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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

#721

Post by Arch-TK »

adolph wrote: post #635
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…

> I'm certain it's worked well in other countries, but I have zero trust in the UK government to handle this responsibility. This commenter may sound like a paranoid person (and may very well be, I don't know them) but read about the way the UK government handled an IT error in post office accounting software. Someone living there has good reason to not trust the powers that be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_…

Horizon is the cherry on top.

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#722

Post by rcxdude »

squidbeak wrote: post #719
mr_toad wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the proposal for the UK system right now. Is it? Nobody knows if it’s going to be an app, or a virtual card, or a real card. So speculation and rumours are flying. Whoever does comms for the government must be asleep.

You're not correct in saying nobody knows. This has been in discussion for several years, and the standard is outlined in detail on the government website [1], and also discussed in a blog [2]. But I fully agree if you mean it hasn't been adequately explained to the public [3]. [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-digital-identi... [2] https://enablingdigitalidentity.blog.gov.uk/ [3] https://www.gov.uk/g…

Can you spell it out further from that document? There's only one mention of zero-knowledge proofs in there, mentioning it as one thing that could be used in verification. The rest of the document is similarly simultaneously dense and vague, so it's really not obvious to me that the actual implementation will be cryptographically privacy-preserving.

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#723

Post by surgical_fire »

flir wrote: post #627
surgical_fire wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - is it a good idea to tie various public records together under a unique ID Generally, yes. It simplifies dealing with government bureaucracy. Proving your identity is generally something you will have to do anyway, this is will just remove a bunch of hoops you have to go through. > - is it a good idea to issue voluntary ID for those situations where people need to prove it One of the countries I lived in had a sy…

> Generally, yes. It simplifies dealing with government bureaucracy. Proving your identity is generally something you will have to do anyway, this is will just remove a bunch of hoops you have to go through. This community, more than most, should understand in its bones that security and convenience are the ends of a see-saw. Convenience is five-character passwords, security is 2FA. Convenience is contactless payment…

Convenience and security are not opposite to one another, they are orthogonal. Inconvenient means to prove your identity may be terribly insecure, and still be inconvenient.

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#724

Post by closewith »

Theodores wrote: post #496
ghusto wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Spying has always gone on, however, in the UK there is a lot of it. WW1, WW2 and the Cold War was all about spying. Considerable infrastructure was built to support this, culminating in 'Five Eyes'. Furthermore, the former empire was built so that all of the telegraph and telephone lines went to London. If you wanted to make a call from one African colony to the next, London would be in on the man in the middle. As w…

> And so it goes, until someone advises them to go to Ireland, where they can walk over the border to the UK, as in Northern Ireland.

This is absurd. The problem is the exact opposite, nearly all IPAs in Ireland come from the UK via the common travel area. Ireland is not in Schengen and is not reachable from the continent by small boat, so there is negligible migrant flow in the opposite direction.

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#725

Post by KoolKat23 »

t14000 wrote: post #691
KoolKat23 wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will not need to carry it around with you. It also seems it'll actually be called Digital ID by the government, this is more a marketing tool, BritCard. (Just clarifying if it helps, I see some misinformation out there).

Because they pinky promise? It'll be required to produce one like producing a driving license is required, but you don't need to have it with you. It'll be required because pubs/bars etc will require it. It'll not be required like giving a traffic stop breath sample is not required or like giving up your password is not required. Imagine it was called IrishID or similar, help you to have empathy for how half of NI re…

I guess it depends on its design (does it set up the dystopian infrastructure or not) and then more so on the legislation around it. It's already not uncommon to need your passport for work, making it a law to produce for any work would be the actual thing that changes this.

I get your point about IrishID, but be realistic, none of this is surprising considering the current state of things. I could make some controversial statements in this regard but I'll avoid the flames (I sympathise with you before you place me in the wrong box).

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#726

Post by noodlesUK »

bfg_9k wrote: post #692
noodlesUK wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A birth certificate is not proof of citizenship or legal presence in the UK for anyone born after 1983. Anchoring proof of citizenship is going to become a very obnoxious problem going forward if there is not a population register or universal ID system introduced, as you'll have to go back however many generations it takes to reach birth before 1983. I think the UK and Ireland are the only countries in the entire wo…

The vast majority of countries do not have birth right citizenship, and amongst those that to only about half have it as unrestricted. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries... I don't exactly know what you mean by citizenship register but I can't imagine it's hard to workout who is a citizen and who isn't.

The UK has no notion of a person number or national ID number that is tied to citizenship. Therefore it is not possible to prove British citizenship except with a British Citizen passport, naturalisation certificate or pre-1983 birth certificate.

It’s therefore a lot harder to prove citizenship for an initial passport application in certain circumstances than you might expect. You need to prove that you have an unbroken link of people born in the UK to someone born before 1983, and as time goes on that will mean even more generations. Right now you typically need to provide your birth certificate, up to 2x parents birth certificate, and up to 4x grandparents birth certificates.

In many other countries the birth certificate will have the person numbers of the parents, which will mean there’s essentially guaranteed to be a record of the citizenship of the parents that the state can check. Alternatively there’s a national ID scheme that helps bootstrap this information early in life.

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#727

Post by asah »

BeefySwain wrote: post #455
asah wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

??? do not rely on incompetence for privacy. anyway, privacy is dead - longer conversation, but even if you don't carry your cell, there's cameras everywhere with face/gate recognition.

Do you mean gait recognition?

Lol yes, bad auto complete :-)

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#728

Post by padjo »

whackernews wrote: post #717
padjo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What Brexit lies?

350m for the NHS.

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#730

Post by heavenlyblue »

JetSetIlly wrote: post #668
Aeolun wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think the current ID structure has any field for religious or racial history. It’s simply a unique number assigned to a person at birth.

The census form in the UK requires disclosure of religion and ethnicity. It would be relatively easy to merge census data with ID. I might trust this government not to do that, but I don't trust a future government (because I don't know who that will be).

how would the existence of this card make it easier to pursue you if you're let's say, Jewish? Doesn't passport/driving license already have thisv
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