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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

#741

Post by mr_toad »

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…

I couldn’t find anything in that document or the blog that answers the most basic question - is it going to be an app?

It literally contradicts itself at one point:

“It will also be stored directly on your own device - just like contactless payment cards or the NHS App today.”

An app has totally different capabilities from a card in a wallet.

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#742

Post by crazygringo »

9x39 wrote: post #656
crazygringo wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What master account are you even talking about? That's not what this is. The subject was a system being breached. And the account you set up for a driver's license is generally different from the one for your health care. If you're reusing the same password for both it doesn't matter if they're linked by the same digital ID number or the same email address or just the same name and birthday. A digital ID number isn't…

In the UK's own post linked below (also in the OP), they describe what's more than a digital ID number. It's credentials. Which humans are bad at handling. And there are always implementation flaws, because we're humans. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-digital-id-scheme-to-...

I think you're misunderstanding the article. When it says:

> Digital credentials will be stored directly on people’s own device

This is a credential you show. It's visual. It's not a login password.

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#743

Post by eesmith »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #711
eesmith wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and if an ID app alleviates some concerns about immigration then I'm fine with it It won't. The US border is now locked down far tighter than it ever was when I was a kid, and the cries for locking it down even more and violently apprehending suspected violators are at a fever pitch. The UK too - like many countries in the recent rightward lurch - has gone from a country where I can just show up to visit to one whe…

> It's not like Brexit fixed those concerns about immigration If anything, Brexit has exacerbated control over immigration as we can no longer access shared information with e.g. France.

Exactly. Before Brexit people wanted it because they thought, quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit:

'Opinion polls found that Leave voters believed leaving the EU was "more likely to bring about a better immigration system, improved border controls, a fairer welfare system, better quality of life, and the ability to control our own laws"'

Doesn't seem to have helped, has it?

So a justification based on a premise of alleviating some concerns about immigration has a long historical trail of failures behind it, as I'm sure the Windrush generation can share. The US and Canadian citizens along what was once pridefully called the world's longest unprotected border have also their misgivings.

As I read here, the UK passed the law that required employers to check employee eligibility. I'm sure that was meant to alleviate xenophobic concerns. Why wasn't that enough?

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#744

Post by sfoley »

randerson wrote: post #601
throwaway150 wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All my immigrant friends are skilled workers who earn more than an average citizen, contribute more taxes and pay exorbitant fees for visa, health surcharge and NIC. I am sure there are immigrants in low paying jobs too. Perhaps we need to talk about different types of immigrants rather than clubbing them all into one "immigrant" category and reinforcing the same tired tropes about immigrants.

This thread is about illegal immigrants. If your friends paid for visas, that would imply they are in a different immigrant category than what we're discussing.

No it isn't. This line of comments is explicitly in response to your claim:

> Isn't a larger issue the number of immigrants who are NOT contributing to the economy, living at taxpayers' expense

No one has yet mentioned illegal immigrants except you.

In any case it doesn't matter, since GP was specifically replying to:

> In my experience, immigrants have low paying jobs and regularly use cash to avoid paying taxes. Most have no sense whatsoever of cohesion with the country they live in and instead make groups of similar culture that don't really try to fit in.

They were simply giving their own opposite experience on the subject of immigrant wages and taxation, which is equally as valid.

If this thread was actually about illegal immigrants, both comments would be equally off topic. I find it interesting which one you decided to respond to.

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#745

Post by motbus3 »

reactordev wrote: post #350
matt-p wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In order to drive a motorcycle or car you need a driving license which has photo ID? Ok maybe you deliver by push bike.. but if you arrived here legally you will have a passport? If you didn't you ergo don't have the right to work here?

Outsourced to companies that don’t share data, which is why the government is requiring you to submit more data. How hard is this? Eventually they’ll have your DNA, Fingerprints, photos, family trees, employment history, money, spending habits, vices, travel locations, conversations, and your comings and goings via license plate readers. Welcome to your future.

It is happening already. Some insurance companies in my country wants to demand DNA testing and to withold that information for indeterminate time and to be able to sell that info.

Thankfully, although not even close to EU data protection there is some and this was deemed irregular for now.

Attention for the word "irregular". They will take maybe few more years to turn it onto regular. It is not illegal which is bonkers.

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#746

Post by jama211 »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #334
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.

>I mean if you have a passport then you already have an 'ID card', So why do we need this digital ID then?

Technically, they could indeed upgrade passports with an online verification feature and make them mandatory and it would work.

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#747

Post by jama211 »

grues-dinner wrote: post #572
jama211 wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that’s already the case without a digital id. It’s not like those accounts aren’t already linked together.

The accounts generally aren't linked together. Everything about the UK government IT is a huge group of independent systems all pretty much isolated from each other. You can argue over whether that's down to incompetence, organisational turf wars, or good security design. Which is why you have completely separate account to pay the same government for crossing one specific brige in East London than you do for vehicle…

I mean they could be more tightly integrated but any agency could match one account with another any time they felt like it

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#748

Post by jama211 »

crimsoneer wrote: post #486
jama211 wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I accept all these valid points, but don’t they already know exactly who we are and have a digital file on us already? I mean, I have a drivers licence and a home address and an internet connection I typically don’t use a vpn on. There’s no way they don’t have all this already right?

They do but it's all disconnected, migrants don't have it, and it makes delivering government services a massive pain.

Doesn’t seem so bad then

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#749

Post by rglynn »

astonex wrote: post #304
matt-p wrote: post #266

So 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…

A Brit can pass a RTW check without a drivers license or a passport - a paper birth certificate is also acceptable (and paper can be lost, damaged, forged), as neither a drivers license or a passport a mandatory. Getting those can be expensive for some people while this ID is free. A NI number is not ID, it's a reporting number. Lastly, a national ID is a tried and tested scheme in many, many countries and brings a l…

> The only "negatives" are slippery slope make-believe scenarios not based in reality.

This is an exaggeration. There are countless examples of how this has played out in the past, a quick google search will yield many of them[1][2][3].

The point is that any kind of data collection by a government can and will (eventually) be misused and abused. The UK government is currently abusing its powers to access Facebook and Whatsapp private messaging to arrest regular people for words (i.e not CSAM)[4].

This particular national ID introduction has about as much to do with illegal workers as the Online Safety Act has to do with protecting children.

1. https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/rearvision/the-dark-s...

2. http://www.preventgenocide.org/edu/pastgenocides/rwanda/inda...

3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1986/04/24/s...

4. https://freespeechunion.org/police-make-30-arrests-a-day-for...

Re: Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

#750

Post by rglynn »

octo888 wrote: post #207

"Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said ID cards were not in the party's election manifesto and added: "That’s not our approach."" – July 2024 "Asked about the possibility of introducing digital ID cards, Mr Reynolds [then Secretary of State for Business and Trade, now Chief Whip] told Times Radio: "We can rule that out, that's not something that's part of our plans."" – July 2024 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c87rgj4…

And yet people still stare blankly when you explain that the civil service and cronies run the country, not the politicians.
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