I definitely see your thought process on Civic, but consider the following:
Your data is already being shared as you described, so the cat's already out of the bag for the most part. The major issue is that technology, including encryption, one day will fail. It will have to be upgraded before it fails, or it will adapt after it fails.
I think the same carefulness has to be considered for all cryptocurrencies, not just Civic. I mean, if the security of Civic can be compromised, then the security of almost any cryptocurrency can be as well.
The great thing about the tech though, is it is upgradeable, and replaceable. You hack the encryption algo for Civic, Steem, Bitcoin, Eth, etc., etc., you simply move to a more secure algo. That is a great argument for Bitcoin in general. If there is a threat or a disaster, you take a snapshot of the last known good and move. Bitcoin was designed in this way. Hopefully these threats to security are addressed prior to anyone's data being affected, or at least early in the process as to protect the whole.
All this ^^^^^ is being pointed out just to get to the main point that yes all of this has potential to run into multiple security issues, but Civic and others are being designed to deal with these risks in a different manner. I don't think there is a Utopian encryption algo or any crypto that has perfect, un-hackable, security. It's software, and where there is a will, there is a way. The great thing about Civic, is that rather than storing EVERYONE'S DATA on a centralized server, the data is stored LOCALLY. So let's say there was a threat that was caught prior to an attack, or let's say that we begin to see attack's on Civic's algo and security, the hackers, government, NWO, whomever, only get to a select few (or many), but not to everyone's data before it is patched.
We see the Havoc of these big corporations trying to protect our data, as they share our data, and fail miserably. Look at Equifax recently lmao. It's impossible for them to do it, because it's impossible to do it period. All of these crypto's will face some of the same issues. All encryption will face issues at some point. Maybe not in the next 1 year, or 5 years, but probably within a decade. As bitcoin and crypto grows, there is incentive for the bad guys and governments to break it now. Financial incentive, government and corporate control incentive, etc.
So, I tend to look at it as a new security and business model. Yes, I agree, my Civic account may very well be hacked in the future, if I'm unlucky, but my identity is not sitting there on a centralized server waiting like a big honeypot with the rest of the identities. And Civic will give us control over what and who we share with, which we do not have at all now, cuz we know how the corporations and governments carelessly share our personal, private data.
I hope, maybe, that this helps you see a different take, on what you voiced as a very real, and important concern. I don't think Civic, or any crypto is perfect, and does not have vulnerabilities, THE GOVERNMENT IS GOING TO TRY TO ATTACK THEM! They do not want to lose this amount of control, we will see quantum computing attack blockchains at some point. But, the great thing about decentralized software is how resilient it is at adapting and over-coming, which centralized governments and corporations suck at :)
Decentralized, client-side is always greater than the current model that is being used with our data.
Great read! I love your articles, Just my 2 cents.