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Rights groups urge UK PM Starmer to abandon plans for mandatory digital ID

bigbrotherwatch.org.uk

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Re: Rights groups urge UK PM Starmer to abandon plans for mandatory digital ID

#41

Post by physicsguy »

nemomarx wrote: post #2

Why is the UK politics scene so focused on digital ID? Blair first proposed it and I feel like I've heard about it continually since with no progress. Different justifications every time too

Because 20 years later, everyone has given their data away on TikTok anyway and we're still dealing with the same issues with different digital government ID numbers that aren't joined together at all.

I have (that I remember, probably more):

National Insurance Number

NHS Number

Unique Taxpayer Reference number

A student loan Customer Reference Number account number

A passport number

A government gateway ID number

A driving license number

An account with the land registry

Re: Rights groups urge UK PM Starmer to abandon plans for mandatory digital ID

#43

Post by evertedsphere »

rainingmonkey wrote: post #36
nemomarx wrote: post #2

Why is the UK politics scene so focused on digital ID? Blair first proposed it and I feel like I've heard about it continually since with no progress. Different justifications every time too

The Tony Blair Institute still wields a lot of power in UK politics, and they're still pushing for ID cards. https://institute.global/insights/tech-and-digitalisation/to...

>institute.global

hubris

Re: Rights groups urge UK PM Starmer to abandon plans for mandatory digital ID

#44

Post by physicsguy »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #30
gambiting wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a foreigner on a visa(or an EU settled status resident), yes. If you are a British person(or pretending to be one) then you just need to show your employer your British passport(or one of several other acceptable documents), and obviously faking a picture of a passport is pretty trivial. And since employers generally don't have access to the system that can verify passports they take your word on the docume…

As someone who's just got their new British passport, faking the 3 pictures on it, and the whole passport itself, does not look trivial at all... I think it is much, much, much more common to have dodgy employers/landlords who do not carry out the checks at all because they are fine exploiting illegal immigrants, and no type of ID card would solve that...

Most people are paid cash in hand if they're working illegally realistically. I'm not sure that would change. But in enforcement it might since you could theoretically make it a legal requirement to produce the ID, that's the norm in many other countries.

Re: Rights groups urge UK PM Starmer to abandon plans for mandatory digital ID

#45

Post by cbeach »

In the UK we already have population-wide tracking of internet usage, no warrant required.

Once we have a citizen id number, it's probable the UK government will mandate that it is bound to our internet access.

The UK government has form for arresting people (about 30 per day at the moment) for online speech under vague laws criminalising messages that cause ‘annoyance’, ‘inconvenience’ or ‘anxiety’ [1]

This is widely criticised as politically-motivated (Google "two tier Kier" and you'll see what I mean). This phenomenon will only get worse once we have citizen id numbers and the cost of investigation trends toward zero.

Also the technical barriers to shutting down an individual's access to online and IRL services will be reduced.

As we saw during Covid, the UK government seized advantage of the situation to remove civil liberties, and it's likely to do so again, given the lack of apology for bad policy-making at the time.

Digital ID is bad news for the UK.

[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-10-2025-0022...

Re: Rights groups urge UK PM Starmer to abandon plans for mandatory digital ID

#46

Post by HK-NC »

lyu07282 wrote: post #37
arethuza wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"but for the safety of the nation, it is worth it" That's a pretty chilling phrase.

UK politics is very simple: People have a lot of economic grievances and they are frustrated. People are made to believe that the source of their problems are immigrants/non-white people. So for a lot of people in the UK, anything against immigrants, even more drastic measures, are worth it and it makes the government appear to do something about their problems. Nothing ever really gets better of course, but they hav…

Fair to add that, despite every winning party promising reduced immigration on some level, and everyone that wanted to remain in the EU rightfully annoyed that Brexiters were simply voting because of migration, nobody in power has ever given the people what they want in this regard.

Re: Rights groups urge UK PM Starmer to abandon plans for mandatory digital ID

#47

Post by ronsor »

physicsguy wrote: post #41
nemomarx wrote: post #2

Why is the UK politics scene so focused on digital ID? Blair first proposed it and I feel like I've heard about it continually since with no progress. Different justifications every time too

Because 20 years later, everyone has given their data away on TikTok anyway and we're still dealing with the same issues with different digital government ID numbers that aren't joined together at all. I have (that I remember, probably more): National Insurance Number NHS Number Unique Taxpayer Reference number A student loan Customer Reference Number account number A passport number A government gateway ID number A…

That isn't too different from America, where you have a social security number, driver's license number, passport number (possibly two if you also have a passport card), and any other random identification the government demands.

Re: Rights groups urge UK PM Starmer to abandon plans for mandatory digital ID

#48

Post by that_guy_iain »

nemomarx wrote: post #2

Why is the UK politics scene so focused on digital ID? Blair first proposed it and I feel like I've heard about it continually since with no progress. Different justifications every time too

Because the UK does not have a national ID system like nearly every other country in Europe, the reason it goes nowhere is that it costs money and no one wants to spend the money on it.

Re: Rights groups urge UK PM Starmer to abandon plans for mandatory digital ID

#49

Post by ronsor »

binarymax wrote: post #11
nemomarx wrote: post #2

Why is the UK politics scene so focused on digital ID? Blair first proposed it and I feel like I've heard about it continually since with no progress. Different justifications every time too

The real question is why do all UK politicians, no matter their party, hate people so much?

The real question is "why do all politicians hate people so much?"; and the answer is power and money.

Re: Rights groups urge UK PM Starmer to abandon plans for mandatory digital ID

#50

Post by IshKebab »

> Mandatory digital ID would fundamentally change the relationship between the population and the state by requiring frequent identity checks as we navigate our daily lives.

This seems like a dubious fear. We already have plenty of ad-hoc digital IDs (see physicsguy's comment) and none of these fears have come to pass.

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