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UK Petition: Do not introduce Digital ID cards

petition.parliament.uk

181–190 of 373 posts

Re: UK Petition: Do not introduce Digital ID cards

#181
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our system in Estonia works well. I don't get the resistance to a digital/national id in other countries. To us it is quite bizarre. Some have explained it with a lack of trust between citizens and the country. But without such digital id it is impossible to have such digital government services as we have here. The government services need to verify and autheticate the citizen, so they only access their own data and…

> I don't get the resistance to a digital/national id in other countries. To us it is quite bizarre. It depends on the country and its relationship with the people. If the people trust that their government represents the people's interests, there is little push-back. In countries where citizens have reason to believe their government is hijacked by interests that do not have their best interests at heart, then every…

that Twitter account famously posts nonsense

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/jordan-petersons-chine...

Re: UK Petition: Do not introduce Digital ID cards

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> “Grossly offensive” is absolutely not the same thing as “any message online that anyone could find insulting or offensive”. There is no statutory definition of “grossly”, so in effect it is the same. There is prior art for it being interpreted incredibly widely. Not to mention the other incredibly vague adjectives in the law. > Correct https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html “Don’t be snarky”.

>> There is no statutory definition of “grossly”

If this concerns you I would advise not looking into pretty much any UK law which is full of subjective terms and ways to interpret them. The law isn’t an algorithm nor should it be. Just because you can’t understand how it works doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.

Re: UK Petition: Do not introduce Digital ID cards

#183
post #24

The thing that frustrates me the most about digital ID cards is not themselves on merit but rather modern Labour's political abilities. Like, the UK economy is stagnant, there is a cost-of-living crisis, and Labour needs to present the public with an alternative to Farage. And the answer is... digital ID cards?

I would hope they can do more than one thing at a time. On the economy, £30bn of tech investment was announced last week.

Re: UK Petition: Do not introduce Digital ID cards

#184
post #3

As well as the Estonia eID system works (aside from that time it got hacked[0] and that other time they leaked all the photos[1]) and how well a digital (non-government) system works in Scandinavia… I have to say… As a Dual British/Swedish Citizen, I really do not trust the UK government. They have proven over and over and over, that at every opportunity presented they will increase their own authority. I don’t belie…

Our system in Estonia works well. I don't get the resistance to a digital/national id in other countries. To us it is quite bizarre. Some have explained it with a lack of trust between citizens and the country. But without such digital id it is impossible to have such digital government services as we have here. The government services need to verify and autheticate the citizen, so they only access their own data and…

> I don't see how such a system gives the government more powers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State

When the state is more likely to cause you problems than help you out, you want them to be bad at it. The corrupt cop going on a fishing expedition to try to bust you for something because you're dating his ex, who can't find anything because it's "spread out, fragmented, stored with multiple conflicting versions" -- that's what you want to happen.

It's also not just about the government. If you give everyone a government ID which is easy to use over the internet, private companies will then demand that you use it over the internet and use it as a tracking ID. Which is the evil to be inhibited.

Re: UK Petition: Do not introduce Digital ID cards

#185
post #3

As well as the Estonia eID system works (aside from that time it got hacked[0] and that other time they leaked all the photos[1]) and how well a digital (non-government) system works in Scandinavia… I have to say… As a Dual British/Swedish Citizen, I really do not trust the UK government. They have proven over and over and over, that at every opportunity presented they will increase their own authority. I don’t belie…

To expand a bit on Scandinavia, let me describe my 5 different but equal valid identification systems that I personally own that is valid to use in order to identify myself towards the government, two (mostly) digital and three physical with digital parts.

I got one passport with bio metric data and chips in it. One national ID card with bio metric data and chip in it. One driving license card without bio metric data and I don't know if there is a chip or not inside.

Then I got two digital eid systems, bank id and freya. The bank id is initially created by using a physical device that the bank provides, and the other one is created with a smart phone to scan the passport in combination with face recognition.

I can't really say if the multiple digital eid systems give the government an increase in authority, through its hard to say. Mostly it just messy to carry so many different identification systems that basically do the same thing. The current discussion that I see in Sweden mostly focus on turning the physical cards into digital.

Re: UK Petition: Do not introduce Digital ID cards

#186

Is there a technological way to make an ID that's anonymous and irrevocable (since arguably people should never lose citizenship)? Because digital, national ID has major benefits (prevents fraud, reduces paperwork), but yeah, those are IMO larger drawbacks.

"ID" and "anonymous" are exact opposites.

Not necessarily, by "ID" I mean certificate that proves you're a citizen, adult, and owner of [specific thing] (to a service that manages [specific thing], without letting them deduce anything else you own). That can be done without identifying you e.g. via ZKP.

Although the ID should also be irrevocable, yet could easily be stolen...

Perhaps the solution is to give local municipals (e.g. neighborhoods) the power to generate, revoke, and authenticate IDs. The textbook surveillance state seems to always be a large organization; neighborhoods can be problematic, but I suspect it happens less often, because they're much easier to influence (and overthrow the "leaders" of) than big governments. So e.g. if a national bank wants to know if a user's provided credentials (name, address, etc.) are accurate, it asks their city such a user is one of their residents; the city knows what services the resident uses and can (if malicious) block them, but the government can only track the services of all residents in a city, and must block entire cities (which, if they band together, require smaller numbers to challenge the government; in a large country like the US, there would be extra layers such as states, so that no layer significantly overpowers a group of several of the layer below).

Re: UK Petition: Do not introduce Digital ID cards

#187
Keir Starmer is trying to sell this to public with the promise that it will curb illegal immigration. But by how much? And if that target isn't met, will it be rolled back? It always amazes me when governments hold themselves to such a low standard, and just fall back on "if you don't like it vote it out" while not recognising that the signal of a vote every 4 years can not meaningfully extract consent on this particular issue.

Re: UK Petition: Do not introduce Digital ID cards

#188

Keir Starmer is trying to sell this to public with the promise that it will curb illegal immigration. But by how much? And if that target isn't met, will it be rolled back? It always amazes me when governments hold themselves to such a low standard, and just fall back on "if you don't like it vote it out" while not recognising that the signal of a vote every 4 years can not meaningfully extract consent on this partic…

Representative democracy sucks, it just sucks less than everything else we’ve tried. Plebiscites on specific issues are terrible: that’s how we got Brexit and woke up the next day astonished that our neighbors had been so daft.

Re: UK Petition: Do not introduce Digital ID cards

#189
post #174
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a financial score based on previous financial transactions and contracts. It's a bit of a stretch to call it social.

Well, in the U.S. at least it literally determines where you are allowed to live. I don't know how you couldn't call it a social credit system.

It’s not a social credit system because it doesn’t weight your social involvement in the society (political party, school credentials, race) but rather payment history, amount of debt, types of credit

Re: UK Petition: Do not introduce Digital ID cards

#190
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That already happened: James VI of Scotland inherited the English (and Irish) throne. There's a pedantic sense in which the current English king is actually the Scottish king, not the other way around (although stronger pedantry would say the Hanoverian succession is sufficient to prove that whole line of reasoning a load of tosh). What would restoring the Scottish monarchy mean to you?

What would restoring the Scottish monarchy mean to you? Fully reclaim Scotland's historical sovereignty, create a clear and distinct break with the rest of the United Kingdom and breaking English narratives. My first act as king would be to build hundreds of underground nuclear and geothermal power plants, sever all connections to England, build massive data-centers and under ground cities to wait out WWIII. I would…

Ah, severing every umbilical tether to the Sassenach is not just policy, it's a spiritual exfoliation. And the underground cities – oh! Glorious citadels of caffeine and chaos, where the Wi-Fi sings and the fibreoptic tendrils burrow like divine serpents beneath the Earth’s crust. Truly, the only monarchy in history that replaces Buckingham with a subterranean rave-bunker running on siphoned diesel from an unaware Kazakhstan.

And swipeocracy… it is a peer-reviewed populist masterpiece. The military? A profit-seeking legion of mercenaries whispering «Freedom» as they hijack pipelines and troll NATO via encrypted memes. You’re not a king. You’re the last goddamn Highland Prophet.

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