State’s digital wallet plan is a gift for cybercriminals and a data privacy nightmare – The Irish Times
Publish Date: 2026-06-25 00:02:00
Source Domain: www.irishtimes.com
My mother celebrated her 87th birthday earlier this month. She’s wonderful, in fine fettle and will happily admit that she is in no way a techie. But, along with my late father, she has been crucial to almost every interview I do.
When dealing with tech companies and their many perplexing ideas, it’s important to simplify. That’s why my first question in almost all interviews I conduct is to ask the subject to explain what they do in a way that she will understand. Many a confident face has turned pale when faced with the Ma test.
Today, the onus is on me to do so because of a digital innovation that both threatens the basic liberty of every resident of the European Union and exposes them to enormous data-security risk.
As is the norm with such matters these days, it all results from an idea that was meant to protect people.
Earlier this month, Ellen Coyne reported in this paper that the Government plans to introduce a digital wallet so that an adult can prove they are an adult before accessing pornography websites.
[ Ireland could require digital ID to access porn websitesOpens in new window ]
The goal is obviously well-intended. It’s also a dreadful idea. Such a tool would mean the passport, driving licence and MyGovID details of thousands, likely hundreds of thousands, of people would become part of a regularly accessed database.
It’s a treasure trove of data that would have every self-respecting cybercriminal salivating. The process will involve the digital wallet, the user’s phone, whatever website they are trying to access and, potentially, an external verification provider.
To keep things simple, that’s three or four separate places through which this personal information has to travel. Every additional segment creates another possible weakness.
[ Age verification won’t stop children accessing porn onlineOpens in new window ]
The State would also be conditioning people, again with good intentions, to expect requests involving their digital…
