UK government says digital ID won't be compulsory – honest The British government has finally given more details about the proposed digital ID project, directly responding to the 2.76 million naysayers that signed an online petition calling for it to be ditched. This came a day after controversial spy-tech biz Palantir said it has no intention of helping the government implement the …
It's bad enough being asked to show ID to prove I'm over 18 when someone delivers alcohol from an idiot supplier that demands age be checked.
I'm nudging 70, I've slogged through jungles, fired weapons at people, helped nail baddies, and done many other grown-up things, they all took their toll, I definitely look way over 18.
There'll be an increasing stream of companies and services demanding it as a compliance/arse-covering/data trawling exercise.
It's not simply asking, it's refusing to hand over my own property, at my own front door, unless I produce ID to prove I'm over age, not to prove identity.
They then record details from the ID.
Next time I might just take it from them.
>It isn't your property until the contract is fulfilled, which happens when the goods are handed over.
I'm sorry??? I realize this isn't convenient to the powers that be but by that point they took the credit card payment which implies a user is 18. They can refuse service outright if they're that skeptical, and indeed that's what the ID laws were meant to incentivize, cribbing from SCOTUS crayon drawings notwithstanding.
There is a convenience store chain around here (college town) that REQUIRES swiping a driver's license through a special reader attached to the POS terminal to enable sale of alcohol. If you don't do that, the checkout clerk can't finalize the transaction and allow you to pay. So if you show up on the way somewhere wanting to grab a couple 12 packs and some other stuff and you don't have your ID with you at the time, they will have to delete the 12 packs from the transaction in order to check you out for that other stuff. Ask me how I know!
I'm not really bothered by the scanning - if they want to collect personal information then having a camera somewhere reading the text and photo off your ID when the clerk holds it up to take a look would be trivial to add with today's tech. But it is annoying that there was no way for it to be overridden. The clerk was apologetic and said there were instances of employees letting friends buy and they'd got caught twice and were going to lose their alcohol license if there's a third incident within a year so management brought in this new system and deployed it at all the locations in town.
Yes people could still "override" the system by just dashing out with the beer but kids have been doing that since I was a kid (not that I'd ever do anything so illegal lol) and anyway that doesn't cost them their alcohol license.
> REQUIRES swiping a driver's license
As a chap who doesn’t have a "driver's license" (I have a driving licence which is, presumably, incompatible with the POS terminal), I'd be rather tempted to start making noises about discrimination just for a laugh.
You can get a non driver's ID at the same place you get a driver's license so you can make noise all you want it won't make any difference. The law says you must "prove your age" or some similar language to buy alcohol.
I don't know what they'd do if I showed up there with my passport. That's a valid ID but if their system can't handle it I'm not sure what they do. I suppose that the right of a business to refuse service to anyone at any time for any reason (other than reasons the law makes illegal, like denying service to black people) gives them the right to determine which types of ID they consider acceptable.
It doesn't hurt to use some common sense as well.
I'm 41, I still get asked for ID occasionally because I appear to age like a vampire, I don't mind, but I'm compliant with the rules and I'm not a threat...but I've noticed a few times I've been behind kids that clearly are not 18, the kind that wear scarves over their mouths and go around in groups...that weren't asked for ID. Clearly they weren't asked for ID because the shopkeeper didn't want any trouble...send them on their way with the cheap bottle of vodka or risk your shop getting trashed, if your livelihood relied on your shop being open, how would you approach that situation...so in my opinion, age checks don't really stop booze and fags being sold to underaged ne'er do wells effectively. They're kinda pointless and cause more inconvenience for compliant people than than they do for the people they're supposed to filter out.
I'm sure if you live in the kind of place that has one shop, one post office, a war memorial on the green and everyone knows everyone in the village, age checks are effective...but in densely populated areas with a high number of kids going round in groups that kick off and cause trouble...not so much.
It'll be the same with Digital ID...it won't do anything to stop people working on the black for cash in hand...there will always be a black market for manual labour while there is VAT on labour because for as long as manual labour has VAT on it, there is always room for an immediate discount through paying in cash and therefore an incentive to pay in cash. Right now, VAT is 20% but I'm sure Rachel Reeves is eyeing up a VAT increase in the next budget, so cash in hand jobs are only going to increase.
The single biggest thing any government could do to make a massive dent in people working on the black is scrapping VAT on manual labour. Builders, gardeners, window cleaners etc etc....just scrap it. Nobody will be incentivised to pay in cash then, in fact they will disincentivised because a bank transfer or card payment is much more convenient that a few trips to the bank to get cash.
You would totally remove the room that allows dodgy tradesmen to massively undercut legitimate ones.
The illegal migrants aren't coming here to work as bankers, dentists, nurses, architects, engineers etc...they're coming here to man the phone cover shops in shopping centres, work as labourers for cash, set up as Uber drivers under a cousins driving license and so on...digital ID does fucking nothing to stop any of that...the taxi work and shop front stuff requires a different approach, but getting rid of VAT on manual work would dry up a massive chunk of the black market labour force.
Something else that would help is making any company with a shop front display a certificate that they're up to date with their tax returns and the number of employees they have on the books that are registered for PAYE. You don't have to put any financial figures on it, but if it's a document issued once a year by HMRC at the point that the tax bill is paid in full, with a unique number on it that can be verified online to prevent fakes, you'd weed out all the fronts and dodgy businesses pretty quickly and make it that bit harder to have illegal workers because people would twig pretty quickly that their barber shop has high staff turnover, more people there than have been legally employed and so on.
The emphasis needs to be on businesses, not the populace. I shouldn't have to carry a Digital ID just because some businesses can't resist hiring cheap illegal workers or some people would prefer to pay cash for the new driveway to save on the tax.
It is not necessary to register for VAT until sales reach the current £90,000 threshold. If a gardener or window cleaner is reaching this threshold they are doing very well. More likely they prefer cash to evade paying income tax.
If they can just deliver on cross-border initiatives already in the pipeline like Digital Driving Licences and Digital Passports that would keep many content.
Right to work largely based on annalogu passports anyway… so largely solving itself..
"This is not a card but a new digital identity" (from the explanation on the petition site)
A digital identity. What's that when it's at home?
If evidence were needed that this was a sudden brain-fart blurted out without thinking it's in that statement. They'll work out later what a digital identity might be.
>> Breathing is also not compulsory.
> ... but it helps to keep the heart beating.
As does a functional (hind) brain but not compulsory (but is rather for the breathing bit.)
Politicians are a biological paradox lacking both a working brain and any sort of heart but evidently possessed of fully functional pair of lungs by the quantity of vacuous hot air they manage to pump out.
Then call it a right to work card. You know, like a driving licence for driving.
As for 'Estonians save hours each month': That's just horse chocolates.
Or if it's so wonderful for everyday things then offer it as an app and watch the public take it on board.
It will of course be linked to the police records because CRB checks... and then some.
If I can get my digital identity back after my phone is lost then so can crooks and abusive families.
"If government wanted us to save us hours each month, they would have lifted non-sensical trade restrictions for Sunday. It's often extra 2-3 hours to do weekly shop if you have no choice but to do it on Sunday."
Ah, little England being behind Scotland yet again - there urnae any significant restrictions on shopping on Sundays here! :-)
(Don't get me wrong, all workers should be legally entitled to two contiguous days off every week, but essential services should also be properly available 7 days a week (because, you know, most of us are at work on weekdays!))
Starmer has been threatening apple and google. He wants the app to be able to turn Location Services ON without telling you and have the OS allow location data to flow to government storage without any security settings or software being able to block it.
"You never know, Palantir might even decide to get involved if that consultation meets its level of satisfaction and the contract is worth enough money."
No, no, no. Too many words - I suspect the correct form to be: "Palantir might even decide to get involved IF the contract is worth enough money."
quote: Digitally checkable digital credentials are more secure than physical documents.
A photocopy of a passport in a locked cupboard is far safer than a scan of one, such as those which are regularly lifted in malware attacks.
And we already have National Insurance numbers.
A digital society is an Orwellian society. We need to use tech more sparingly and more securely. If something is safer on paper, leave it on paper.
My response to Starmer, whose increasingly unpopular regime has just censored the internet with the OSA, despite having ISP blocks and mobile blocks that worked fine, is short and ends in 'off'.
All these policies do, is lose votes for Labour and push Reform into power. That means Farage running the UK. Or, if it looks like too much work, I'm sure Boris Johnson or Liz Truss could be enticed to return.
The argument that the Online Safety Act (OSA) was a "Tory-Brexiter" project imposed on a reluctant Labour party is not just nonsense, it's a bad-faith attempt to gaslight and rewrite incredibly recent history. Let's dismantle this claim piece by piece with the facts.
1. Labour's Ambition for State Regulation of the Internet Predates the Tories' Bill.
The idea didn't start with the 2019 Online Harms White Paper. Labour has been pushing for this for years.
The 2017 Labour Manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn pledged to "legislate to create a new statutory organisation, to set and enforce standards for online content" and hold tech companies liable for illegal content hosted on their platforms.
Labour's policy papers from that era consistently laid the groundwork for a far more interventionist state role in policing online speech and content. They were a key part of creating the political climate where a bill like the OSA was seen as inevitable.
2. Labour Didn't Just Support the Bill; They Attacked It for Being TOO WEAK.
Their entire parliamentary strategy was to publicly shame the Conservatives for not going far enough.
"Legal But Harmful": This is the most damning evidence against your point. When the government, under pressure from free speech advocates, dropped the controversial "legal but harmful" provisions for adults, Labour was furious. Shadow Secretary Lucy Powell attacked the move, accusing the Tories of creating a "charter for racists and misogynists" and "caving into their own backbenchers." Labour wanted to keep the power to censor legal speech; the Tories are the ones who removed it.
Criminal Liability: As stated before, Labour's flagship demand was locking up tech bosses. They didn't just suggest it; they used it as a political weapon for years, accusing the Tories of being soft on Silicon Valley until the government finally conceded.
3. The "Government of the Day Carries the Can" Argument is Intellectually Bankrupt.
This is a lazy deflection, and here’s why:
Governments Repeal Laws They Hate: A new government is not forced to accept legislation it despises. History is filled with examples of incoming governments scrapping the flagship policies of their predecessors. The current Labour government has already frozen the Rwanda scheme, which it vociferously opposed.
The Litmus Test: The Labour government took power in July 2024. If the OSA was truly a hated Tory law "imposed" on them, they would have immediately announced a review, an amendment, or a full repeal. They have done none of these things. Why? Because the OSA is, in spirit and ambition, their bill. Their only substantive complaint was that the Tories, in the end, didn't make it even more draconian.
To claim this is a "Tory" bill is to ignore Labour's foundational role in creating it, their consistent public battle to make it more restrictive, and their current acceptance of it now they hold the power to change it.
“Cheery was aware that Commander Vimes didn't like the phrase 'The innocent have nothing to fear', believing the innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like 'The innocent have nothing to fear'.”
― Terry Pratchett, Snuff
“Cheery was aware that Commander Vimes didn't like the phrase 'The innocent have nothing to fear', believing the innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like 'The innocent have nothing to fear'.”
I had the impression Vimes didn't put much store on the innocence of anyone (in Ankh-Morpork?) but he certainly didn't trust those "above†" him any more (actually a lot less) than the worst criminals and wasn't entirely sanguine about the Patrician.
† including most of the nobility until Vetinari elevated him to the only dukedom.
A section missed from the article (this is from the response from the government to the petition).
"To tackle these interlinked issues, we will introduce a new national digital ID. This is not a card but a new digital identity that will be available for free to all UK citizens and legal residents aged 16 and over (although we will consider through consultation if this should be age 13 and over). Over time, people will be able to use it to seamlessly access a range of public and private sector services, with the aim of making our everyday lives easier and more secure. It will not be compulsory to obtain a digital ID but it will be mandatory for some applications."
Specifically: to seamlessly access a range of public and private sector services
So they already plan to let private sector have access to the system in some form. Okay, so age verification would be the obvious reason, but it's a very vague, open ended promise/threat.
Plus: How will this be free? Nothing is free: Someone will have to pay for the system, and maintain it, and ensure only those entitled to have digital ID can get it. That side raises the spectre that this will be paid for by selling people's data to private concerns. And more importantly, those private sector service providers.
Also:
"For clarity, it will not be a criminal offence to not hold a digital ID and police will not be able to demand to see a digital ID as part of a “stop and search.”"
Which is nice, but that doesn't help when it's mandated for access to things, such as voting. And to these 'private sector services'. That's on top of the requirement for digital ID just to have a job in the first place, or access to benefits, support and NHS treatment. Which has been noted will have zero impact on illegal workers, and the idea that digital ID will help identify which companies shirk the law and don't check ID's? Why aren't they doing that already? Or is it a case that they don't bother to register people working for them where they didn't check the right to work? So they're not paying NI or PAYE for those employees? So they might be paying lower that national minimum wage already... and no one is paying attention or taking note it's already happening? And that's not touching on some of the work scams that have hit the papers recently?
So it's all hollow words and deflection: We will have to have this digital ID, we will have to carry it, and it WILL be used to track us by private concerns because they WILL abuse it as often as they can. And the Government knows this and doesn't care 'cause... why would they?
"For clarity, it will not be a criminal offence to not hold a digital ID and police will not be able to demand to see a digital ID"
That may well be what the idiot apologists for Starmercards say today. But they (or the next government) can change their minds tomorrow. Papers citizen!
BTW, if there truly is no need to carry your Starmercard at all times and only have to show it when you get a new job, why are they going to be mandatory for everyone, always?
When my wife last tried to login to Government Gateway to check her NI years for her state pension she found they'd 'expired' her account because she'd not logged in for a while (couple of years) because she had no reason to.
She tried creating a new one, but couldn't. Why? Because she's one of the 10% without any photo ID, despite her previously having an account!
You can just see it, you don't have a reason to use Digital ID for a while, so they delete you!
Something I must have missed is that these "cards" will also be location trackers as soon as the "security services" (and if history is anything to go by your local council) have access to them. I know that can be done now but to have all the information in a single place will make things much easier.
Looks like I will need a new burner phone when they make them mandatory.
#Not the AC but I'll try to explain.
A: The phone connects via a radio link to the cell tower system with a $UniqueHardwareIdentifier$, this HAS to be tracked in order to route incoming data to the correct tower for transmission onto the selected $UniqueHardwareIdentifier$ radio link. The mobile phone can be tracked & location triangulated as it communicates with multiple towers, the presence of a SIM merely acts as key allowing the owner to use it as intended.
B: The SIM uses the radio connection 'A' to the cell tower to announce it's on $ProviderNetwork$ with $PhoneNumber$ this is to allow billing and the use of short phone numbers which are a completely legacy hangover from when land lines used real numbered wires to make a physical connection.
'A' does not need 'B' for any purpose.
'B' needs 'A' to work.
@BartyFartsLast
Quote: "....emergency services...."
So....no SIM.....phone uses VOIP across a WiFi link......
No emergency services on VOIP phones.......I don't think so!!
What point are you trying to make?
Maybe you ACTUALLY WANT your phone to be tracked by the mobile phone system?
>is to pop your phone into airplane mode.
You don't control it - the proprietary software does - therefore it's not yours.
Aeroplane mode is asking nicely for the mobile chipset to be put into non-transmission mode - it is entirely possible for proprietary software to ignore such request.
>Or better still, power it off!
One of the reasons batteries aren't removable is to ensure that the device cannot ever actually be switched off.
Even trying to make the device run flat may not help - for example iphones appear to reserve the bottom few percent of the battery to continue location tracking (but it seems that's done via bluetooth to other iphones rather than mobile networks).
Kind of. What it actually does is prevent the number appearing in the HLR (which is not supposed to be sold but clearly is acquired by tracking companies somehow.)
So, you can give companies you deal with a SIP number to contact you, but they can't use it to determine your location.
Removing the SIM is kind of pointless unless you're happy to only use the phone on wifi. The answer? Port your mobile number to a SIP provider, get another SIM, never tell anyone the new SIM number and never call with it unless the number is hidden. Use the mobile network's data connection for SIP calls when out and about.
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This all seems very Home Office. There's a large element at HO who've been after this for years and years. They know that they can never get it through with a Tory government, as it'll be seen as a right wing move that voters will baulk at. Instead, the policy hawks wait to float it until there's a Labour govt.
A lot depends on how quickly a Home Sec 'goes native' - obviously, Shabana Mahmood and her SpAds have turned pretty quickly.
I'm a director of two small limited companies. Companies House now require directors to register with a Government One Login account to be linked to their directorship record. Which is done by email address.
The problem is that a Government One Login account can't have more than one email address. So I have had to register TWO "One Login" accounts, validating my identity using exactly the same passport details, so that I could connect them to the two email addresses I use for the two companies I'm a director of.
I wonder whether, should this "Digital ID" system come into effect, I could end up with TWO official IDs?
I use one-time email addresses so I know whose database has been hacked to spam me. So the NHS in its wisdom uses the address for the physio I saw once upon a time for everything. They also make your phone number available to all and sundry, so I had to tell my GP to delete it because the local hospital kept sending me junk texts. So more instances of poorly thought out public data structures.
Is already doing some of this via the back door.
All kids starting high school are automatically signed up for it and get a Young Scot card which allows them free bus travel etc. and as proof of age.
This is actually a national entitlement card under a different name.
It's actually run by local councils, they can do different things with it like add a tag for disabled bus pass etc., but no doubt there is a national spine database somewhere.
In saying that a Young Scot card holder does not automatically get an NEC when they reach the age limit but no reason they couldn't.
Can also be used as ID for voting in UK elections.
Interestingly it does NOT require a passport or driving license to apply for, just birth certificate, NHS medical card etc.
Banks don't seem to count it as an accepted form of photo ID, however my father being the obstreperous bugger that he was forced Nationwide to accept it as such when he wanted to open a new account and they wanted to go through the money laundering malarkey.
Pointed out that it was issued on behalf of the Scottish Government therefore it was govt. ID. And by the way he had £600k spread across his existing accounts due to a recent house sale, RBS was next door and did they have the forms available so he could request closure of all his accounts. Funnily enough it suddenly became acceptable.
He didn't have a photo driving license at the time since he hadn't moved house in 30 years, hadn't reached 70 and never had a passport.
I believe their policy at the time only mentioned government issued photo ID rather than being explicit as to what was acceptable so they were hoist on their own petard.
My son is now 15, prior to him starting secondary school they had the visit from the Young Scot Card people to give the talk where they told them about discounts on CDs and stuff. He received his card as he said yes and spoke to mum about it, without me knowing. I looked into it once I heard about it and pointed a few things out.
Once it arrived I telephoned them and was put through to the local council team administrating the card. I mentioned that under GDPR a child under 13 cannot give consent, asked them why none of the details were supplied regarding the potential data collection etc and with out asking the response was we'll just cancel it!!
The numbers on the card were to be a UCRN (unified citizen reference number) to link council, NHS Scotland etc interactions all to one number. Thankfully the SNP government scrapped it, but it has come out after John Swinney's condemnation of the "Brit Card" that his administration is working on a "Scot Card" as well!
No one can do anything these days without someone wanting to track them. Makes me wish we could go back to the mod 80s or very early 90s again when no one knew anything about anyone and interactions were all face to face etc.
Young Scot itself is a very good thing: it has existed since the 1980s, and as well as being a youth discount card it is an extremely useful "civic education" service for teenagers and young adults, and with the discount aspect being fully interoperable with the equivalent cards in all of the other European countries in the EURO <26 network.
I was of course a member at the appropriate ages mumble-mumble years ago, and back then it was just a laminated card card (possibly later, plastic) that you stuck a photobooth photo to and then sealed it with an adhesive plastic cover layer - no more and no less than only the level of technology that you actually needed!
And when you joined each year the membership pack included a fairly thick ~A5 book with all sorts of very useful civic advice about school-age, higher and further education, getting a job (or an apprenticeship), your legal rights, managing your finances, renting or getting a mortgage, health, relationship and sexual health advice, information about NGOs, political representation, etc, etc, updated and reprinted each year (you got the book for free when you first came of age at school, but had to choose to rejoin each year after that). I am genuinely not joking when I say that it is probably the most practically useful book I have ever read (along with the Green Consumer Guide). Nowadays the information is on the Young Scot website instead (which is perhaps actually a bit retrograde, as a small book that you can quickly flick through - to learn about what you don't yet know that you don't know - is perhaps a more usable format to learn from).
(This was also during the peak Thatcherism and peak schoolteacher-strike period, so the feeling that there were actually people out there in society (ooh, dirty word, there is no such thing as…) who actually gave the slightest fuck care about the wellbeing of young people was so much more reassuring than perhaps even they knew…)
I guess it was almost inevitable that when free bus travel was introduced that the Young Scot card would need to evolve to become a contactless card so as to be harder to forge and easier for bus operators to reclaim payments for, but that this then got ensnared into a whole creepy Big Database murky plan (and sneakily done in a "boiling frog tadpole" way, imposed on those perhaps least likely to question it) is very unsettling indeed - I'm sure the older Young Scot handbooks would have had a few warnings from history to say about that sort of thing…
We must be similar ages.
Likewise had one but never found it very useful for anything that I recall.
I think overall digital ID is the usual problem with anything that gets introduced to cover a, b, c.
A, b and c could be useful in the short or long term but then a little while down the road it gets extended to D. Obviously they send you an email with the new t&c, but very few read those much less opt out because A and B are still so useful. Then E is added with a couple of terms that, if you read them, would make one a bit nervous. Then a little while later we get to Z with page 1332 of the T&C’s, obviously the first few goes won Plain English awards but then they stopped submitting them for some reason, that in 6 pt text inside a massive paragraph says “we own your body and soul and that of all your successors until the end of time”.
Obviously that’s a little dramatic but never met a govt yet who didn’t like to “expand” things since “we’ve already spent so much money on this wouldn’t it be useful if it could also….” .
For example Glasgow council put cameras in to enforce ULEZ. Funnily enough since they know that nearly every vehicle would eventually be compliant in the next few years they’ve suddenly ‘discovered’ that they could use the same cameras for a congestion charging zone and are making plans for it. Funny that.
Once it arrived I telephoned them and was put through to the local council team administrating the card. I mentioned that under GDPR a child under 13 cannot give consent, asked them why none of the details were supplied regarding the potential data collection etc and with out asking the response was we'll just cancel it!!
The numbers on the card were to be a UCRN (unified citizen reference number) to link council, NHS Scotland etc interactions all to one number. Thankfully the SNP government scrapped it, but it has come out after John Swinney's condemnation of the "Brit Card" that his administration is working on a "Scot Card" as well!
Definitely get in touch with your local and regional MSPs about this! (Possibly also worth flagging up with noyb.eu?)
I am sure there are some (individual MSPs, and perhaps certain political parties in particular) who will (or should be) concerned about all of these data slurping aspects, and if they hadn't yet noticed this (sigh) regarding SNEC, hopefully with the planned UK Digital ID card being in the news this will make them more alert to what they should be checking on!
I had thought that, because of all the data-grabbing and ID documentation (and dubious third-party processors) required to get a SNEC, it would already require parental/guardian involvement to go through the process - that's rather concerning if the data-gathering is being done, as you say, without that.
(In my time of having an old-skool Young Scot card, at least some of that period would have been even pre-DPA-1998, and (most likely, but who knows?!) was hopefully nothing more than a stand-alone non-internet-connected "basic plain address list" database (or, ugh, spreadsheet?) solely on a computer in the Young Scot office?)
As the title suggests the government is trying to talk itself out of the poorly thought of hole it dug itself into.
They can't tell us what problems it will solve, and the ones they have mentioned it won't solve. It will stop the boats because all these illegal migrants that enter the black economy will suddenly stop doing so if they don't have a digital ID - NOT.
From the response to the petition "It will not be compulsory to obtain a digital ID but it will be mandatory for some applications." I can see this will be you want a passport, then you need a digital ID. No ID no passport, no travelling abroad. Of course there is a total lack of information on what what would applications it would be mandatory for.
Private companies will have access to it - will this be just to confirm you have an ID? Of course not, they will be given access to all your information which they will definitely not use in ways they shouldn't or sell it on to the local data brokers
Security - probably more a problem with the government than the private companies because they are so rubbish at it, but it does apply to both. How is the information kept secure and how will the government GUARANTEE nobody will be able to access any information they shouldn't and that the files won't be hacked? After all they have such a stellar record so far.
I can actually see a use for a digital ID and how it could be useful but as soon as the government start using smoke and mirrors I lose any trust. Look you don't need a digital ID unless ytou want to do this....
Irregular migrants. Not "illegal".
I am sorry, but I do have to object to that newspeak. I have every sympathy for people who are genuine refugees or who are legitimately seeking asylum, but we all know that a proportion, perhaps even the majority, of people trying to sneak into a country are doing so illegally in order to live and work there under the radar (in the black market, usually under conditions that are also very exploitative to themselves, in terms of both 'employment' and squalid overcrowded and often unsafe 'living' conditions). If you want to move somewhere for a job, apply legally: that's what I have to do.
Every country has the right to decide which immigrants it will allow to enter and settle in that country, whether temporarily or permanently, usually (and quite reasonably) based on whether they have useful skills to offer. Western/northern nations have to look out for the wellbeing of their own populations as well, and simply can't absorb an endless inflow of migrants from the global south, especially where they have no particular skills to offer, and, in some cases, do not integrate at all well into the host society (I emphasise that it is also self-evident that many migrants have brought their own useful skills and do integrate well in their new country).
What the global community really needs to be doing is assisting to end wars in, and improve the economies of, countries with significant emigrant outflow, so that there is a safer and better standard of living in those countries so that far fewer people feel the need to leave and go on long dangerous journeys elsewhere (often having to pay what little savings they have to criminal gangs to do so). I also realise that this is a very big task.
And governments and businesses in the supposedly more developed countries need to make education and training available to improve the skills of their own populations, and ensure that businesses pay fair wages: instead we have a nasty situation where businesses say "Oh, nobody locally will work for the pittance we are offering, you'll just have to let us bring in some migrants instead who we can exploit and push wages down further".
The USA is a geographically very large nation, and (mostly) a good example of a melting pot of very varied and (reasonably) controlled immigration (although Native Americans could certainly reasonably make quite a strong argument to the contrary), but Europe, including the UK, is a far smaller area and much more densely populated. This is certainly not to say that we should not welcome and allow some degree of immigration (and indeed emigration, although Brexit has scuppered a lot of that), but an uncontrolled free-for-all is is no way sensible.
So when are all those living in the USA without permission from the native Americans leaving then?......
Worse when ICE are stopping and trying to deport native Americans from their own land (just like Andrew Jackson did - look up trail of tears )
White Europeans collectively have a monumental amount of blood on our hands and reparations for colonialism are a drop in the ocean Vs what is owed.
Many so called "illegals" are coming to europe from countries that were colonized, their people, economies and natural resources pillaged for the benefit of Europeans. So it's more than hypocritical to freak out over our own tactics being used against us but as usual loudmouths and bigots across Europe fall back on racism and pearl clutching
Yes, that's pretty much exactly the mesage they intend to convey, isn't it! "We know best, we don't need to properly explain ourselves to you plebs so therefore you can fuck off"
Also probably a significant element of them having not actually thought it through, so couldn't explain the details or proper justifications even if they wanted to as they've not made those up yet. It has every appearance of being yet another of Starmer's knee-jerk reactions to try to regain popularity, which in the usual fashion of his attempts at this has backfired badly.
Exactly, problem is Digital ID is all part of Agenda 2030 so no matter what they will try and bring it in. They won't be honest and say why, but make up some utter bollocks to hide that fact.
If it was up to me membership of WEF or any organisation like that would be made illegal for elected representatives and no one would be allowed to be an MP without some life and workplace experience.
Labour's response to the complete rejection of the "give your personal ID to unknown companies" law was to call anyone who didn't agree a paedophile, or a supporter of them.
And then they continued on with it.
They know they're out at the next election, so why bother worrying about what voters think?
I'm not sure that they will be out. I don't want them, and I've always regarded the PM to be a prize hypocrite, since he campaigned for the Labour leadership with a message that he wanted to get away from adversarial government, and then turned around at the first PMQs after becoming leader of the opposition with the same aggressive tactics as always, criticising the government in the same way that taints all important debates in the House.
The problem is that with the Tory vote migrating to Reform UK and the Lib. Dems., and the disheartened Labour vote going Green or possibly "No Name" (have they decided a name? Do they even exist as a party?), and many of the rest of the voters being so disenfranchised by all parties and not bothering to vote at all, that we're heading for a hung parliament, with the possible outcome of having a dysfunctional coalition lead by either Keir Starmer (if he survives an "Ides of March" moment) or Nigel Fararge.
Neither of these will work, so I can see us having a succession of shot-lived governments over the next decade, until somebody comes up with either a change in the voting and governmental systems to something a bit more like PR, or we get one charismatic leader who can swing a decent majority again.
It's prudent not to trust anything coming from the mouths of Mr Starmer, Bad Enoch, whoever heads the Lib/Dems, Farage, their colleagues, and anyone else making a handsome living through politics.
Digital identity will be required before one is permitted to access categories of 'content' deemed suitable for persons of one's demographic and ideological trustworthiness. This will be enforced via ISPs. No longer may connection be always on for private individuals. Several times a day, users will be required to log in. At best, VPN can give partial respite, but its use will be noted, and one's social score will drop thereby denying access to a host of communal services.
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How is it going to serve the stated goal they've been advertising of preventing people not allowed to work in the UK to work in the UK? The only way it could possibly do that (assuming employers weren't trying to work around that system for their own selfish reasons) would be if employers could expect that everyone authorized to work in the UK will have that digital ID.
"Currently, when UK citizens and residents use public services, start a new job, or, for example, buy alcohol, they often need to present an assortment of physical documents to prove who they are or things about themselves," it says.
Hang on! Stamer initially said this was being brought in as a way of proving who has the rights to work in the UK, a sort of National insurance card photo ID.
But suddenly in the space of 2 weeks its also going to be as proof of age ID for buying alcohol as well as for accessing public services.
I doubt it will reduce the number of people coming to the UK and working illegally yet it is already suffering with mission creep, which is only going to get worse.
As although it won't be mandatory to have one (yet), within a few years people who don't sign up will find they are locked out of doing things as websites, shops and other services will all start asking for it to prove your identity or age.
"This came a day after controversial spy-tech biz Palantir said it has no intention of helping the government implement the initiative"
A statement which is absolutely meaningless as Palantir does anything if they get royally paid for it.
It is a company which operates solely on greed. For some reason current government is willing to spend billions of tax payers money for *more surveillance* of said taxpayers.
Proper Stasi-level stuff is going on here.
The contract for the digital ID app was given to Euan Blair (Tony blairs son) without any sort of bidding. Starmer owns 5-10% of this company.
the cost of each ID is £90 every five years to every single person in the UK. (Ministers are exempt). - so over time Starmer stands to make 100's of millions personally.
Starmers statement says it won't be compulsory to carry the ID everywhere and present it on demand. Later it says "whilst its being implemented", so basically until everyone has one, police can't say "Papers Please!" but afterwards you can be arrested for NOT having it.
Starmer has been in contact with both Google and Apple, demanding they 'override' protections in their smartphone OSes to allow the app to turn Location Data on without notifying the user, and to be able to report your location at all times, again without any sort of visible notification. Basically a full-on "why are you so far from home, CITIZEN?" type of control.
Starmer has also been discussing making it illegal to campaign against Digital ID once its implemented, using various terrorism acts.
>The contract for the digital ID app
So you will run the latest version of either iOS or Android on a device that you don't even have root access too huh?
>protections in their smartphone OSes to allow the app to turn Location Data on without notifying the user, and to be able to report your location at all times, again without any sort of visible notification.
Why would the location data setting do anything beyond making the location not available to cr...apps and maybe keeping the GPS chipset in low-power mode (GPS chipsets integrated into cellular modems cannot be turned off - only asked to go into a low power mode and I figure gaining a GPS lock would take a very long time in that mode, but it would be retained in decent conditions)?
Has the UK government been given complete access to such location data already?
Not so long ago Google used raw GNSS data to run a study on android phones without explicit permission:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08072-x
Note that didn't require positioning, just (GNSS) raw code phases and pseudodistances ... from which you might calculate position anyway. So in principle google could claim not to need positioning info (i.e a position calculated by the phone), but grab the raw not-a-position data, and do their positioning calculation elsewhere.
Unless you want to work, operate any sort of life...
I saw the response to the petition.
"Government responded:
We will introduce a digital ID within this Parliament to help tackle illegal migration, make accessing government services easier, and enable wider efficiencies. We will consult on details soon."
Can't see this stopping the Delivery drivers,and illegal black cash only economy unless it also includes a removal of cash as well. It's stepping stones/boiling frogs as before we know it we'll be under some technocratic authoritarianism.
Some questions it might be worth having solid answers to before we even think of going ahead (doesn't imply it's a good idea):
+ How much will to actually cost, to setup, and to run?
+ What data will be collected, and who will have access to it?
+ What control will each of us have over how 'our' data is used?
+ How will the system cope with 'false-positives' – you are identified as someone else?
+ How will the system cope with 'false-negatives' – you failing to be identified as you?
+ How will failures and abuses be managed – what protections and recourse will be in place, will they be timely and will they properly compensate people for the negative impacts on their livelihoods and lives generally?
+ How will the system look after people who cannot access it, or who refuse on grounds of conscience?
+ How will the system be prevented from undergoing 'mission creep': "We promise that the system will only ever be used for A and B, and never for things like X or Y" – ten years later it is being used for A,B,C,D,X,Y, and Z is about to be added?
+ What will stop the 'ID system' being used to make the people of the nation de facto 'possessions and servants of the state', instead of 'the state' being servants to, and beholden to, the people of the nation?
No doubt there are other questions, maybe even more worthy than these. That's quite a lot of ground the Govt. needs to cover, and it still may be a fundamentally bad idea.
Our online presence and identity is so open to abuse with current "verification" so an digital ID is probably inevitable at some point. However there is absolutely no trust that the Government can restrain itself, restricting exactly who, when and for what reason any of its departments can access that data. Worse still the creation and retention of such vital data is irresistibly wide open to data mining and monetisation. It has to be a parliament defined and restricted independent organisation with robust rules as to what data is required and the who when and what can access it, all again prescribed by Parliament.
Many of the problems Digital Identity is (supposedly) useful for can be solved by allowing people to have multiple identities!
The shopkeeper selling me a bottle of wine doesn't need to know who I am. He needs to know I am a member of the authorised to buy wine club.
The polling station staff don't need to know who I am. They need to know I am a person who holds one vote in this constituency and has not used the vote yet.
In my real life today, my friends know me by one name, and my work by another name. And every web site I use knows me by a different name and email address I create exclusively for them.
That is how Digital ID needs to work - let me create as many digital IDs as I like for different purposes.
