State-Endorsed Digital ID 🧵
Holy Wow 👀
It is here.
Governor Spencer Cox and the Utah Office of Digital Privacy have launched the country’s first comprehensive State-Endorsed Digital Identity (SEDI) program this month. It’s being sold as voluntary and child-protecting with all the right patriotic key words — but it’s the blueprint for a global digital ID system. 1/
2/ Cox’s Administration partnered up with Utah Valley University’s Gary R. Herbert Institute for Public Policy. UVU produced the foundational white paper “The Current State of Data Governance in Utah” that laid the groundwork for state digital ID.
The fruit of UVU's ongoing work with Utah's Office of Digital Privacy was SB275 (formerly SB260 of 2025)— the State-Endorsed Digital Identity Program — introduced in February of this year.
🔗uvu.edu/herbertinstitu…
3/ SB275 passed UNANIMOUSLY in both chambers of the Utah Legislature and is rolling out this month.
Utah is now officially the first state in the nation with a full-blown comprehensive digital ID framework.
🔗 le.utah.gov/~2026/bills/st…
4/ In the months leading up to Charlie Kirk’s assassination on the UVU campus, UVU hosted multiple SEDI townhalls across the state — Salt Lake County, Utah Valley, Northern Utah — pitching the program to the public.
🔗 uvu.edu/herbertinstitu…
5/ Just one month after Kirk's assassination, UVU hosted the first SEDI Summit.
National policymakers, tech execs, and privacy groups were brought in to shape the future of digital identity.
6/ In March of this year, Cox’s administration sent out invitations to state legislators across the entire country offering $1,000 stipends to attend their 2nd SEDI Summit at UVU last held last month.
(Utahans, how do you feel footing the bill for this?)
They’re actively recruiting other states to copy the model.
7/ What exactly is SEDI?
A unique global “decentralized” blockchain digital ID that you’ll eventually use to log into all your accounts, services, and government portals.
The state “endorses” it with a cryptographically signed credential, but you hold it in a digital wallet.
*Side note: Salt Lake based digital identity company, Anonyome Labs, is helping Utah roll out this digital ID program. JD Mumford, former IBM exec, is the current CEO and Todd Davis, founder of LifeLock (bought out by Symantec in 2017), and Greg Clark, former Symantec CEO, sit on the board.
No more passwords. Like the One Ring—it's One ID to rule them all.
8/ Of course, the digital ID program is starting out as “voluntary.”
But the stated long-term goal is a global digital identification system.
History speaks for itself. “Voluntary” programs have a way of becoming compulsory once the infrastructure is built and everyone is hooked.
Federal income taxes were once voluntary too.
9/ Utah's document “SEDI: Protecting Liberty in the Digital Age” is steeped in patriotic language — “digital export of freedom,” “anchoring technology in liberty and constitutional order,” “identity is inherently decentralized and innate to the individual.” It emphasizes “protecting children from digital exploitation” and preserving individual liberties.
This is classic framing: wrap surveillance infrastructure in freedom rhetoric and child-protection talk so both lawmakers and citizens embrace it and cheer it on.
"So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause."--Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
🔗privacy.utah.gov/wp-content/upl…
10/ Other states have already begun a soft launch of digital ID with voluntary mobile driver’s licenses (mDL).
Now that Utah has passed a full framework and is actively recruiting other states, expect copycat bills with identical “liberty-preserving” language to start popping up everywhere in the coming months. While no state has yet to introduce a similar comprehensive program, Idaho recently passed digital id legislation this year and cited Utah in their process.
Groups like the Council of State Governments and ACLU are, unsurprisingly, backing this effort.
🔗csgwest.org/2026/05/01/pro…
11/ This is not a Utah-only problem. It's THE national rollout model.
Stay alert to similar efforts in your state. Ask the hard questions. Share, share, share.
A global digital ID system sold as freedom is still a global digital ID system.
@CourtenayTurner this one’s all you friend. Have at it.
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