes are somehow absolutely perfect in every way is absurd. Member states are given the ability to share WAID data - it must be presumed that this can be any data from the database as the resolution establishes no restrictions - to apprehend "suspects". Suspects of what?
To start, WAID commission does not need to be identified. I thought it was frankly obvious what the proposal meant by that. I didn’t specify what those sanctions could be and left it up to those at WAID.

Your reasoning that the database creates no restrictions is false — it is made clear that member states can access their own data and therefore it is only their data they can share.

“Suspects of what?” I do not like to assume bad faith but this appears to be nitpicking. ID is the only crime mentioned in the resolution, and anyone who read it would assume it meant “Identity Theft” suspects.

Your hacking point has already been covered by others, but they are correct.
 
I’m not sure you understand how this game works. Read up on gnomes and committees. Or find a game that wastes time getting lost in the minutiae of setting up and defining in detail the committee we just throw around in these resolutions. That isn’t how we do things in the WA.
The way we do things in the WA is certainly not to wave all of our problems away with magic. There is no magic. Real life databases get hacked all the time, and we shouldn't claim that the WA operates in a fantasy world to excuse the fact an enormous database containing massive amounts of sensitive information will be a target for attack.
To start, WAID commission does not need to be identified. I thought it was frankly obvious what the proposal meant by that. I didn’t specify what those sanctions could be and left it up to those at WAID.
Can a sanction be life in prison?
Your reasoning that the database creates no restrictions is false — it is made clear that member states can access their own data and therefore it is only their data they can share.
No it's not. Where is that made clear? The only enforcement you stipulate is on law enforcement agencies.
“Suspects of what?” I do not like to assume bad faith but this appears to be nitpicking. ID is the only crime mentioned in the resolution, and anyone who read it would assume it meant “Identity Theft” suspects.
You can't write policy based on what people will assume it means. Your resolution just says that information can be used to apprehend "suspects", not "suspects of identity theft". I see no reason why the information in the database could not be used to identify suspects of any other crimes.
 
The way we do things in the WA is certainly not to wave all of our problems away with magic. There is no magic. Real life databases get hacked all the time, and we shouldn't claim that the WA operates in a fantasy world to excuse the fact an enormous database containing massive amounts of sensitive information will be a target for attack.

Can a sanction be life in prison?

No it's not. Where is that made clear? The only enforcement you stipulate is on law enforcement agencies.

You can't write policy based on what people will assume it means. Your resolution just says that information can be used to apprehend "suspects", not "suspects of identity theft". I see no reason why the information in the database could not be used to identify suspects of any other crimes.
"Life in Prison" is imprisonment, not a sanction. Since the WAID commission only controls WAID itself, the most serious sanction they can place is removing access to WAID from an individual.

Clause 2a:
Law enforcement organizations in member states and member state governments are given full access to all of WAID's identity data within their nation.

The WAID database is for stopping cases of Identity Theft. That's the reason.
 
"Life in Prison" is imprisonment, not a sanction. Since the WAID commission only controls WAID itself, the most serious sanction they can place is removing access to WAID from an individual.
Life in prison is absolutely a sanction in the sense that it is a punishment. The WAID commission is an institution of the WA and thus has the enforcement mechanisms of the WA at its disposal.
 
Life in prison is absolutely a sanction in the sense that it is a punishment. The WAID commission is an institution of the WA and thus has the enforcement mechanisms of the WA at its disposal.
There is no crime involving WAID that can possibly warrant a life sentence. The WA cannot abuse it's power either.
 
Against, the user is conservative

As per Forum rules, please declare if your nation is not in the WA at the time of voting as you are also not a member of NPA. As Kastonvia itself is not in WA.
 
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There is no crime involving WAID that can possibly warrant a life sentence. The WA cannot abuse it's power either.
This feels as though it is something that ought to have been placed into the proposal’s text. There’s no mention in the text that sanctions are connected with database; they could simply be fines for misuse. There is also no mention of sanctions being proportionate, reasonable, or fair. I do feel as though committees of the GA would not sentence somebody to a life-term, but there is legitimate thought that, where unspecified, committees take a maximalist approach to their mandates.
 
It is long-standing GA precedent that WA committees are presumed to be efficient and effective, otherwise every proposal involving committees would have to specify such matters are staffing requirements, oversight, operational procedures, and other minutiae which would go beyond the limit of one proposal and generally be tiresome to define. I’m not saying that any proposal should be justified on the grounds that committees, whereof I include the WAID as an example, are absolutely perfect. However, for the sake of simple convenience, I think that there should be caution in condemning proposals for the sorts of issues that become technical practicalities rather than substantive concerns of policy.

Incidentally, not specifying that the suspects are suspects of relevant criminal activity is certainly an oversight. That is a legitimate flaw in the proposal.

The main issue with the opposition to this resolution is of course the fact that this embeds an assumption that WAID is infallible, so it's entirely an out-of-character game rules matter. This becomes more of a debate over the rules of the game than the merits of the resolution itself. I think there's no right or wrong answer to this (it's like a debate on which version of Dungeons and Dragons is better).
 
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