Apple’s Quiet Path to Identity Control

Apple’s new Digital ID feature has arrived. And in true Apple fashion, it is dressed in the language of ease and convenience. Scan your passport into your iPhone or Apple Watch. Move through TSA with a quick tap. In other words, no wallet, no cards, and no friction. If you listen to Apple, it is a much-needed quiet upgrade to today’s modern life. But, beneath the surface, the pattern is all too familiar and increasingly global. Much of the world is already living inside digital identification enslavement systems that began in the same way, professing to be voluntary, limited, and wrapped neatly in claims of convenience.

A quick look at some examples of the steady march to digital serfdom around the world brings us first to India, where the Aadhaar program—one of the largest digital ID systems in the world—was launched as a voluntary biometric ID for welfare access. It is now linked to nearly every dimension of civil life—bank accounts, SIM cards, tax filing, and school enrollment. The program claims to improve efficiency, but critics point to data leaks, broad surveillance, and exclusion of those without access. The more central it becomes, the more difficult it is to function in daily life without it.

In Nigeria, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has pushed aggressive biometric enrollment under the promise of national security and access to services. Citizens without a digital ID have found themselves unable to open bank accounts, vote, or even register a phone number. As expected, privacy concerns remain high, and data protection laws lag behind the rollout of the system.

In communist China, the digital social credit system is blatantly overt. Indeed, digital ID, essentially digital enslavement, in China is woven into the country’s social credit framework, health code apps, transit access, and online behavior monitoring. What first appeared as an ID quickly became an extremely comprehensive behavioral control matrix. Meaning, the infrastructure isn’t just focused on who its citizens are and what they are doing. It is also intently focused on whether they are behaving correctly. In other words, in China, the integration of digital ID into everyday life has evolved into what can only be described as a totalizing infrastructure of behavioral governance. On the surface, China’s digital ID platform lauds itself as a tool of convenience. After all, it links one’s identity to transportation, medical access, financial services, and online platforms. But in reality, the system functions as a compliance engine, where access to society is actively conditioned by one’s alignment with state-defined norms.

And in Europe, where privacy laws are stronger, the European Union is building an EU Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI Wallet), which it insists will empower its citizens. The project was initially framed as an interoperable credential layer, but the wallet will eventually store health data, educational records, and financial verification. But integration with payment systems and travel documents points to a future in which opting out of the Digital Identity Wallet in the EU becomes functionally impossible. Additionally, and along the same theme of tracking and control, the EU recently launched the Entry/Exit System (EES), which, along with the for now voluntary EUDI Wallet, ushers in mandatory biometric scanning requirements for border entry.

Each of these surveillance systems began with the same user-centered narrative. Citizens were told they would eliminate fraud, simplify paperwork, and speed up service, among other conveniences. And all of them now exert structural force over the movement, access, and inclusion of its citizens. The no-big-deal digital IDs have shifted from being helpful tools to being mandatory requirements to operate in society. This crippling control underscores the significance of Apple’s Digital ID.

Why? Unlike state-run Digital ID programs, Apple’s “here to help” rollout completely bypasses national debate. Instead, it enters through consumer behavior, installing itself not through a law, but through design. And because Apple is a private company, it is not subject to the constitutional limitations that govern state-run identity systems. Its data design choices are constrained by statute and regulation—but not by democratic processes or constitutional privacy guarantees. Suppose the time comes when governments begin to adopt Apple’s system for public verification. In that case, it would appear that a constitutional bypass has effectively occurred, delegating core civic functions to an entity not accountable via law in the same way.

Is it possible to have a sovereign identity framework in a technologically saturated world? If the system honored decentralization, informed consent, data minimalism, and local interoperability, then perhaps. We must not forget that our identity is something we own. It is not something we rent or have access to through a device. Apple’s Digital ID system may appear innocent enough today. But those of us paying attention see the pattern and recognize what is at stake. Convenience is the easy bait. Then reliance is the hook. And exclusion is the net that traps us. The window to reset the trap is immediately before us.

🚨 THE DIGITAL ID WARNING THEY DON’T WANT TO HEAR 🚨@Shellenberger: “Digital IDs start ‘voluntary,’ then become mandatory — rewards, then punishments. This is a path to digital totalitarianism.” pic.twitter.com/OyweOAWYB2

— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) November 14, 2025