Have you given much thought to what the Scripture says will develop in the run-up to the End Times, and whether we are living in this time now?
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #132 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.
My first inclination to comment on digital identification was generated by a flyer that my wife called to my attention, featuring Amazon’s palm scanner at Whole Foods. Then I thought of the biometrics and facial recognition references we now regularly experience watching television crime dramas.
What I did not realize until I did some research is just how extensive, even comprehensive, and how far down the road to digital control and lack of privacy we really are – not just in an autocratic regime like the one dominating China but right here in our own country and in other Western democracies.
I’m not sharing any of this as fearmongering, and certainly not conspiracy theories.
Nor am I claiming I know when the rapture and resurrection will take place. But I will say that I do indeed think the subject matter of this podcast – digital identification and mass surveillance – lays the groundwork for what Scripture calls the "the last days," "the end of the age," or "the day of the Lord," phrases sometimes referred to as the End Times describing the final period of eschatological significance in biblical prophecy.
Of course, we can immediately think of the “Mark of the Beast” in Rev. 13:16-18:
“It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.
This beast is commonly interpreted as representing a powerful political and military authority or empire, or as symbolizing any worldly power opposed to God's kingdom. It is given authority by the dragon (generally identified as Satan) and is described as having blasphemous characteristics, including receiving worship and making war against the saints. The number associated with this beast is 666.
Interpretations of what exactly the "mark of the beast" represents vary among Christian traditions. Some interpret it as a literal mark or symbol, while others see it as symbolic of allegiance to a worldly system opposed to God's kingdom. The number 666 has also been subject to various interpretations, with some suggesting it represents imperfection or opposition to the perfection of God's number, 7.
Now, how this is to come to pass, and when, we do not know. But it is interesting to contemplate the power and potential of current developments in digital identification and mass surveillance, thus, tracking and tracing, and the capacity of governments not only to coordinate but to control.
One of the key arguments used ad nauseum to justify government overreach during the pandemic was the illusory call for “safety.” This political leveraging of fear with the promise of security continues.
Toward the end of his life, the late Christian philosopher Francis A. Schaeffer lamented that Americans, or the West in general, were largely interested in just “personal peace and affluence.” He said, “I believe the majority of the silent majority, young and old will sustain the loss of liberties without raising their voices as long as their own lifestyles are not threatened. And since personal peace and affluence are so often the only values that count with the majority, politicians know that to be elected they must promise these things. Politics has largely become not a matter of ideals—increasingly men and women are not stirred by the values of liberty and truth—but of supplying a constituency with a frosting of personal peace and affluence. They know that voices will not be raised as long as people have these things, or at least an illusion of them."
Think about this. As an American citizen today, what will you trade to acquire safety or personal peace and affluence?
There are those now who consider digital identification as a step too far.
For example this observation: “Digital ID, writ large, poses one of the gravest risks to human rights of any technology that we have encountered. Worse, we are rushing headlong into a future where new technologies will converge to make this risk much more severe.”
That’s a strong position, but soon the only personal identification available will be a digital one.
“Bill Gates has stated: electronic tattoos will replace smartphones, with those electronic tattoos being placed on the physical body…adding the detail that the digital ID will be connected to a coming microneedle patch vaccine (which simultaneously leaves behind a scannable, invisible-to-the-naked-eye quantum dot tattoo at the vaccination site).
Another pundit noted: “Digital IDs will become necessary to function in a connected digital world. This has not escaped the attention of authoritarian regimes. Already, they are working to splinter the internet, collect and localize data, and impose regimes of surveillance and control. Digital ID systems, as they are being developed today, are ripe for exploitation and abuse, to the detriment of our freedoms and democracies.”
Systems using artificial intelligence and machine learning are increasingly being used to make decisions based on our identities. “Those systems are often… wielded without sufficient transparency or human review. Ultimately, social credit systems, such as those that are currently being developed in China, will be based on digital ID, thereby enabling or disabling our full and free participation in society.”
There is now “a movement aimed at creating a digital identity system, including a push by companies, motor vehicle departments, and some state legislatures to digitize the identity card that most Americans carry: the driver’s license.”
“Digital is often touted as the “future” and many people cast such a transition as inevitable. But digital is not always better — especially when systems are exclusively digital.”
“A poorly constructed digital identity system could be a privacy nightmare. Such a system could make it so easy to ask for people’s IDs that these demands proliferate until we’re automatically sharing our ID at every turn.”
And remember, “our digital identity extends beyond mere identification to include our beliefs, relationships, and online interactions in the digital world. It is our “digital passport” to the online world.”
“Surveillance and control of the coronavirus pandemic (triggered)…a cross-border strategy carried out by governments to try to control the virus (Pan et al., 2020)…”
“The concept of mass surveillance emerged the first decade of the 21st century, after the 9/11 attacks in New York and as a reflection of the phobia of possible new terrorist attacks…(presented by Zuboff (2015, 2019) Events such as 9/11 in New York caused massive surveillance and listening initiatives by the US government (Sinha, 2013). After 9/11, using tools to track user data to protect people from these types of attacks became a new vigilant normality (Kummitha, 2020).”
Under this paradigm, in 2019, scholar Shoshana Zuboff published a book entitled The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, which revealed how the data obtained from users through their mobile devices indirectly offer governments and large companies an advantage that can be a potential abuse of privacy (Zuboff, 2019).”
“This new connected era means that private companies can be controlling the masses without people being aware of it (Karas, 2002; Xu et al., 2015).”
People arguing digital identification is somehow uniquely safe and secure are whistling in the graveyard. Data breaches are possible, nay probable in digital identification just like any online data storage.
Mass surveillance via CCTV cameras, biometric measurements, geolocation technology, together with digital IDs and now digital banking and currency, will likely be further developed, perfected, refined, and empowered in the days ahead.
In other words, what these systems will be able to do tomorrow will make today’s capacity pale in comparison.
For the foreseeable if fuzzy future, our greater concerns might come from how democracies avail themselves of access to such powerful tools capable of not simply undermining but eliminating privacy, freedom of worship, expression, and mobility, independence and individual responsibility, political liberty, the assault on privacy and the so-called "privacy paradox", behavioral targeting, fake news, ubiquitous tracking, legislative and regulatory failure, algorithmic governance, social media addiction, abrogation of human rights, or democratic destabilization.
Given that we live in a fallen world and all humanity are sinful by nature, it is not difficult to surmise that these electronic tools will be put in the service of the Prince of the power of the Air and the coming Antichrist.
We may indeed be watching the End Times develop before our eyes.
Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com.
And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2024
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