Digital ID: What is it Good For?
Don’t you just hate Digital ID? It hasn’t even been launched and it has already achieved its goal. You see everyone was talking about fiscal black holes, small boats and that Andy Burnham bloke and yet the mere mention of Digital ID has blown it all out of the water. That’s how powerful it is. Who in Government cares if the technology ever comes to fruition? Dear boy, that is not the point.
Talk of Digital ID in the UK has very little to do with technology and everything to do with distraction politics. Who in Government frets about how it works, what vulnerabilities it has, or whether, like in Estonia, it could make public services work together in ways we can only dream of in the UK? That is not what Digital ID is used for here in Blighty. It is not about the tech. It is about its political uses.
We have been here before. Matt Hancock really tried to convince us that a virus could be suppressed with some software on a phone. Meanwhile the government destroyed the economy and a generation of kids’ development. We don’t talk about that these days. Nice work comrades.
I am less sure Starmer believes a single migrant will be deterred by his Brit Card but I do think he believes the Digital ID debate will be less damaging than anything about migrants or party leadership. Never mind ‘Smash the gangs!’ when you can smash the glass and deploy the emergency Digital ID cards debate instead. Phew, that was close.
Not that it matters, but that makes life tricky for your humble Daily Sceptic tech correspondent. Worse than that, from a Right-leaning libertarian tech perspective it pains me to report that the Government knew what to do and how to do it. Take it from me that the Office for Digital Identity and Attributes was doing the right thing, keeping up with privacy concerns and distributed tech to enable people to have sovereignty over their own data. Then came the politicians to ruin it all. We could discuss the problems in their proposals of security, centralised databases, technology adoption and mission creep. But does anyone really care about that? The passport office, DVLA and HMRC have all those problems and literally nobody is campaigning to remove them. That’s because this isn’t about IT or even digital ID. It is about IG, Independence from Government. Let’s campaign for that instead.
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It has done one very useful thing. It has allowed people to vote on this government through the petition against the awfully-named Brit Card.
It has been rising by 1M per day roughly so far. It is the closest thing to a referendum that we are ever likely to get.
Yes, but whatever the final total, like the last referendum, it will be ignored by the establishment.
Even if 10 million sign it, the elite will say that 70 million did not sign, ergo, the vast majority want Digi-ID and anyways, it is ‘The Science’.
Well they might have a point there.
Blair didn’t ignore the 6M No10 petition against road toll charges – he dropped it fast.
It may be something more people can unite on!
We need to take this argument to the general public, educate them on the downsides, they’ll get saturation coverage on the supposed upsides, but dissenting voices, as usual will be suppressed or de-platformed as per!
Correct, distraction politics.
This is what it is good for:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1262574475091170&vanity=TogetherDeclaration
That is why over 2 million citizens have already signed a petition against digital ID.
Whitehall gave us an ID card called a driving licence card…but didn’t get rid of the paper driving licence.
They made the whole thing worse.
More and more duplication, an ever larger public sector, higher taxes, decreasing personal freedom.
Just get out of our lives!
To answer the question – It is good for the Blair family. BLiar’s son is the founder of Metaverse, the firm that will build the Digi-ID platform, for the same £ value as the Rona Trick and Treat (£34 billion) one would assume.
It is good for criminals, money launderers and the Blair empire.
And our old mate Larry (Larry Ellison – from Oracle and numerous other Gov ‘IT’ contracts).. Blimey, you got to hand it to them, you really have.
Blair via Larry and his mates and no doubt Starmer too, are due to skim literally millions off this scam and telling us it will stop illegal migration!
I got to say I am impressed by their pure solid brass necks …
And the naive general public, the non-thinkers and useful idiots all think it’s a ‘good thing’.
Had I not moved 10 years ago I would still have my paper driving licence and would not have been charged recently for renewing it unlike the photo licence.
Hang on while I get in touch with my inner Katie Hopkins. I will not comply.
I noticed we had a very well timed Epstein file release as well – seemed a bit too well timed..
Yes this is I believe a distraction, but one they would dearly love to get it, however they believe it has wiped the following from our memories, perhaps it has yours, but not mine, I still see the following Mc Sweeney and the 700 plus K there is still much to be exposed here and I haven’t forgotten it, the Conservatives need to push on with their revelations on this latest piece of “minty” behaviour. The impending implosion of the British economy, Bankruptcy beckons and no distractions on I.D cards or whatever is going to disguise that when the IMF comes in, but in the meantime we have the further delight of Rachels pick pocketing of more of our money to fund the Labour client state and to pay off the interest on the interest of the credit card they keep spending on. Winter is approaching and the Mad ED’s religious fervour could kill off thousands of the elderly and sick as the lights and the heating go off combined with a harsh winter the 1000s coming every day to swell the Labour voting classes The NHS no doubt preparing for another winter break down. All this and more, and… Read more »
Hear hear
It’s all about control. They removed the law-abiding citizens’ ancient right to bear arms, so that only the coppers and the criminals could sport Smith&Wesson to terrorise people. The same with this “Ihre Digital Papiere Bitte”. They will imprison fathers and mothers who don’t want their daughters raped and at the same time the crime will continue to sore, unless the innocents believe that the gangsters (home produce and imports) will be queuing up to have their new mugshots taken.
These IDs will be given to all and sundry, effectively awarding citizenship to immigrants.
So as well as tracking your spending, lifestyle, movements and affiliations, monitoring your social credit rating, they effectively buy Labour’s vote for the next election.
The good news however is it will never happen. Massive IT project, government run, opposed by vast majority.
I do hope you’re right.
A distraction card; maybe it is. But we\ve already got digital ID in many different formats, starting from the alphanumeric NI number which is often cross linked to lots of other numbers. But who believes that a new system would result in streamlining and simplifying everything? It would be a bureaucratic opportunity (BO), more likely, with funding from us all via the HMRC.
Two purposes:
Look at the picture above. The name on the phone screen doesn’t really match the photo of the holder does it?
And good luck to him and all that – the model if he’s real, or more likely an AI generated mugshot – but of course we could have guessed that they wouldn’t use a picture that represented the vast majority of British citizens. Why do they keep doing this, do they think we don’t notice
The digital ID should be optional for all but politicians, civil servants and most other people connected to the government including companies that work on government contracts.
Will any fresh legislation be introduced with the advent of ‘ID cards’ to assure they can never become the manipulative and coercing tool of an oppressive illiberal government?
Civil liberties are retained not only to protect from current government, they provide a defence from what government may become.
Should a less benign future government or situation emerge, we would find that by virtue of the ‘ID society’ proposed that we are subject to a totalitarian government’s strict control.
A free society is defined by being free from authoritarian controls and not by just relying on a government that says it can be trusted.