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Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

reuters.com

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Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#431

Post by lxgr »

jjgreen wrote: post #183
celticninja wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain what it is you find so distasteful about ID cards? I mean if you have a passport then you already have an 'ID card', but I certainly don't want to take that out with me to prove my age.

Could you please give me your real name "celticninja", your phone number, your address, your NI number -- oh, and you'll need to install this app on your phone which I promise will never be used to monitor your location, purchases, friends. Then I'll explain.

What does any of that have to do with an ID card?

Many countries have had ID cards for decades, yet don't have any digital ID system whatsoever.

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#432

Post by blipvert »

jjgreen wrote: post #172

Before the election I was approached by a bubbly young woman who tried to persuade me to vote Labour: "No thanks, last time I did that they tried to introduce ID cards", "But that's not in our manifesto" she replied, "It wasn't the last time I voted for them either". It gives me no pleasure to be right on this.

It’s not an ID card.

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#433

Post by 4ndrewl »

phatfish wrote: post #411
gargan wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the opposite of what you say. Proportional representation isn't accountable because you don't know what coalition you're voting for - coalitions are done in backrooms after the election. Winner takes all is more accountable because the coalitions are done before the election (aka political parties). Parties are made up of different factions and they're agreed before the election.

I guess you don't live in the UK, because winner takes all is far worse for backroom deals. The deals just end up being between factions within the same party! Deals and bargaining all happen AFTER a party takes power and completely hidden until a government can't pass their own bills like the Labour attempt to reform welfare. With proportional representation the deals are made in order to form a government, BEFORE i…

You take what happened in the two elections previously (and I know technically we don't vote for PMs, but they drive the agenda of the party).

2015 we voted for Cameron, ended up with May then Johnson 2019 we voted for Johnson, ended up with Truss(!!) then Sunak(!)

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#434

Post by card_zero »

padjo wrote: post #104
gmac wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

… except that trying to out-Farage Farage (by being bastards to asylum seekers) will lose them many of their traditional supporters (who are not big on being bastards to asylum seekers) and seems unlikely to gain them many Farage supporters (why would they take some half-hearted populist bastardry when they can have the real deal?). The ‘small boats’ narrative is ludicrously over-reported here. It’s such a clear case…

It’s amazing to see Labour fall for the same trick that the Tories did with Brexit, and also incredible that Farage is still a political force after all the Brexit lies.

That's not a trick, it's how third parties have influence in a two-party system: the two main parties are compelled to steal any popular policy from a third party before it becomes a credible threat.

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#435

Post by jodrellblank »

curtisblaine wrote: post #130
mrtksn wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instantly fixable by letting people work legally.

Countries have a right of controlling immigration in their territory. Letting illegal immigrants stay and work essentially negates that right.

a) if it's illegal then the country isn't letting them do it.

b) if your solution to it is that everyone else must have a mandatory state surveillance card powered by Palantir, Infosys, or Fujitsu Horizon so that you know who to target your hate at, you need to be forced back to the drawing board.

We fought World War II against the "papers please" people who were using those documents to clear out undesirables. "strenuous left-wing opposition" has a pretty good history. right-wing authoritarianism ... doesn't.

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#436

Post by JetSetIlly »

HankStallone wrote: post #413
JetSetIlly wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the most alarming aspect of the proposal to me. I find it wild that the government will require me, by law, to buy an expensive electronic device I don't want or otherwise need, in order to be employed. It's absolutely amazing to me that the government is forcing me to spend money in this way.

My government requires me, by law, to send it tens of thousands of dollars every year, much of it to be spent on things I don't want or need, in order to stay out of prison. Requiring me to spend another $100 or so on a phone seems like pretty small potatoes, compared to what they intend to use the device for. I'm not saying I'd like it, but it's a detail, not the main issue.

It's not so much the money but rather being forced to do business with a company I do not want to do business with. If this were an optional activity, like driving a car and being forced to do business with an insurance company, that's one thing. But this will be a forced commercial interaction simply to be employed in the UK. That's a very novel abuse of power.

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#437

Post by prmph »

I don't know what western countries are thinking. The concept of an isolated nation state is fast approaching obsolescence. Very soon, it will be clear that it is meaningless to put strong restrictions on the free movement of people. And history shows that an emphasis on keeping people out is a precursor to the decline of an empire.

One thing I never understand: if people want to come to your country, that is a vote for the idea that you are doing something right. So, why not use for good? Why not designate a area of the country for the immigrants to initially settle in, using your laws and structures to provide them a better way to live? They are usually very hungry to work. Or, why not band up with other countries to establish refuge cities where the immigrants can initially settle and build new lives?

You never hear of the US etc investing in infrastructure in African countries, for e.g., it is always about a militarization effort to contain supposed terrorists.

Keeping people out betrays that your "success" is built on the back of exfiltrating resources from around the world and concentrating it in your countries, thus keeping the rest of the world poor.

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#438

Post by jaggs »

tencentshill wrote: post #375
jaggs wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop Americanizing the UK. ICE does not exist in the UK.

Stasi, Gestapo, ICE. You know what they meant. The UK just doesn't have the equivalent aggressive immigrant-removal operation in place yet.

And may never have. Believe it or not the UK and the USA are two different countries, thank goodness. So making an assumption that the two will adopt exactly the same policies is a little ambitious to say the least. For example please note that the UK just agreed to recognize Palestine.

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#439

Post by basisword »

ghusto wrote: post #340
aftergibson wrote: post #189

A secure, optional digital ID could be useful. But not in today’s UK. Why? Because the state has already shown it can’t be trusted with our data. - Snoopers’ Charter (Investigatory Powers Act 2016): ISPs must keep a year’s worth of records of which websites you visit. More than 40 agencies—from MI5 to the Welsh Ambulance Service—can request it. MI5 has already broken the rules and kept data it shouldn’t have. - Encry…

Was reading through your post, finding it difficult to find fault with anything you were saying, but something wasn't sitting right. And then ... > I'm certain it's worked well in other countries It has! In the Netherlands for example, it's just an incredibly convenient system, and if there's anything dodgy going on I'm not aware of it. So what makes the UK so different to the Netherlands? Genuine question, because I…

>> So what makes the UK so different to the Netherlands?

Id say it’s not a difference in the politicians but the citizens. Pessimism and paranoia are rampant in the UK. We already went through this ID card debate 20 years ago and the fear-mongering won. So the idea just reignites that debate with a lot of baggage.

The UK has various systems in place to ensure people are legally allowed to work, rent, etc but in reality they inconvenience people without actually catching “the bad guys”. This system would make life more convenient and make the chance of catching the bad guys higher.

In truth though the problem is dodgy employers on a large scale. Take Deliveroo or Uber Eats. The accounts are rented out to illegal workers. You could literally catch one for every order you make. But for some reason the government isn’t actually going after the obvious hanging fruit.

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#440

Post by jodrellblank »

pjc50 wrote: post #201
celticninja wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain what it is you find so distasteful about ID cards? I mean if you have a passport then you already have an 'ID card', but I certainly don't want to take that out with me to prove my age.

It all depends on exactly when they're mandatory and what tracking is associated with them. My own personal thinking has evolved on the subject since I campaigned against ID cards under Blair ("no2id"). It is a question of trust and purpose. Things like the Estonian digital identity scheme do not seem to be bad in practice. The problem comes from identity checkpoints, which serve as an opportunity for inconvenience,…

> "Remember the "computer is never wrong" Fujitsu scandal?"

For anyone outside the UK who doesn't know this reference, the UK Post Office (originally the state postal system, privatised by this time) paid Fujitsu to build a computer system. It had bugs which made it look like money was going missing. The bugs were reported, and ignored. The Post Office prosecuted employees for theft and fraud over sixteen years, ruining hundreds of lives and reputations, sending hundreds of people to prison, and causing some suicides.

It eventually came out as an investigative journalism story that the system was at fault, the people were innocent, and the Post Office knew about the bugs right from the start and had been hiding them from the police/courts. "In 2024, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described the scandal as one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British history" that's almost 10 years after it ended and 25 years after it started, rather too late to undo all the harm.

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

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