But what will it be like when you have to have a sail fawn – if you want to be able to (legally) drive. Or bank. Or eat at a restaurant? 

To live?

Dozens of states are working to implement what are styled Digital Driver's Licenses – using your sail fawn as the mechanism of storing/displaying them. The sell is – as it was with sail fawns, themselves – convenience. The great burden of having to tote around that little card you got from the DMV will be lifted. It will be so much  . . . easier to just flash your driver's license when needed.

That requirement.

Once, a driver's license was evidence of a license – government's permission – to drive. Now it is an ID, which is a de facto must-have even if you do not drive. Without one, it is hard to do business at a bank. To get a job. To buy over-the-counter cough syrup (but not to vote – assuming you haven't got the right to).

But at least it was just an ID.

A digital ID would be much more than just that. By its nature, it would tie in to everything about you that's on your phone – including, inevitably, your social credit score. Which is the ultimate end game here.

With a conventional – compartmentalized – ID, you don't hand your life history over to the armed government worker who demands to see it. You hand him the ID and it tells him who you are and that's all.