A digital ID system involves value-laden choices that should be made through explicit political discussion and debate. As we’ve been warning for several years, a wave of U.S. digital driver’s license programs that lack strict privacy controls threatens to create a privacy nightmare that remakes the Internet and swings power from individuals to large institutions. Almost without exception, the states that are enacting or piloting these programs are doing so without engaging in political conversations and debates about the predictable negative consequences they will bring and the need for privacy and other protections.