DEI
WEF report suggests digital ‘metaverse identity’ will become central to daily life
From LifeSiteNews
Your digital identity will be your passport in the metaverse, where it will be used to surveil, predict, and mimic your behavior while determining your level of access to information and spaces.
Your metaverse identity, with its digital ID, biometric data capture, and behavior profiling, will be central to your everyday life, according to a World Economic Forum (WEF) report.
“Metaverse identity” is a relatively new concept that the WEF and Accenture describe in great detail in a new 48-page report entitled “Metaverse Identity: Defining the Self in a Blended Reality.”
According to the report:
“As people spend more time exploring, playing and socializing in digital experiences, a person’s metaverse identity will be central to their day-to-day life as well as to the way they express their personal identity.”
But what exactly do the unelected globalists mean by “metaverse identity?”
Metaverse identity encompasses three components:
- Representation: including personal, social and role identity, be it through avatars, pseudonyms or other digital expressions.
- Data: capturing the intricate web of knowledge about individuals generated by metaverse supporting hardware and software.
- Identification (ID): be it through driver’s licenses, government-issued IDs, passports, birth certificates, attestations, labels, or usernames and passwords.
According to the report, “Metaverse identity broadens ‘identity’ as it is known today and combines it with the digital underpinnings of the internet. It is a multi-layered construct of an individual or entity, including everything from representation to data and identification.”
With these three components, identity in the metaverse “connects and anchors a person to the physical and virtual world.”
Let’s break them down, starting with representation.
The notion of ‘representation’ is not just about pixels and graphics; it’s a reflection of societal values, inclusivity and the human desire for authenticity […] Representational design choices extend to the design of digital entities – from embodied virtual agents to non-embodied virtual assistant.
Representation has to do with how you present and express yourself in the metaverse, whether it’s a realistic likeness of yourself or an abstract, creative, or artistic version.
The authors say that, “These expressions may extend to include words, actions, behaviors and mannerisms,” so there is an element of behavior profiling going on in the representation category, which we will also see in the data capture and identification categories.
Representation in the metaverse will also take on a new meaning with the introduction of digital entities that act on your behalf.
According to the report, “Digital entities may represent humans, objects, systems or abstract concepts, and are capable of varying degrees of interaction, autonomy and behavior within digital experiences […] They are capable of mimicking human communication and may be used as sales assistants, corporate trainers, social media influencers and more.”
Like non-player characters (NPCs) in videogames, these digital doppelgangers attempt to mimic human behavior.
And like a virtual voodoo doll, if something goes wrong with your digital entity, it could spill over into your personal life in the real world.
“While digital entities can offer innovative interactions and functionalities within the metaverse, they may commit real-world harms,” the report cautions, adding, “The ability to manipulate or create misinformation through digital entities – such as chatbots and photoreal avatars – raises ethical and security concerns.”
Now let’s dig into the data category.
Identity goes beyond ID, like a passport or driver’s license. Metaverse identity includes data points.
The data category of metaverse identity is aimed at gathering and analyzing data to make inferences about you, and it will be used to predict your behavior, thanks to AI and Machine Learning.
“Paired with artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) models that can analyze a person’s interactions, movements and preferences further generates identity,” the report reads.
Whether these (inferred) data points are capturing a person’s current activities, predicting their next action or future preferences, these data-based breadcrumbs provide information into one’s identity.
These attributes may influence the way the virtual environment responds to an individual, and outsiders perceive an individual or entity.
This data aspect of metaverse identity is important to unelected globalists who are obsessed with manipulating human behavior and controlling what people think and do.
There is a risk that governments could use aggregated inferred data for surveillance, monitoring dissidents, or suppressing certain groups without their active consent.
Inferred data, “now aided by AI/ML, can examine seemingly unrelated behaviors, actions and choices to draw meaningful conclusions about a person’s preferences, background and intentions,” according to the report.
Once you know intent, whether of an individual or an unelected globalist think tank, then it becomes a lot easier to predict what they’ll do or say next, even if they deceptively try to mask their true intentions.
And, “While this data is collected to enhance the person’s experience, it could also be analyzed to make inferences as to their real-world identity or preferences and used for targeted advertising or other purposes without their consent.”
Making inferences for “other purposes” without the user’s consent is what defense and intelligence agencies are after in the metaverse.
A recent RAND Corporation report suggests as much with respect to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) looking to spy on users in the metaverse, stating, “As DHS grapples with emerging challenges by monitoring and analyzing users’ activity in metaverses, it should undertake legal and ethical reviews of what information is collected and how it is managed.”
Now, we shall move on to the identification category.
The concept of identity is contextual, flexible, complex and fluid […] Identity extends into the intricacies of an individual’s behaviors, actions and choices.
Perhaps the most confusing part of metaverse identity is the identification or ID aspect because digital ID and digital identity are terms that are often used interchangeably, including by yours truly, but they are quite different.
Identification is about identifying, verifying, and authenticating who someone is.
Identity on the other hand, “consists of layered aspects of cultural heritage, ethnicity, age, professional and social roles, hobbies, gender identification, sexual orientation and much more,” according to the report.
Now that we’ve taken care of the distinction between the two, your digital ID will be your passport to the metaverse, and like with a passport, there will be certain areas that you will not be able to access.
According to the report, “Similar to today’s traditional identification systems – like passports and driver’s licenses – IDs may evolve to include unique avatar designs, new body-based attestations or unique virtual signatures that validate one’s existence and grant access to specific realms or activities.”
To illustrate how digital ID plays into digital identity, the authors say, “Forms of ID – such as passports and government IDs – formalize an individual’s identity; additionally, these can serve as credentials or means of authenticating and verifying individuals across physical and digital spaces.”
Metaverse identity is integral to future internet interactions.
Now that we’ve gone through the three components that make up metaverse identity, what are some of the potential drawbacks?
For starters, the report says, “There is a risk that governments could use aggregated inferred data for surveillance, monitoring dissidents or suppressing certain groups without their active consent.”
Your metaverse identity can include your real-time biometrics, such as pupil dilation, heart rate, and brainwaves, so that companies and governments can infer how you are feeling and reacting to their goods, services, or policies.
Historian Yuval Noah Harari spoke of this same technology falling into the hands of dictators at the 2020 WEF Annual Meeting in Davos. There, he said:
Just imagine North Korea in 20 years where everybody has to wear a biometric bracelet, which constantly monitors your blood pressure, your heart rate, your brain activity 24 hours a day.
You listen to a speech on the radio by the ‘Great Leader,’ and they know what you actually feel – you can clap your hands and smile, but if you’re angry, they know you’ll be in the gulag tomorrow morning.
Having a biometric data capturing device attached to your body that knows what you’ll do before you do it raises serious ethical questions about how the data is collected, where that data goes, and who has access to some of the most intimate details of your life.
For the past few years, Meta has been working on Project Aria, which combines augmented reality with artificial intelligence to create realistic 3D renderings of people, places, and things, including living spaces.
When Mark Zuckerberg explained his vision for the metaverse at Connect 2021, he highlighted how Project Aria could map a person’s apartment, including everything in it (see video below).
Imagine how valuable that information would be to companies – knowing which products you use, which ones they think you’ll want, and how you organize your living space, so they can manufacture extremely personalized ads.
What could insurance companies do with that data? How would landlords react?
Now, think about how governments, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement would love to get their hands on that type of data.
With the data collected from someone wearing a pair of AR glasses, who needs facial recognition, geolocation tracking, or contact tracing when governments and corporations can see what you see, hear what you hear, and know where you and what you are doing in real-time?
Of course, these dystopian scenarios need not come to pass, and indeed great efforts are being made to safeguard privacy in the design of these tools and systems – at least for now.
The metaverse identity report is replete with cautionary tales and references to building systems that are fair, just, diverse, equitable, inclusive, privacy-preserving, and every other type of virtuous buzzword they think you want to hear.
Over time, however, goalposts may shift, emergencies may be declared, and laws and regulations may be circumvented.
And what do the authors of the metaverse identity report propose to safeguard the metaverse and its integrity?
Their solution is to put “the onus on the global community.”
The metaverse could be fertile ground for powerful manipulative tactics, putting the onus on the global community to establish robust frameworks that not only facilitate the growth of the metaverse but also safeguard its integrity.
Is “the global community” ever defined in the report? No, but the WEF calls itself the “International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation” and has its Global Innovators, Young Global Leaders, and Global Shapers communities, which might give us a clue as to whom they are referring.
The metaverse will no doubt change the way we work and play, leading to exciting cross-disciplinary collaborations, scientific discoveries, and untapped marketplaces.
But if the unelected globalists and unaccountable technocrats are in charge of governance, the metaverse will be nothing more than a digital playground for the great reset agenda where your digital identity determines your level of entry and where anything you say or do in the virtual world will come back to haunt you in the physical one and vice versa – there will be no distinction between the two.
Once everyone is hooked up to a digital identity while plugged into the metaverse, all that is needed to quash dissent is a simple flick a switch on someone’s digital identity and voila! it’s like that person doesn’t exist anymore.
Your metaverse identity, with its virtual voodoo dolls, autonomous avatars, and digital doppelgangers will be your passport in the metaverse, where it will be used to surveil, predict, and mimic your behavior while determining your level of access to information and spaces.
But not to worry, your metaverse identity will only be essential to your day-to-day life and will only be integral to all your future internet interactions.
Reprinted with permission from The Sociable.
DEI
TMU Medical School Sacrifices Academic Merit to Pursue Intolerance
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Race- (and other-) based admissions will inevitably pave the way to race- (and other-) based medical practices, which will only further the divisions that exist in society. You can’t fight discrimination with more discrimination.
Perhaps it should be expected that a so-obviously ‘woke’ institution as the Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) would toss aside such antiquated concepts as academic merit as it prepares to open its new medical school in the fall of 2025.
After all, until recently, TMU was more widely known as Ryerson University. But it underwent a rapid period of self-flagellation, statue-tipping and, ultimately, a name change when its namesake, Edgerton Ryerson, was linked (however indirectly) to Canada’s residential school system.
Now that it has sufficiently cleansed itself of any association with past intolerance, it is going forward with a more modern form of intolerance and institutional bias by mandating a huge 80% diversity quota for its inaugural cohort of medical students.
TMU plans to fill 75 of its 94 available seats via three pathways for “equity-deserving groups” in an effort to counter systemic bias and eliminate barriers to success for certain groups. Consequently, there are distinct admission pathways for “Indigenous, Black and Equity-Deserving” groups.
What exactly is an equity-deserving group? It’s almost any identity group you can imagine – that is, except those who identify as white, straight, cisgender, straight-A, middle- and/or upper-class males.
To further facilitate this grand plan, TMU has eliminated the need to write the traditional MCAT exam (often used to assess aptitude, but apparently TMU views it as a barrier to accessing medical education). Further, it has set the minimum grade point average at a rather average 3.3 and, “in order to attract a diverse range of applicants,” it is accepting students with a four-year undergrad degree from any field.
It’s difficult to imagine how such a heterogenous group can begin learning medicine at the same level. Someone with an advanced degree in physiology or anatomy will be light years ahead of a classmate who gained a degree by dissecting Dostoyevsky.
Finally, it should be noted that in “exceptional circumstances” any of these requirements can be reconsidered for, you guessed it, black, indigenous or other equity-deserving groups.
As for the curriculum itself, it promises to be “rooted in community-driven care and cultural respect and safety, with ECA, decolonization and reconciliation woven throughout” which will “help students become a new kind of physician.”
Whether or not this “new kind of physician” will be perceived as fully credible, however, is yet to be seen. Because of its ‘woke’ application process, all TMU medical graduates will be judged differently no matter how skilled they may be and even when physicians are in short supply. Life and death decisions are literally in their hands, and in such cases, one would think that medical expertise is far more important than sharing the same pronouns.
Frankly, if students need a falsely inclusive environment where all minds think alike to feel safe and a part of society, then maybe they aren’t cut out to become doctors who will treat all people equally. After all, race- (and other-) based admissions will inevitably pave the way to race- (and other-) based medical practices, which will only further the divisions that exist in society. You can’t fight discrimination with more discrimination.
It’s ridiculous to use medical school enrollments as a means of resolving issues of social injustice. However, from a broader perspective, this social experiment echoes what is already happening in universities across Canada. The academic merit of individuals is increasingly being pushed aside to fulfill quotas based on gender or even race.
One year ago, the University of Victoria made headlines when it posted a position for an assistant professor in the music department. The catch is that the selection process was limited to black people. Education professor Dr. Patrick Keeney points out that diversity, equity and inclusion policies are reshaping core operations at universities. Grants and prestigious research chair positions are increasingly available only to visible minorities or other identity groups.
Non-academic considerations are given priority, and funding is contingent on meeting minority quotas.
Consequently, Keeney states that the quality of education is falling and universities that were once committed to academic excellence are now perceived as institutions to pursue social justice.
Diversity is a legitimate goal, but it cannot – and should not — be achieved by subjugating academic merit to social experimentation.
Susan Martinuk is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and author of Patients at Risk: Exposing Canada’s Health-care Crisis.
David Clinton
Is Canada Abusing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
Canadians have no absolute right to equal treatment under the law.
Monitoring the intersection between equality and equity
Let me explain that. Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was, from the perspective of the Charter’s creators, an exceedingly difficult needle to thread. The tension between its two subsections carries the potential for confusion and even abuse. Here’s the text itself:
(1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
(2) Section (1) does not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
15(1) guaranteed the equal treatment of all individuals. That’s something I can’t imagine any reasonable-minded person opposing. The problem was that, at the same time, the authors also wanted to leave room for unfair treatment for select groups through affirmative action programs. That’s the purpose of 15(2).
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If 15(2) didn’t exist, challenges to, say, hiring practices targeting historically disadvantaged racial groups could be launched based on the rights found in 15(1). Imagine people who didn’t technically qualify as disadvantaged but who might be better suited for and in greater immediate need of an advertised job. If the “affirmative action” candidate was nevertheless hired, couldn’t the others argue that they’d just suffered Charter-level discrimination? 15(2) is designed to ensure such challenges don’t happen.
Such state-imposed inequality may or may not be justifiable. That’s a debate that doesn’t interest me right now. Instead, my primary focus is on how the principle could be widely abused.
I should clarify that these rules only apply to government programs and agencies. While private companies might be bound by other areas of related law, the Charter was only written for government operations. But it’s nevertheless worth remembering that 4.4 million Canadians work for one level or another of government (when you include hospitals and public schools). That’s around 21 percent of all Canadian workers. And many more of us interact with governments regularly.
What kinds of abuse are possible? Well, consider how so many equality-related decisions are highly subjective and rely on the good faith and clarity of mind of the policy makers and public officials in positions of power. In that context:
- How can we know that factors like “ameliorative”, “disproportionate”, or “disadvantaged” are accurately and appropriately defined?
- How can we know that favoring one group won’t cause deep and irreparable harm to others?
- How can we know that even good-faith decisions aren’t made based on outdated assumptions or inaccurate stereotypes?
Easy-to-imagine practical examples of abuse could include:
- Provincial scholarship programs that target low-income students from only certain ethnic groups while excluding members of other groups who might currently experience even greater financial hardship.
- Seats in highly competitive university programs that are restricted to only candidates expressing specified identities without objective evidence that such individuals are currently meaningfully underrepresented in those programs or professional fields.
- Government-funded employment programs that subtly target communities likely to share particular political beliefs.
- Internal career advancement policies that prioritize identity and ethnicity over competence that lead to reduced organizational capacity.
- Social disruption due to arbitrary official favoritism for some ethnicities and identities over others.
Of course, misuse of 15(2) can always be tested in court. Programs are, after all, expected to pass the Oakes Test (for objectives that are pressing and substantial) and the Kapp Test (for goals that are truly ameliorative and appropriately targeted).
But that requires someone who notices the problem and has the considerable means necessary to launch a court challenge. There aren’t many people like that running around.
A government that felt that misuse of the law was causing significant damage to society could choose to by-pass 15(2) altogether by invoking the Notwithstanding Clause or by amending the constitution itself. But…well, good luck surviving either attempt.
More realistically, the government could write new legislation that guides the interpretation or application of 15(2). That could mean carefully defining what constitutes an “ameliorative program” or setting clear eligibility criteria for such programs. There would be no need to change the constitution, simply to properly define it.
Alternatively, governments could govern by example. This might mean tailoring their own policies and programs to reflect a more constrained interpretation of 15(2). They could actively participate in court cases to advocate for particular interpretations and present compelling arguments to influence how courts understand and apply the provision.
Finally, of course, they could appoint judges to the Supreme Court and federal courts who are more aligned with values associated with absolute equality under the law.
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