Digital ID, same place, different time: In this timeline, the result might surprise us UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer directly addressed his new policy of mandatory digital ID in the country for 23 seconds in its effective launch speech. Appearing at an international conference of center-left leaders run by the IPPR think-tank on 26 September, the UK prime minister talked about the challenges of delivering …
It is difficult already for people to open a bank account if they don't have the proper ID. Of course for the people Sir Kid Starver is referring to this drives them underground.
But there are plenty of people in this country, especially victims of domestic abuse who lose everything to the controlling partner, who fall in to these cracks and get fuck all help from the state.
This is a government that has tried and tried to break into encrypted comms and been defeated by lawyers and mathematical realities.
They're now making mandatory an app- that is, one you can't uninstall or restrict because it wants too many permissions.
End-to-End Encryption doesn't matter if they're able to read over your shoulder. VPN use becomes really easy to identify if you have an aGPS lock on the device in London and the data's coming from Berlin, and any encryption keys can potentially be pulled from memory. This holds your banking information, your social media accounts, your contacts on every platform.
And while just needing one for a new job means it can be installed on an old phone, turned off, and locked in a steel drawer it will quickly become necessary in everyday life too.
This is how liberty dies. To thunderous objections- all of which are brushed aside by ministers saying 'if you object you are supporting paedos and tax dodgers'.
Who says its an "app"?
This would work perfectly fine in your Apple/Google digital wallet, which can be accessed without unlocking your phone and does not require ANY permissions. If the UK tries to do it with a dedicated app that's what you should push back on, and ask them why they want an app when the wallet is perfectly suitable for what they claim they need it for - and that if they claim they need an app they are obviously trying to pull a fast one on people.
I for one will repurpose an old mobile just for the government issue malware app. Though chances are high they will want a fairly recent version of Android/IOS. The mobile will stay at home, simless until it is needed, when it will be fired up then turned off once Digital ID presented. Do I trust the buggers not to be tempted to snoop and scoop up as much data as possible? Yeah right
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>So please tell me what happened to those who could not work in the various communist countries that have existed in the last century and a bit?
Why do you feel the need to "wahhh whatabout" when it is pointed out that you generally need to provide value to the economy to get your needs met? Don't flinch and try to "no u" it, own it. This is the ideal state for capitalism: labor easily replaced and the power of the nation eroded for dollar princes.
Like it or not, the elites only allowed the sop of post-WW2 welfareism and existence of the middle class because they knew they'd be overthrown if they let the combat veterans of the last war fester in the old squats and develop sympathies to outside powers.
And those who won't give access to their smartphone. I paid for it, it's mine*, there's no f***ing that I'm letting Stasi Starmer put some half baked software on it, and that will pimp my data out so some shitty high-risk, untrustworthy big-tech outfit like Palantier, probably aided and abetted by c***s like Accenture. I'll also wager that this make zero difference to both illegal and legal immigration, and doesn't replace a single existing government ID number that I'll still be required to have.
* Well, and Google's. But that was part of the original devil's pact when I bought it. It comes to something when you trust Google more than your own government.
Serious question: what's a digital wallet? I'm hardly a Luddite and I've never had nor wanted such a thing. Christ only knows how Mavis aged 84 is going to handle it.
One thing they're being very quiet about is that if you have to store this on your phone and display it on request, it does an end run on the law that you're not required to unlock your phone without a warrant. And as I recall, if your phone is unlocked they can access the data without a warrant.
With Apple it is an in-built app which can be used to store bank cards (so you can then use the phone to pay with those cards). I’ve also had cinema tickets and dynamic boarding passes in there.
At least in some states in the US it can be used to store/display your driving license and is accepted as official.
Probably it is much the same on Android but i haven’t used that.
All these are based on secure modules or enclaves on the phones which store en/decryption keys in a way that they can be only be used by users authorised by pin or biometrics (ie face or fingerprint), but can never be extracted.
I recently added my state's license to my Apple Wallet. Since I rarely carry my physical wallet when I'm out and about anymore I have been technically breaking the law by driving without carrying my license with me since around when covid first hit. I haven't been pulled over but I figured having it on my phone would avoid any issues. You don't have to unlock your phone to display your license, and the law that enabled it in my state explicitly states that the police can't compel you to hand your phone to them to use the digital license. At any rate when they run my plates on the computer in their car it'll show them my license so it probably doesn't matter, handing them the piece of plastic has been mostly a formality for a while now (i.e. an excuse to racially profile, as I probably wouldn't feel comfortable driving without the piece of plastic if I wasn't white)
It even works on my watch, so if the cop is equipped with an NFC reader (I think most are but probably not all in my state and certainly it differs in other states) I could drive without my phone and still be able to "show him my license" lol
Serious question: what's a digital wallet? I'm hardly a Luddite and I've never had nor wanted such a thing. Christ only knows how Mavis aged 84 is going to handle it.
I have never used the digital wallet on any of my phones I’ve ever had, I’ve never done internet banking nor used Apple or Google Pay. If this becomes a reality then I’ll get rid of my smartphone I think. I suspect for work purposes I may have to have access to Whatsapp which I thought would be a problem. However I found out recently that there are feature phones that have WhatsApp on. Either that or they can supply me with a work phone, which I have thus far refused.
You have to provide a National Insurance number to work in this country, and the last three jobs required my employer to scan my passport. Any employer not checking those wont check these.
And lets not forget the massive back door this thing will have built into it so GCHQ can drive their lorries through it.
It will strongly tie your ID to your 'phone.
• via the cell towers your 'phone company knows where the 'phone is, the will now know where you are
• many people browse the web using their 'phone, they will now know who is browsing what web sites
What permissions will the Digital ID require to install on a 'phone: address book, location, ... ?
What permissions will the Digital ID require to install on a 'phone: address book, location, ... ?
None, if it is just adding a digital ID card to your Apple or Google Wallet. I have my state's drivers license in mine. I didn't have to give it any permissions nor did it cost me any privacy since it has exactly the same information as on my physical driver's license that the state was already in possession of.
Even on a high level look at this, everyone like you who has been employed in the previous 20 years have had to provide a photo ID as well as the NI number. Every time I've done it I've used a passport.
What I want to know is, and what I wanted asked, is Sir Kid Starver saying that a passport that allows me entry to over 190 countries is no longer good enough proof to say who I am?
Yes, well: Doesn't help if you don't have a passport.
I didn't when I got this job. Had to provide my birth certificate instead. They did look at my driving license (paper) and I swear there was a whimper from HR.
I did offer to show them a license with my photo, but that just made matters worse (a firearms licenses as I used to do re-enactment and owned a musket). I didn't show them the explosives license: That might have been a bit too much.
Ah, those days: They were fun days.
Now... well, I supposed I do now have a passport, and a photo drivers license (had to get one as I changed address). But it goes to show how messed up things are.
Now, you might think I'm in favour of a national ID. I am... if it's voluntary. And as posted on another thread: There would need to be some cast iron guarantees to stop the expected abuse.
Sometimes I even remember.
The problem for me is I refer to licenses fairly frequently (for software, STL's and the like) rather than licences (certificates such as a driving licence or TV licence). Hence if I don't stop and pay attention, it's easy to overlook I used the wrong version.
It's called an eVisa, and the Home Office has been issuing them to foreign students, workers and non-British partners of British citizens since last year. Existing non-British residents with physical immigration documents, such as stamps in passports or biometric residence permits, are now required to exchange them for an eVisa.
Employers and landlords are legally required to verify the eVisa status of anyone they want to hire or rent to. It is also checked by airline staff before boarding a flight to the U.K.
The Open Rights Group published a report last year (https://www.openrightsgroup.org/press-releases/broken-e-visa-scheme-could-lead-to-digital-windrush-scandal/) highlighting serious problems with the Home Office's implementation of the system, and warned that it could lead to another Windrush scandal. Readers of The Register will find the ORG's report both fascinating and alarming, as an example of a major government IT project that has fatal flaws.
From gov.uk (my emphasis)
"As part of our consultation, we will be making sure the scheme is inclusive by considering:
physical alternatives are available for those without smartphones
face-to-face help is on hand during rollout and for ongoing support
dedicated casework is provided for challenging situations such as people who lack proofs of their identity"
The minute they issue a single paper card the whole scheme becomes pointless as it's being sold on being "digital" as in the app forms part of the verification process. It's also ridiculous to expect everyone to have, want or be able to use a smartphone. We already have free photo ID 'Voter Authority Certificates' for people without another photo ID to allow them to vote, so that could easily be expanded to allow them to be used by anyone without a passport or driving licence for these other purposes. Instead they want to spaff half a billion pounds or more on this nonsense for nothing while claiming they have no money.
Labour won't be in long enough. If there was an election tomorrow they would be out. I can't think of any government that has lost so much support, so quickly. Reform will bury them at the polls, because Reform supporters are committed to voting their party in. Everyone else just dislikes the Tories and Labour enough to not bother voting.
UK politics and economics changed at Brexit. Labour ignored that and were too scared to point out that Brexit had made everyone in the UK a minimum of 25% poorer. When that happens, you are a poorer nation with fewer services and less stuff. The best Labour could have done was shelved all contentious legislation (OSA, ID) and spent four years fixing as much as they could, that the Tories and Brexit had broken, trying to nudge sterling up a bit and make people a little happier. They simply didn't. They went ahead, business as usual. Zero nous, zero, talent, zero ability. Astonishing. They have already lost the next election, even if they dump Starmer. Starmer was a great anti-Boris/Liz. Boring being better than a loon. But they did need to realise how much poop they were in and behave accordingly. Bit of a pity, as Reform will probably take sterling down another 10% and hammer the final nails in the UK's coffin, denying sectors even more staff.
But Labour will be in long enough to shovel a tonne of public money at unpopular stuff that they didn't need (we have NI for ID and we had ISP blocks for the OSA). Money they could have spent generating support by improving peoples' lives.
Reform are high in the polls because
1) they are not in government
2) they have not been in government and so have no previous to mark them by*
Reform are unlikely to be in government because
1) They have never been in government, and their inexperience/incompetence in local government is starting to be seen.
* Except that a substantial amount are ex-Tories who jumped ship. Though why a Tory party expunged of all the One-Nation Conservatives wasn't to the right enough for them needs further explanation.
Lots of people say they will vote for the Gammonistas but I doubt that it would translate into a win. They will get a lot of seats for sure.
I just find it so funny that they blither on about how immigrants 'were not invited' and should 'go home' yet 2 of the top people in Reform are first generation born in the UK to immigrant parents and the leader of Advance UK is an immigrant. Not forgetting Nige with his EU wife.
And the stats are that something like 52 or 54% of 'native' Brits will take out of the system more than they will ever put in. And the sad truth is that the majority of people making up that statistic are likely to be the people living in Gammonlandia.
It is worth remembering that Labour won the last election because Reform cannabilised a lot of Tory votes. So a Reform win is only guaranteed if those staunch Tory strongholds through their weight behind Reform. I don't think, personally, that it's likely.
However, I would imagine some sort of coalition/deal/merger between Reform and the Tories. Then it's a cakewalk for them all back in.
About half the missing Tory votes were due to people simply not voting. I cannot see them going into coalition with Reform. The reality might be a big shift to the lib dems from disaffected Lab and Tory members. Between now and 2029 Reform will eat itself. How many leaders has it had so far??
It is worth remembering that Labour won the last election because Reform cannabilised a lot of Tory votes
It's more complicated than this, even before the election Labour were the party bleeding most votes to Reform. It's that block of voters who the Tories courted successfully from 2015 until particularly the Liz Truss debacle who then switched intention to Labour, never particularly enthusiastically but enough lingered for the 2024 election and it's record-low vote 'landslide', and are now with Reform. That block is big enough to swing FPTP elections given the rest of the electorate are relatively split and mostly party-loyal (tactical voting notwithstanding). This is why Starmer's going after those voters like so many before him and why British politics has been sliding into the dustbin for at least 10 years.
However, I would imagine some sort of coalition/deal/merger between Reform and the Tories. Then it's a cakewalk for them all back in.
Indeed. And what a perfect excuse for Nige to drop his long-standing support for electoral reform, the only well-thought-out policy he has. We can't expect the Tories to back PR.
"Lots of people say they will vote for the Gammonistas but I doubt that it would translate into a win. They will get a lot of seats for sure"
That feels like sane thinking.
But I also thought I was sane in thinking when I woke up the morning after a referendum, I'd not be listening to people discussing exactly how to leave the EU.
And, one night, I went to bed safe in the knowledge that most people MUST have spotted a presidential candidate had the IQ of a Tinky Winky doll, but significantly less charm.
So I've consigned myself to the idea that the next PM is going to be a relentlessly self publicising, failed Tory windbag that had to stand in Clacton to get a seat. Because running on a platform of "Everything in your life is all someone else's fault so I'll help you find someone to blame." will probably work.
I'd love to see the stats for the % of 'white brits' in Clacton who are on benefits. Farage would never win in any constituency where the majority of adults are going to put more into the system than they take out.
The system is actually pretty fair. If you put enough NI into the system for long enough then you get your state pension. If someone has come in as an adult then the state has saved money as they did not have to provide an education.
They are also high in the polls because they don't do anything other than campaigning, whilst the sitting government doesn't typically campaign for an election until it has called one.
For comparison, at several points between elections in the 2010s and early 2020s, polls put Labour at a vast landslide win over the Tories. When push came to shove, they scraped in at the last election (with fewer total votes than Jeremy Corbyn had a landslide loss with), because polls that are made a long way from elections mean absolutely nothing.
This isn't to say that we shouldn't be alarmed at the dark money being pumped into Reform, or the links between its senior figures and other deeply dodgy politicians overseas, or indeed be concerned with the agitprop, and constant media coverage that a party with 5 sitting MPs gets, compared to say, the Green Party, or the Liberal Democrats. There's some deeply iffy media bias going on there, and it doesn't take a genius to follow the money back to people who are very much like-minded with "man of the people" Nigel.
The assertions were that valid photo ID usually a passport and an NI number has been required after offer to secure an appointment. This means even though you technically don't need a passport if you don't plan to travel everyone has one or at least a drivers license. So unless the scurrilous gossip on here about other reasons the home office might advise a PM to do this are true this is a solution looking for a problem. If you really wanted to move this into the 21st century and save citizens who don't need a passport money UK government could work with apple, google and preferably a FOSS project to come up with secure cross platform system that would allow citizens to add a drivers license, passport 'card' style thing (like the physical ones many EU countries have), or a basic ID like the prove it card those with youthful complexion use to buy alcohol if they don't have a passport. This would give al the benefits without the Orwellian drawbacks, as you would need to have or qualify for the doc already so no new data storage just a secure link to allow you to verify that with a digital wallet.
There are at least two problems with this it's not about checking the right to work or helping citizens with more efficient systems. The other problem is how secure anything built whether the more sensible suggestion put forward here, or the system suggested by Keir’s parroting of home office talking points would be, lets just say its a UK government IT project.
And the job that NI is "good enough for the job it is intended to do" is exactly the job the new Starmer ID is stated to do. So, not adding anything to systems that already exist. And the dodgy people who currently ignore the NONO requirements are not going to magically become upholders of the law and comply with the StarmerCard requirements.
"It will use everybody's smartphone"
Everybody doesn't have a smartphone. Will having a smartphone now be compulsary? Will the government be issuing them?
NI is not an ID, and if you looked into the reality of the NI system you would understand why. NI is 'good enough' for the job it is intended to do (and that is being kind), but an effective ID it really is not.
I've met people with two NI numbers and people who've found that their NI number was also assigned to at least one other person, thus totally buggering up their pensions. When it works it's fine, but the failure modes are horrid (and usually discovered when you want to retire to a quiet life with bureaucracy).
"Brexit had made everyone in the UK a minimum of 25% poorer"
It certainly has caused trade friction, but on a PPP GDP/capita basis, the UK was 87% of Germany's figure in 2015, and in 2024 on most recent data was 84%, so I'm struggling to find the other 22% you're alluding to? I'd also note that on most forecasts the difference between UK/DE will be negligible for 2025.
But feel free to disagree, a religiously held opinion needs no facts.
Yeah, there's your problem. GDP/capita is not an indicator of how much money you have, it's an indicator of how much money your work is worth. It's quite possible for the GDP to rise while everyone becomes poorer because the fat cats pocket all the money and let wages stagnate. It's also not a valid measure of change over time to compare the UK with Germany 10 years ago and today because the German economy isn't static either.
Now I agree that 25% is an exaggeration, but official government figures indicate that the average Briton was £2,000pa worse off by 2023 with an anticipated rise to more than twice that by 2035 if nothing changes.
https://www.london.gov.uk/new-report-reveals-uk-economy-almost-ps140billion-smaller-because-brexit
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Agree it won't happen in the timescale given - has there ever been a Government led IT project that has been completed on time, budget and worked as originally designed ?
It will get held up in the Lords anyway as it is not an election manifesto subject, so they can do that and not get over-ridden by the Commons
@Tron
"I can't think of any government that has lost so much support, so quickly."
Labour did not have that much support - people were just sick of the Tories so Conservative vote plummeted (compare number of votes Starmer Labour received in their recent "landslide" & compare to previous election as an interesting exercise).
It was really an illusion of mass support
Many will say that Starmer is doing his real job - destroying Labour & making it unelectable for a long time to come.
His massively right wing policies mean most socialists will not be voting Labour, whilst those on the right, especially that consume lots of social media will not realise how racist / xenophobic many Starmer policies are & still think he is a massive Leftie - so he will not be getting that many right winger votes.
There are polls galore showing a large majority of the UK public (not just those more inclined to support Labour - UK populace being distinctly more socialist on this than Labour) are sick of being ripped off by privatised monopolies* in the area of electricity, gas, water etc. (& sick of huge rise in sewage in rivers / sea in the case of Water). A bold move would have been to begin nationalization of key infrastructure as it is currently a relatively popular move, instead they have gone for policies that even the tiniest amount of unbiased research would have revealed as very unpopular.
* Typically often not full monopiles as in some cases there may be supplier choice, but not much of one (when there are alternatives they are generally all profiteering , investing hardly any money in improving infrastructure but sucking out huge amounts of cash, & big price differences are unusual and transient**), in many cases no choice e.g. Water - if you live in London, stuck with Thames Water, in Nottinghamshire stuck with Severn Trent etc.
** No proof of cartel behaviour (though a cynic may say no proof they are not behaving as a cartel)
I can see the future and here it is:
In 2025 - British citizens have ID issued by the British gov, legal foreign residents have ID issued by the British gov, people who aren't legally resident don't have ID issued by the British gov.
In 2030 - British citizens will have ID issued by the British gov, legal foreign residents will have ID issued by the British gov, people who aren't legally resident won't have ID issued by the British gov.
Therefore the reason for introducing digital ID isn't anything to do with this.
Apologies for the source, but this is all about making rich richer and keep the proles in check:
They probably got some of that article from this: The Billionaire Who Bet On The Tony Blair Institute.
They promise “free identity for work” - which rings uncomfortably close to certain Nazi slogan. But that’s just the Trojan horse. Behind it lies a system to centralise control: every app, every service, every institution plugged into one backbone. You don’t own the ID - it lives on foreign hardware, under foreign control, patched and updated like spyware.
And there’s precedent. The Nazis didn’t build their bureaucracy of control with goose-steps alone - they relied on IBM punch cards and tabulation machines to catalogue, classify, and track entire populations. The technology of the day turned ideology into infrastructure. Labour’s plan does the same, except this time the “Watson” sits in Silicon Valley owned data centres and Chinese supply chains.
This is surveillance consolidation. The state in open partnership with global corporations, mapping, monitoring, controlling. Label dissenters as threats, recall their “digital identity” privilege.
Labour has weaponised bureaucracy to do what dictators once needed tanks to do. That’s not left. That’s power.
"Labour has weaponised bureaucracy to do what dictators once needed tanks to do."
Actually that's nothing new, dictators rarely need tanks to control their own populations. A certain party took over Europe's largest country in the 1930s entirely through bureaucracy, people misguidedly think of that party as coming to power through armed jackbooted thugs, when the SA/SS brawling was more of a side show. The Austrian co-opted Germany's very rigid and professional civil service to deploy party influence in all areas of public services and policy, and indeed many of the most senior civil servants continued in office from the 1920s through the 1930s. That was not because they were party men, but because they were rigidly process men.
In Soviet and now Putin's Russia (and evidently in the USA), the same principle holds true that entire nations can be held hostage by the wielding of the power of bureaucracy. You don't like the latest economic forecast? Sack or shoot the forecaster etc etc,
That’s a fair point - bureaucracy is often the true instrument of control, not tanks in the street. But there’s a small distinction worth making. The UK no longer functions as a real democracy. Whichever party wins, it bends to the lobbyists, governed not by manifestos but by whatever’s scribbled on the back of a brown envelope. The mechanisms of democratic control have been quietly dismantled.
That’s why people can vote Labour or Conservative and nothing fundamental ever shifts - the rich get richer, poor get poorer and freedoms get thinner. The contrast with Germany or Russia is stark: there, dissent risked disappearance. Here, you can dissent as loudly as you like because the “alternative” is already purchased. Opposition is pre-neutralised.
And soon the switch flips from soft capture to hard. With a mandatory digital ID, dissent won’t need riot police. They’ll just turn off your credentials, and you’re out - jobless, cashless, stateless. Forage in the forest if you must. That’s the modern form of control: bureaucratic, invisible, total.
If you go left far enough you end up on the right. Almost all the most fervent, ideological and unpleasant political commentators on the right are ex-Trotskyists, ex-Maoists, Khmer Rouge and IRA supporters. Reform UK is *stuffed* with ex-members of the Revolutionary Communist Party FFS. The irony of small-minded intolerant extremists being led by the exact small-minded extremists they thought were the enemy is some consolation as it reminds me how fucking thick they are. Fuck authoritarianism, left OR right (basically the same shite anyway).
They’ll say it’s only for work. But every app update is a treaty you never signed. One day you wake up and your phone pings: You are outside of authorised zone, please return to designated postcode. Congratulations, your iPhone is now your ankle tag.
This isn’t bureaucracy, it’s Fascist Britain with a UX team. A national ID that doesn’t even live in Britain - it squats on American operating systems, manufactured in China, logged in California, mirrored in Virginia, and read in Moscow over breakfast. A sovereign database running on rented foreign owned servers.
At first it’s “check your right to work.” Then the landlord. Then the GP. Then the train station. Then the corner shop. Every pint pulled only after your barcode scans green. Every bus journey conditional on Terms & Conditions you never read. Your identity outsourced to the same corporations that can’t even make an update without bricking half the phones.
And when it glitches? You don’t exist. You’re unemployed, homeless, invisible. Deleted by patch Friday.
Simple, indeed.
I do love how the "far left" has taken the flak for both Hitler and Honecker as well as Starmer and Stalin. Man, if only they did have that much power.
Instead we're doing the 20s-30s again without the benefit of actual "far left" pissers, bullies and crazies making demands and running off right-wing attacks. Everyone wants to be a blackshirt now. The gayest era of western political flux so far.
"saving the government from having to issue pieces of plastic, potentially making the scheme cheaper and easier to establish."
Christ - this from a writer in a tech/IT journal. I can understand that a non-tech politician might think that a physical ID card is more expensive than it will be to to spec, design, implement, maintain and support a nationwide IT process and app which has to be secure, available, secure, cross-platform, secure, supported, and secure.
The problem is, of course, that the politicians will think it's cheaper, allocate a budget, and then start cutting corners when the costs grow. Or just give it to one of the big tech companies when they promise to do it on the cheap in return for access to "anonymized" data.
"That is why today I am announcing this government will make a new free-of-charge digital ID mandatory for the right to work by the end of this Parliament. Let me spell that out: you will not be able to work in the United Kingdom if you do not have digital ID. It's as simple as that,"
What is 'as simple as that' is that this is utter bollocks. Employers are already legally-obliged to check that a new employee is entittled to work in the UK. Those which don't, mostly in the cash-in-hand economy, are already breaking laws. Giving them another law to break is unlikely to prove much of a deterrent!
Sep 2024: Ellison declares Oracle all-in on AI mass surveillance, says it'll keep everyone in line
Citizens will be on their best behaviour because we're constantly recording and reporting
Today: Labour plans to consult on use of live facial recognition before wider roll-out
Speaking at a Tony Blair Institute fringe meeting in Liverpool, Jones said: “We need to put some parameters around what we can use facial recognition for.
So looking forward to the future joined-up surveillance state that nobody's barely bothering to hide any more.
If this Digital ID scheme is rolled out before the next election, unless by some miracle Labour managed to turn around the polls to win it will be more money flushed down the drain on yet another failed national ID card scheme under Labour, since all the opposition parties are saying they will scrap it.
But then of course this relying on Reform or whoever get in actually scrapping it if they get into power, as Labour were against mandatory photo ID to vote when the Tories brought in that requirement, but labour have had over a year in power and have yet to repeal that law even though they have a large majority in parliament.
Ahh, yes, the Tory voter suppression scheme. They did at least make a free form of photo ID available for people without a Passport, Driving Licence or Gun Licence. One that could only be used for exactly one purpose. Funny, that.
I get the sense the opposition is opposing Digital ID for the sake of opposing Digital ID. If it is rolled out by the next election and people are already using it to help open bank accounts and gain entry to nightclubs (if lucky enough to appear under 25), I don't think the next government will scrap it. If it is not rolled out before the next election, it will be made a major electoral issue about Labour turning us into the Stasi, the Nazis or both (or some bastard lovechild of the two).
I find it amusing that other countries roll out ID schemes, including digital, and manage not to turn into China. What makes Britain so special?
Within living memory, those other countries have generally suffered from dictatorships with a fondness for pervasive state surveillance of everyone.
Presumably, they've learned from those earlier regimes and taken enough precautions to make sure their ID schemes prevent a repeat. At least I hope they have. Britain hasn't had this misfortune (yet). So the unfit for purpose Home Office has no experience or insights to draw on. Instead we have lots of washed-up lying arseholes pimping ID cards that they know can't fix illegal working*, BTW some of those arseholes and dodgy used car salesdroids are getting lavish backhanders from the companies who expect to rake in billions from implementing a surveillance state.
PS Westminster hasn't got a clue about IT. Or how to oversee those contracts. Or make Big Databases work. All they can do is spunk away billions on the usual troughers
* Of course, that's not what these ID cards are for no matter what Stasi Starmer and his cronies try to tell us.
Anyone who doesn't drive, for example, has access to two forms of government photo ID (one of which is vanishingly rare):
- A passport.
- A gun licence.
Against that background, many will regard an extra form of ID as desirable/practical, and polling backs that up. Digital ID has the advantage that it should be faster to recover than a stolen driving licence or passport, but I think a backup should be made available to those who don't want to use their smartphones for this purpose (or don't own a smartphone).
As long as your mother is happy with the bank account opened many moons ago, she should not need ID (which is going to be mandatory BTW). Anyone who needs to open a bank account right now will find it easier with a photo ID. It's not impossible (unless it's an online-only bank like Revolut), but it won't get any easier.
A passport is not a right and it's not government as it comes under royal prerogative (as Harry found out when daddy didn't like 'princess' instead of Miss). It can be withdrawn by the courts (eg football hooligans), whereas even convicted fraudsters need a way to pay tax. The number of fraudulently obtained genuine passports is significant.
A GB (sic) Driving (sic) licence (sic) controls the activity, not the person, and is not available to everyone for a variety of reasons. That could be changed, as it has been for the Driver's license in many US states, but surely it would make more sense for the settled status system that is required for (non-Irish) EU residents to be available to all residents (over 13/16/18..)?
The widespread abuse of the Driving licence for purposes for which it was not intended comes from the lack of anything else, with the inbuilt indirect discrimination againt those without ignored because it's said to the user's choice. But the whole thing is backwards because it is the relying party that needs to do the check, not the person asserting the attribute.
But the group that advocates for EU citizens in the UK, *doesn't* want the electronic-only, often-broken, data-mangling, photo-swapping, error-strewn, email-requiring, smartphone-dependent system that they (apart from Irish) have been forced to endure to prove their rights on demand, imposed on everyone.
In their words, "Introducing a new way of checking will not force black market employers to check. These new headline grabbing measures will only create more fear in people who have already been made vulnerable, driving them even further into exploitation".
https://the3million.org.uk/why-mandatory-digital-ids-are-not-answer
Quote from OA
"As it stands, Starmer's digital ID will have data equivalent to a passport or a visa: name, date of birth, nationality or residency status, and a photo."
Then why introduce this phone-tied digital ID for the whole population?
Why not just the part of the population without a valid passport?
We currently need a valid passport for getting a job, the DBS disclosure, and starting a course in a College or University.
It's not really convenient to carry a passport. I'm surprised so many people keep their driving licences in their wallets, bearing in mind there is no legal requirement to do so. Passports and driving licences get lost or stolen, and it can take days or weeks to replace them. Phones are stolen and can be replaced (along with digital wallets, banking apps and so on) within hours. A stolen British passport sells on the black market for between £500 and £750. A stolen phone is sent to China for parts because encrypted/locked devices are unusable to anyone but the legitimate owner.
If I'm going to start a job of course I'm carrying a passport if needed for heavens sake. I do that once every one and a half decades or so.
How often will people need to actually access this digital ID which is only needed for work?
Quote from OA
"Culture secretary Lisa Nandy told BBC Radio 4's Today that everyone will have to accept a digital ID but would not need to carry the means to show it at all times. "They won't be required to use it on a daily basis," she said. "This is not like an ID card where you would be asked to show it as you are moving around."
Icon: mine's the one with the Nokia candybar phone in the pocket
Anyone lucky enough to look under the age of twenty-five is routinely asked for ID if they want to have a drink on a night out or buy any age-restricted item at a supermarket. That means a passport, driving license, or third-party digital ID, which may or may not be accepted at any given establishment. This is somewhat bigger than your occasional job hopping.
As for what the government says it's for, vs. what people use it for, I'll wait for the relevant legislation (either that or wait for the government to employ a director of communications who doesn't have the communications skills of an albatross). If, like the voter ID card, this turns out to be a form of ID that can be used for one thing only, I'll be the first to call the government out on it.
"A stolen phone is sent to China for parts because encrypted/locked devices are unusable to anyone but the legitimate owner."
If it is locked, yes. Most phone thefts take place whilst the legitimate owner is using it - therefore whilst it is unlocked.
All the thief has to do is keep pressing buttons to keep it that way until they can extract the information they want from it - the contents of the owners digital wallet, access to their banking app and email to change passwords. If you also have an official digital ID on it, by the time you get a replacement phone or get to another device from which you can wipe the data from the stolen 'phone, you may find that your identity and all the wallets and apps now point at somebody else.
The thief is only going to come unstuck where you have extra security such as facial recognition required/enabled.
If all the stolen 'phones were only fit to go to China for spare parts, nobody would be bothering to steal them.
This shouldn't need massive new contracts, as the building blocks for this have already been delivered under existing GDS programmes.
It's basically just existing OneLogin IDV (online and offline) with a new verifiable credential held in the GOV.UK Wallet (as already demonstrated for age verification purposes)
Right to work checks might be the 'killer app' required to get all working age adults to create a OneLogin account and do IDV to a high level (as Covid Pass was for NHS login and the NHS App)
