I am not going to download an app to work. If they need some form of ID they can provide me a physical one, oh wait that sounds like an NI number. What's the point of this again?
Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers
461–470 of 809 posts
Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers
#462Earlier quoted context omitted.
This might be a "grass is greener" thing. Do elected representatives actually have higher approval rating, or enact policies that better fit with public opinion, under proportional systems? Sure it'd probably make things a little better, but it won't actually solve anything hard, I think. All Western countries are struggling (and mostly failing) to deal with the same problems regardless of details like electoral syst…
With proportionate representation you get what _should_ happen, in my opinion, which is sometimes nothing. If the coalition can't decide on something, then it doesn't happen, which is the correct outcome because not enough people agree about it. It represents the people (who also can not agree on it). The alternative is a decision that most people don't agree with.
That sounds like kind of a mirror of some of peoples biggest complaints regarding bureaucracy and committees. Deadlock can not only be worse than an imperfect solution, it can be weaponized by a minority to exert outsized power and extract otherwise unthinkable concessions. We see this sometimes in the US House, where more fringe or radical groups within parties can block the literally functioning of the actual country, safe in their assumptions that the two parties will not form a majority coalition and that the parties as a whole will take more damage from the fallout than the radical groups.
I'm not saying that that makes the system worse, mind you. I'm not even saying you're wrong that it's a better system. I just think anyone who thinks any one system is the easy, obvious fix to fair and just representational government is either shortsighted, or has different priorities than I do.
Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers
#463Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This is the crazy part to me. I want nothing to do with the iPhone/Android duopoly and I do not participate in it, at the cost of some personal convenience from time to time. If my own country were to implement this I’d honestly just tell them to stick me in jail. I can be a test case, why not? You have to draw the line somewhere.
It really is mad.
Whenever you hear someone say, "everyone has a phone these days", you must push back against that. It might seem like it to them but it's just not true. I've always chosen to point out that it isn't true because I was worried that one day, it would be become a legal requirement to own one. It seems that day has arrived, in the UK at least.
I'm a little in disbelief that I will soon be legally required to own one of these things.
Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers
#464A 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…
I wonder if zkSTARKS could help here. Prove that the validity of a statement (like "I am a citizen that is authorized to receive benefits") without revealing your precise identity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-interactive_zero-knowledge...
This would be great and all, but all parties who are in a position to choose to implement this kind of system or to keep the status quo are already motivated to keep (and expand) the existing systems, for any number of reasons. Everybody (except the end users) loves to keep that juicy metadata and incidental logs of everything.
(Repost from 2021: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26560821>)
Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers
#465So I currently have; A National Insurance Card (needed to get a job), drivers license and passport, one of latter is also needed (in practice) to get a job. Why would a brit card help us reduce the number of people working illegally? The only notable 'employers' of illegal workers in the UK are American tech firms Uber and deliveroo (doordash) because they allow driver substitution without verifying that the substitu…
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Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers
#466[flagged]
Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers
#467Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are many legal routes to immigration and seeking asylum. People choose to move illegally because they won’t succeed on the legal routes and know that once they’re in the country the chance of them being deported is pretty low.
The legal routes are also often strenuous, far too long lived, overly strict, and obtuse. If you barely speak the language, it's not easy. Unfortunately many countries have made immigration so hard, in an effort to combat it, that they've done the opposite - people immigrate illegally because it has a higher success rate than doing it legally. If I apply for X, Y, and Z and I'm denied, I'm fucked. But if I just move.…
> But if I just move... And then figure it out later... That might work better.
Yes, that's the part that needs to be fixed.
Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers
#468The same thing is happening in Greece. The new mandatory digital ID replaces and unifies everything about citizens in one place, "to make it easier for government services to share information between each other". It can indeed be useful, but the privacy implications are enormous. Just imagine that a policeman, employer or anybody else with access to the information linked to the ID can instantly view our medical rec…
> The worst part is that we no longer have any power to do something about it.
Perhaps it is time for the Greek to dust off their guillotines.
Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers
#469Before 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.
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.
I am sure by now it has been explained by others. But basically - an ID document is like a bearer token that does not need to call a central authority every time it is verified. I am sure there are cases where it is, but a digital token that is linked to location every time it is verified is a quite different thing. Currently in the UK the law states that ultimately only a court can force you to identify yourself - by which time hopefully the purpose for which identification is being done is quite a serious and valid one. Making it cheaper to track people is not exactly a goal worth pursuing in my (not so humble) opinion.
To add to this - there is very rarely in my mind a need for someone to actually identify themselves - there are plenty of examples where it's useful for *audit* purposes to have a record, or to have a role-based credential to be able to do a thing, but *identity*?
Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers
#470Leveraging a central authority to issue standardised, signed tokens to all citizens, then letting the public and private sectors make use of it: that’s something I could get behind!
The government steps in solely to manage token issuance. New use cases appear as emergent properties. DebbiesDrawings.com lets you use your tokens to sign eCards. HMRC.gov.uk lets you use then to sign tax returns. RonsRentals.co.uk lets you use it to sign a new lease.
In a pessimistic world, without watching the hyenas closely we end up with Capita or Accenture or Concentrica or Syntegrico (I made the last two up) syphoning off £8bn to create proprietary tokens that can only be used with sanctioned government JavaBeans webcrap. It would also be fundamentally flawed and won’t launch until 2037.
With care, something really cool could happen.