➡ Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) is a concept introduced by the United Nations Development Program, which includes digital ID, digital payments, and data exchange. Digital ID is the foundation for identifying oneself in any country’s digital public infrastructure. While these systems are often marketed as voluntary, they can become practically mandatory as more people and services start using them. The concern is that this could lead to a digital control grid, where stepping out of line in one area could have implications in all others.

➡ The text discusses the potential issues with digital ID systems, such as data leaks and misuse of personal information. It suggests that the best way to protect oneself is to distance from the digital ID infrastructure and create a local network of trusted individuals. The text also encourages exploring alternative commerce methods like cryptocurrency, cash, bartering, and precious metals. It emphasizes the importance of individual authority and the need to create better systems rather than relying on government or global institutions.

➡ The article discusses the fragility of the current control grid and encourages people to use their skills and resources to build a better system. It emphasizes the importance of understanding and using technology that is not connected to the control grid. The article also warns about the potential risks of using big tech phones and recommends using alternative operating systems and open-source apps for privacy. Lastly, it promotes the use of resources like abovephone.com and the T bot show to learn more about these topics.

Welcome back, friends. Welcome back to the Corbett Report. James Corbett here, CorbettReport.com coming to you in November of 2025 with an important conversation about a topic that is on everyone’s minds these days, or at least should be. And it’s almost getting impossible for me to even evade the daily stream of stories around this topic. Just the latest coming through the news wires as we record this. Reclaimthenet.org Russia moves to mandate state biometric ID for online age verification. Yes, today we’re going to about the specter of digital id. And no matter what corner of the globe you happen to reside in, I guarantee you are.

Well, you should be thinking about it. And there are moves that your government is making along those lines. And if you want to know about those moves that are happening towards the implementation of digital id, then you’re going to want to get your hands on a pretty comprehensive report on this subject. It’s called Life Under Digital id, A Global Analysis with Solutions. And it is a handy dandy PDF document that that is a relatively tight 30 pages. You can read this obviously in one sitting, but it’s got a lot of information not only about what digital ID is and how it is being implemented, but specific case studies in country after country after country from every region of the globe that helps put this in perspective.

And today we’re going to be talking to the man behind this report. Of course, you will know Hakeem Anwar from our previous conversations on Solutions Watch. You will also hopefully know him from above phone@above phone.com in the above tech suite that he is offering there. But let’s bring him on to this conversation. Hakeem, thank you very much for this report and thanks for coming on to talk about it. James, thanks for making it through the 30 pages. I didn’t think anyone would do that. If we can’t read 30 pages, I think we’re not going to take down the new world order.

So I’m happy to do my part on that on that regard. But let’s start talking about this subject that I’m sure people have heard about it, they’ve cogitated on it before. But I want to start with a seemingly deceptively simple question that I think actually gets into the heart of this, because I think everyone thinks that they know what we mean when we’re talking about digital id, but maybe they don’t. And your report does go into some depth about the definition of what it is we’re talking about here. So can you tell us in your own words what is digital id.

Yeah, I thought this was really important because there’s a lot of misconceptions about what it is. Some people think real ID is digital id, and frankly, I couldn’t come up with a definition until I had studied a bunch of different programs around the world. And the definition had to be flexible enough to include what Russia and China and India were doing and also what the EU is doing. So it really comes down to this. There’s two characteristics of a digital ID program. The first is these verifiable digital credentials, which a credential you can think of as a claim about a subject, any sort of subject.

And so verifiable means that you can confirm that they came from a particular source and that would be a government or a regulatory body or anything that could create these IDs. And it’s kind of agnostic of where this ID lives. It could live on your phone, but it could also live in the cloud or even an electronic ID card like they have in West Africa. So that’s the first part, right? These verifiable digital credentials. The second part is functional interoperability. So this is about making this ID useful in many different use cases. So it’s not just what you use at the driver’s license office or when you’re going to visit social services, it’s not just what you show there, but it can also be used in a financial setting or in a social media setting.

And so Those are the two key characteristics of a digital ID program. And unfortunately, 90% of countries and their governments have or are working on a digital ID program. So there’s not really a place to run. Unfortunately not. And your report definitely brings that home. As I say, there’s a global analysis with case study after case study and country after country that goes to make that point quite well. But let’s drill down on that a little bit more because I think, again, people tend to think of the digital id. It is going to be some thing, a card or a wallet or an app or something that will be the single thing.

And here it is, and we’ll be able to say, no, we don’t want that thing, as opposed to what I think is actually taking place, which is the creation of a much larger digital public infrastructure as you, as you write about in the report. And let’s. Let’s drill down on that example that I started out with today. Russia moves to mandate state biometric ID for online age verification. What does that actually mean? So, so I drill down on this report and it says the main part of the proposal is the use of the Gosolugi Digital Services portal, which already functions as Russia’s main interface for state verification.

This system connects directly to the United System of Identification and Authentication and the National Unified Biometric System, both of which are controlled by the government. State Duma Deputy Anton Nemkin, a former FSB officer, suggested that these networks, quote, could be used to verify age without directly transmitting passport data to third party platforms. In effect, the state would become the universal intermediary between citizens and the Internet. So this is a specific case in which the online age verification, which is obviously now familiar to people in the UK and increasingly familiar to people around the world, is going to be run through this government service, Gosolugi.

Well, I looked up Gosolugi and it turns out that Gosolugi is itself a public private partnership between the Russian government, specifically the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media, and something called Ross Telecom, which Ross, when you drill down on ROS Telecom, it turns out it’s Russia’s largest digital services provider and it itself is a public private partnership co owned between the Russian government and these private corporations. So it starts to complicate this question of what is digital id, as if it’s this singular thing that you can put your finger on and it’s all some government, when in fact it’s part of this web of things that are being introduced in public private partnerships.

Can you speak to the broader web of things that we’re talking about here when we talk about these digital identification services and how they’re being used? Yeah, so there can be many different components to a digital ID program and Guslugi is a very good example because Russia doesn’t have a digital ID wallet that’s, you know, it’s an app on your phone. They don’t, they don’t have that. They’re very, very close. Their app is going to be called Max, but the back end for what they call, you know, what is typically referred to a single sign on one account, sign on to many services is this, this system called Googi.

And so this is very, very interesting because Russia kind of piecemealed it together over time to get the foundational data for the system in place. So you might be asking, where did they get the biometrics from? Well, there was two different legislative acts. The first was implementing KYC. I think this was back in 2012. I want to say I may be getting that year wrong. But first they said to the banks, hey, you need to KYC your customers and collect biometrics. So the bank started to do it on their behalf. And it’s very funny, it’s kind of made me understand Russian culture, maybe Russian bureaucracy a little bit more.

They expected banks to upload the biometric data to ubi, what do they call it? Universal biometric the database. And they expected banks to pay a licensing fee to do that and to pull from it. So the banks were, the banks were too smart and they were like no, we’re not going to pay your licensing fee, we’re actually going to build our own biometric databases. So the f that they had to go back, the Russian government had to say hey no, actually you actually need to share that with us too. And the FSB has access to it and that became the foundation for the biometric backed digital id.

So it’s interesting how you know there can be these side channels to getting your biometric data tied with your legal identity. And that’s the, that’s the key problem here. As soon as you tie your biometric data and a setting with your legal identity, you have given them enough to create that digital ID on your behalf. There’s nothing you need to do from that point onwards. They can just issue it for you. And this is the case in places like Italy where they issued 40 million digital IDs. Now those people didn’t have to go onto their phones and do anything.

They just issued it because they had the prerequisite information. Same thing with Denmark. And so going back to your original question, there are multiple different components. There is typically biometric verification services which can be used by third parties to verify that you are a real person. There’s a single sign on which will can be used. It’s typically used by government entities to sign you into different government websites with one account. But that can also be expanded to different groups. And then finally there’s the handy dandy digital ID wallet which is mainly meant for use in person for, for things like travel or being in use place of your physical id.

So there’s many different forms that it can really take. You know, you raise an interesting part about that whole goslugi part of this story is that the public private partnership is an important part of this because I think exactly like the CBDC idea of course central banks could just start directly issuing wallets to people and directly controlling it that way. But by doing so they would cut out the commercial banking system entirely. And I think they’re obviously they want the commercial bankers to be part of the system. So no, we’ll do it in a way that will let commercial bankers operate the wallets or as intermediaries or that sort of thing to get the buy in from that sector.

In the same way I think governments, yeah, could directly manage and control these biometric databases, but it’s better when the banks and other services are buying into this, have a part to play in it so that it weds it even more firmly into the digital public infrastructure that is being erected. And in your report you make a distinction between digital ID and DPI Digital public infrastructure. Can you tell us what is digital public infrastructure and what is this leading to? Sure. So digital public infrastructure is an idea or concept coined by the United Nations Development Program where they talk about this new public infrastructure that countries are going to need.

It’s all digital based and there’s three components to this with digital ID being the first one that make the second two possible. So it is the digital ID which is the foundation for being able to authenticate or identify yourself on any countries digital public infrastructure. And then there are the central bank digital currencies which are also an important, you know, they’re the financial aspect. You could also think of this as digital payments. They don’t necessarily need to be central bank digital currencies, they can also be digital payments infrastructure. And the last part is the data exchange which is to consolidate the data from the many different sectors of life a civilian might find themselves enrolled in and to have them in one place.

And a really good example of maybe a, not a mature, but like what this thing might actually look like a full DPI system would be how Brazil is doing it, where they have the E, the B cadastros blockchain that they’re using as the backing for their digital id. Now it doesn’t mean that the biometrics are actually stored on the blockchain, but the unique identifier for people is being stored on the blockchain. And the B cadastros is also combining data from six different public agencies in the country into one place. So it’s this data exchange so that when you interact with these different pieces of dpi, they can all just update it into one place and they’re all clued in, which gives them a comprehensive look at everything you’re doing.

And it also means that it’s a digital control grid, not a surveillance grid particularly. But the main purpose of this is to be a control grid. So if you step outside of the line, so like the Agency for Finance, you know, you have some sort of government loan that you Defaulted on. Well now that has implications for everything else involved in the, the digital, the, the data exchange. So that’s the main issue here with dpi. That’s the scary part about it. Now I will say, I will say about this. There’s, I’ll kind of reemphasize this again.

I’ve had some people asking me, well, where can I go? Can you, can you label me the countries that don’t have digital ID programs? And it doesn’t look very good by the way, what you share. Russia. That’s news to me, right? It happened today. So this is, this is moving so, so fast. Even the countries that I saw that weren’t pursuing, pursuing digital ID programs in my kind of like it’s a wide definition, it could be even wider if you wanted. The countries that were too poor, for example, they’re not pursuing digital ideas per se, but they’re pursuing electronic biometric backed IDs, right.

So they’re also doing these things. And the only countries that aren’t pursuing it at all are like you, let’s just say this wouldn’t be a country that you would like retire in or get away, get away in the winters to go relaxing like you wouldn’t feel at home there. So it is happening everywhere in one form or another. And I think the important thing to keep in mind is that these countries absolutely would be instituting this if they had the infrastructure to be able to do it. And presumably when they get developed enough to be able to do it, they will of course do the exact same things.

And just because a country isn’t developed or advanced enough to be able to implement all of this digital public infrastructure certainly does not, not mean there’s no corruption or problems in such a country. So I think that’s an important point. But actually it raises an even bigger point because one of the leading countries in the world in terms of developing biometric identification database was India with its ADHAR program. And one point, one point that you make in this report, report that I think is important for people to understand is that again I think people are thinking it’s going to be this singular thing that the government’s going to try to push on you and you’ll be able to say no in some grand gesture and that’ll be it.

But a point that you make in this document is that this is not a mandatory thing in most countries. This is something that’s going to be voluntary. Voluntary in order to participate in certain services. So can you talk about the way that this is going to be implemented to kind of take the sails out of those people who believe there’s going to be some big fight that will end this in some dramatic fashion. Yeah. And so, yes, so many, many Western countries especially they market their digital, they legislate their digital IDs as they have to be voluntary.

They cannot be mandated. And India is no exception where Supreme Court ruled that no one should have to suffer simply because they weren’t using a digital id. Kim Cameron, who came up with the idea of digital identity, had that as one of the principles and his laws of identity, which this was an idea that he released in 2004. So this is something that’s, it’s an idea that’s been developing over a very long period of time. But if you read his initial paper, you’ll see the same messaging repeated over and over is that people should be control of their identity and what information they want to share.

Right. So it kind of makes it feel like it’s voluntary. But what ends up happening in practice is that when these things get a network effect and they’re start to be used by more, more people, more places, more things, then it starts to become difficult to not request it. And in India’s case, they have gone so far as to. And again, this is under a Supreme Court ruling of India that no one should be punished. And companies can get fined for doing this. But yet still, banks will request your Aadhaar, right. Which is the digital ID number or system in India.

They’ll, they’ll request it. There was a pretty controversial thing where phone companies would harass their customers, asking them for their Aadhaar when it was being rolled out and they threatened to disconnect the phone. You know, it’s very hard to resist a thing like that. You really have to sit in your own authority and kind of push away these people who are asking for it. But unfortunately with India, it’s one of the only cases I know where they have gone so far that even regular everyday people are imposing the, imposing the digital idea on to each other.

So when you’re looking for housing in India, the landlord might ask, okay, what’s your Aadhaar now? I don’t know. I did try and translate some of India’s digital ID system. I think there is like a bit of a report you can look up with someone’s Aadhaar. There’s probably third party agencies that you can, that can look up information on this person. But I think it’s for a background check reason. But still that goes to show that when people start enforcing it on one another, that’s the final stage of what I call this is mandated by proxy.

So it’s not, it’s not technically mandated by the government, just like the COVID 19 vaccine wasn’t technically mandated. But dang, your life got hard because everyone else involved by proxy would make, would, would, would, would mandate it on you. So you don’t need the government to go in and strong arm these things. Well, actually an update on the India situation, I understand for the latest tax theft filing season there in India, an Aadhaar number is now required for income tax return. So there you go. I guess if you don’t have any income, then it’s not mandatory.

But if you plan to make money and not be a criminal, then you’re going to have to sign up to their system. Well, anyway, there’s over a billion people on that system and there have been data leaks from it over the, the past several years, as I’ve documented before. So it’s just a sign of the things to come. And obviously there are the concerns that one would, that, that everyone presumably would have about these types of things, for example, the security of these databases and who is really securing this data and what will happen if and when inevitably this data gets out and gets leaked and your biometric details are now on the criminal black market.

Et. But I think even beyond that, there’s the more fundamental questions, again, not just about the surveillance grid and knowing what people are doing and when they’re doing it, etc. But the control grid and being able to actively stop people from participating, for example, in the financial services or other such things because of whatever their political beliefs or because they posted a meme on Facebook that the British government didn’t like or what have you. Obviously, again, such a vast and complicated problem with so many different moving parts and so many different pieces to this puzzle, which makes the question that’s embedded in the title of this a global analysis with solutions.

It does beg the question, well, what kind of solutions can be had to something so vast, so overwhelming, so complex that involves not just the government, but also the private sector, and involves all of these voluntary sorts of pieces of the digital public infrastructure? What can people possibly start doing to arm themselves against this? Yeah, and some of what I’m going to say is going to sound a bit obvious, but the farther you can move yourself away from the digital ID infrastructure, the offices that are using it, which is going to be better for you. So to give you an example of this, I was recently in the eu because I wanted to ask Europeans what they thought about digital id.

And I managed to escape a day or two before the entry exit by biometric requirements that they just imposed. And what I got a sense of was, you know, Europe is this, it’s this heterogeneous place where there are the major airports that have already implemented these systems, like way ahead of time. But then there are also places like Romania which are very, they’re not very technologically advanced and it’s going to take time for these things to happen. And so the, the key takeaway there is that it really is a, a shift and where you want to put your energy, whether that be moving with your feet.

It also means to be self sufficient in every way right now. And I also think that this digital ID ultimately is amazing for humanity now because you’re going to stick with me here on this point. But this is kind of like being Hernan Cortez’s conquistadors in 1519, where Hernan Cortez was like, okay, you’re going to take down the Aztec Empire and I’m burning the boats you could have used to get back to the homeland, right? We’re there because it’s happening everywhere. There’s no boats there, the off ramps to use. Everything we count on in life are being, those walls are being put up.

So we have no choice but to create solutions. And frankly, you watching this at home, you have just the right to say how we’re going to function on this planet or where this planet goes, just as anyone else. So it’s up to us to create solutions. And I think what that is going to be for a lot of is entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship based on free and voluntary exchange. I think it’s going to be people need to be useful again, right? We, we can’t have these inflated metrics of knowledge work where we’re just doing things online all the time.

We’re going to have to really take our effort and attention. Instead of watching the news, we’re going to have to start building things. So I think the most useful thing anyone can do right now to get prepared is to go talk about this in person. Maybe at their local farm market is a really good place, maybe in the spiritual centers around town. Anyone who’s maybe just a little bit quirky or thinking alternatively to go talk about them, to talk to this about them. Because just in the way that there is being this network, this network effect that is going to cut you out, you also have to create your own network that will keep you in.

So this conversation might go something like, hey, did you know about digital id? It’s this, this and this. You can maybe learn some talking points from the report. One thing that’ll work really well is say, hey, did you know your digital identity could get stolen and someone could impersonate you really, really easily? Let’s say if you use a digital ID to buy liquor or something, it’s really easy. There are no safeguards at this point in time. That’s something that’s very common. And so once you, once you share with them enough and if they’re open minded, you might say, hey, I really appreciate this relationship we have between us.

I hope that we will never put a wall in between us where you might force me to get a digital id. Let’s say you’re talking a farmer to buy your eggs, to buy, you know, anything you have and I’ll do the same for you. So it’s kind of like this contract that you make with each other. And so I think having this valuable local network is the best pool of data you can have for yourself right now. Also, as you have covered James several times in your solutions watch, is to start working with alternative commerce. So for some people this might mean cryptocurrency, which I don’t recommend putting everything you have into it, but I recommend at least being literate with cryptocurrency and maybe doing your first transaction in person because this still appears to be one way you can completely circumvent digital ID and of course cash bartering, precious metals.

These are all things that are going to be fairly obvious. So to go back on it, I, I do think that this is, I think this is great, right? But going back to the conquistador analogy, we’re not here to the boats have been burned, but we’re not to conquer and kill. We’re here to create better systems. I can’t say I have all the answers, right? This is just really getting started. But we’re here to cooperate, remediate and grow. And you’re here to figure out the answers too, right? Don’t. There is no authority we can turn to.

We can’t turn to the World bank and to our governments and say, hey, you guys have more authority than we do now. We all have this inner authority and it’s. If it’s the choice of figuring these solutions out or being a slave, I say we figure the solutions out. Well, that’s it. And you know, the conquistador analogy is apt. Even if I don’t like to Think of myself as a conquistador, but I understand the, the analogy because yes, the boats have been burned. You might, you might think, oh, this counter economy stuff, oh my God, Agorism.

Oh, it’s, it’s silly. I don’t want to participate in that. Okay. But there is no alternative. There is truly nothing else. Either we create communities that we can operate in without this digital public infrastructure that they’re trying to bring in, or we are a part of the DPI system and we’re just going to go along straight into the maz of the control grid. There is no alternative at this point. So like it or not, anyway, agorism is the only answer. And that, that operates, I think, both in real life and can be digital as well. As you say cryptocurrency? Sure.

Precious metals, sure. Cash, barter, let system, whatever. There’s many, many, many different ways we can interact with each other. That has nothing to do with, with the economy that they are imposing on us. Absolutely. And I did want to point out that how fragile this control grid really is when you start to kind of look under the, under the covers a little bit. I was flying recently. I’ve taken two flights in the past few weeks here in the US There’s a government shutdown here. And to feel the aura coming from the TSA agents, they’re not getting paid right now, they’re getting deferred payments.

And I managed to talk to one or two of them. And so I. So everyone is calling in sick. There are massive slowdowns at airports. They’re running on a skeleton crew. So what does that tell you? It’s this control grid is super, super fragile and it doesn’t take much to actually build something better. So again, I invite everyone watching this to be creative. Right. How can you spread the word on this? What’s something that you can do in your hometown? And also to understand technology’s relevance in pushing out this control grid and to hopefully align your a technology that is completely disconnected from it.

This is a point I continuously stress in the Solutions Watch series. You know, everyone has their own skills, their own resources, their own abilities, and they can apply that to these subjects in the way that best occurs to them. You are obviously technologically gifted. This is why you have abovephone.com, you have the above phone hold suite of technology. And of course you’re also at take back our tech, which is an important, important part of all of this. Tell us about what technologically inclined people can and should be doing to grow the open Source agora for a an alternative digital infrastructure that will not be dependent on they them those allowing us to participate in such a system.

Yeah, so. So we all know about Apple Wallet and Google Wallet and how these things are already accepted as forms of IDs in the US. There’s even rumors in the UK that people had a digital ID automatically installed. I think those are rumors. Those haven’t been verified but I know from for a fact because I’ve researched what Google and Apple can do. They most definitely have the power to install things without your knowledge or your consent. So at a particular point in time, maybe when these, these governments get desperate enough, not enough people are downloading digital id, they might turn to things like that.

So that in that case if you’re using a pre hacked phone, a big tech phone that is pre hacked, meaning that people can do things without your knowledge, you might end up on the system and God forbid you have something like face ID or it’s collecting voice prints or it’s collecting other forms of biometric data because if they get desperate enough they could absolutely include that in their system. So what I recommend for people right now is to use alternative operating systems. There’s operating systems like graphene os, there’s also a few others that I recommend and you should just start getting used to and practicing with these apps.

There’s also open source apps that you can use. I recently released a webinar that goes into the detail. It kind of gives you a high level overview of what life is like on an above phone, which is our version of a graphene OSD Google phone or what life is like on a Linux laptop. And it turns out you can still do the V mass majority of what you were used to doing, but you’re doing it more privately, without tracking. And as more amazing builders and creators come out with solutions like peer to peer Monero Marketplace, which there are things that I’ve recommended in the past on the T bot show that you will be literate enough to start using them right away.

So James, thank you so much for letting me share this. And for those of you watching, if you feel like this is the right time to free your tech from these slavery systems, maybe check out our Black Friday sale which is@abovephone.com Black Friday. You’ll see that I have a link to the webinar where I kind of go over this and so you can sign up for that. And then we have deals running through all of November and we would be so honored if we could be part of your Journey in that. Excellent. Well, as I said at the top, if people can’t even read a 30 page report, then there’s no, absolutely no chance that we’re going to overturn the new world order.

So I would suggest people actually take the time to read this. Life Under Digital id A Global Analysis with Solutions. It is a. It is at abovephone.comdigital-id that link will be in the show notes in case you need it. And are there any other resources that you’d like to direct people to along these lines? Yes. So there’s also for those of you using big tech phones, there’s another ebook in there, it’s called five Must Change Privacy Settings. So if you are using a big tech phone, you know, this would be a good time to remove your biometrics from it.

Not sure if that’s actually going to do anything because they might be stored in the back end. But this, this guide has some, you know, it’s got some good guidelines for you to explore your big tech phone and make sure it’s minimizing the spying there. So that’s there. Also, please check out my show on Substack. That’s the t bot show. Tbot.substack.com I have an amazing interview with James where kind of got to see the man behind the knowledge. So you can also check that out on our sub stack. And I do a weekly show every week where we cover different stories like this.

But obviously I got to step it up because there’s more digital lighting stories. So yeah, every single day. I cannot even avoid them at this point even if I tried. But yes, I will, I will absolutely say I get a lot of interesting stories and news leads from TBOT to take back our text. So thank you for doing that work. Thank you for putting this report together. I hope it will be valuable to people because if you’re not thinking about this subject then I don’t know what you are doing because this one seems like it’s. This is the game for all the marbles, as they say.

So I hope people will check it out. Hakeem Anwar I think we’re going to wrap it up there for today. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks James. The Deep state false flags 911 truth the federal Reserve Secret wars and Hidden Histories Fake News Medical Martial Law Ceaseless Propaganda James Corbett Reportage Essays on the New World Order Available Where Books Are sold until they’re reportagebook.com.
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