{"id":281062,"date":"2026-06-25T00:02:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T04:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/25\/states-digital-wallet-plan-is-a-gift-for-cybercriminals-and-a-data-privacy-nightmare-the-irish-times\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T00:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T04:45:10","slug":"states-digital-wallet-plan-is-a-gift-for-cybercriminals-and-a-data-privacy-nightmare-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/25\/states-digital-wallet-plan-is-a-gift-for-cybercriminals-and-a-data-privacy-nightmare-the-irish-times\/","title":{"rendered":"State\u2019s digital wallet plan is a gift for cybercriminals and a data privacy nightmare \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

State\u2019s digital wallet plan is a gift for cybercriminals and a data privacy nightmare \u2013 The Irish Times<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/technology\/2026\/06\/25\/states-digital-wallet-plan-is-a-gift-for-cybercriminals-and-a-data-privacy-nightmare\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-06-25 00:02:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.irishtimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

M<\/span>y mother celebrated her 87th birthday earlier this month. She\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

When dealing with tech companies and their many perplexing ideas, it\u2019s important to simplify. That\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

As is the norm with such matters these days, it all results from an idea that was meant to protect people.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0<\/span>Ireland could require digital ID to access porn websitesOpens in new window<\/span>\u00a0]<\/span><\/p>\n

The goal is obviously well-intended. It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a treasure trove of data that would have every self-respecting cybercriminal salivating. The process will involve the digital wallet, the user\u2019s phone, whatever website they are trying to access and, potentially, an external verification provider.<\/p>\n

To keep things simple, that\u2019s three or four separate places through which this personal information has to travel. Every additional segment creates another possible weakness.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0<\/span>Age verification won\u2019t stop children accessing porn onlineOpens in new window<\/span>\u00a0]<\/span><\/p>\n

The State would also be conditioning people, again with good intentions, to expect requests involving their digital…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

State\u2019s digital wallet plan is a gift for cybercriminals and a data privacy nightmare \u2013…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":281064,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/resizer\/v2\/DIXLBMK6QVCNLHEJS2BTLTOIQA.jpg?smart=true&auth=60d85dcbe96a2d43b150e2dbf57e39833e03d59ee1bfad29553c1c1627fa6b6e&width=1200&height=630","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281062"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281062"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281066,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281062\/revisions\/281066"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}