AIBU to think that Digital ID will not stop illegal immigration, and nor is it a good idea?

Isn't the one-in, one-out actually 2 in, one out?

An illegal enters, is returned to France and a different person comes to the UK instead? So the net result is still +1, just a different person.

I'm feeling rather annoyed with Reform, Rupert Lowe and Tommy Robinson groupies rubbishing every move the government makes to 'stop the boats' and making snide comments about the new Home Secretary's religion. It's a complex problem - pull factors, gangs, ease of finding work in the UK - and different approaches will, separately and collectively, start to make inroads.

So far, we have: one-in, one-out deal with France; changes to the interpretation of human rights legislation; change to asylum application process so that all relevant factors must be declared on entering the country; change to German law to criminalise supply of inflatable boats; pending change to French law to allow gendarmes to intercept boats up to 300m from the shore; the ability to complete asylum claims documentation from outside the UK; increased numbers of deportation; likelihood of Ministry of Defence estate being used to house migrants; closure of migrant hotels by 2029; repatriation of criminals; and digital ID cards to reduce illegal working; negotiation on new returns agreements. I think Shabana Mahmood will go further, changing the guidelines on ECHR provision as appied in UK courts more radically. She's also making sensible remarks about the threat irregular migration is posing to community cohesion, and the risks the current hostile environment poses for 'people who look like her.

ID cards, provided the technology works, will make a difference as they will enable the government to identify employers with implausible low staffing levels ie those employing irregular labour, and take action against them. The ease of finding irregular work because we have no ID cards us what makes the UK particularly attractive.

If it stops people working then it surely will because you have to have a means of gaining money to get by

Good point!

The behaviour of some police officers these days doesn't fill me with confidence. You can guarantee that such a system would be abused. Malice and stupidity would have the same result and people's cards would be marked.

My concern is the obvious ability to create a social credit system with it, much as they have in China. Criticise the government? Now you can't buy a train ticket.

And you can bet that police officers will be all "papers please" with everyone as soon as the ID exists which is what happened before they were abolished in 1952 abolition of Identity Cards — Adam Smith Institute share.google/zofjwKcYqSXocCQrJ The abolition of Identity Cards — Adam Smith Institute share.google/zofjwKcYqSXocCQrJ

I’d think that they’re getting away with it through a combination of lots of different reasons.

There have got to be huge numbers of existing businesses spread over wide areas for immigration to work their way through, and limited numbers of immigration staff to visit each business. I can’t imagine that they’d be able to visit many businesses in a single shift, bearing in mind the risk assessments that would be required for each visit, and the paperwork and witness statements that would need to be written in case of any potential prosecution or appeal, as well as organising the processing of anyone found to be there illegally; you’d need hundreds of arrest trained officers working morning, noon and night to deal with all of them and bearing in mind that public services have been decimated in recent years, I wouldn’t think that immigration escaped budget cuts.

And quite possibly the need to catch someone in the act of working illegally. It’s not as though these companies have a central office in each town to raid where employees base themselves out of, that immigration officers could raid, while being able to access employers records at the same time. The standard of proof would have to be quite high if you’re talking potential prison sentences. And there would, quite rightly, be uproar if immigration started pulling over delivery drivers as they leave takeaways on the basis that they looked a bit foreign. Even the police have to have grounds to conduct a Stop & Search, and not being white isn’t anywhere near close to being a justification. And immigration have to have branded vehicles, so even if a takeaway restaurant allowed them to come in and question drivers as they turned up, anyone working illegally would just see the vans and turn around, never to be seen again. It’s not as though immigration could raid a central payroll/HR dept in the afternoon to get the documentary evidence and then nip back out to a random town 300 miles away in the evening to identify each of the employees and check that they are who’ve they’ve told the employer they are.

I think, logistically, it sounds an absolute nightmare. And, of course, they also hire people completely lawfully as well, who are probably unlikely to be able to prove their immigration status/nationality and right to work at 10pm on a Saturday night outside McDonalds (I wouldn’t be able to, would you?)

It strikes me that if they need to direct their resources to the places they’d have the best results, as most places do these days, it makes more sense to stick to restaurants and factories and nail bars etc. Wasting days of background work, then sending a team of officers out to potentially get nobody isn’t the best use of tax payers money.

But otherwise I agree with you that it’s not going to impact immigration in any respect, at all. I don’t know if Starmer is a liar, an idiot, a dictator in his early days or is just panicking and clutching at straws, willing to listen to anyone who tells him that they happen to know a delightful young man named Euan who has developed an App that could solve all his problems. Whichever it is, it’s a terrifying prospect surpassed only by the alternatives. How tf did we get here?

Yep

Notice how all the Ai data processing centres are being built? That's not so we can ask Ai inane questions or get it to tell jokes. It's to provide the processing power that's required to deal with all this data we'll be generating about ourselves.

Over about the next 10-15 years, not overnight. It'll be a gradual creep of "Oo, this is a good idea, let's include health details, that'll be handy" sort of thing. It'll be argued as a way of solving a problem - like the migrants - only it won't solve anything in reality.

So — it should be on your phone but it isn’t for one reason or another
Will your phone recognise this and then prevent you from travelling or shopping, for example. We just do not know.
This may not even be possible yet but could be in future. Has the government considered this? And considered it to be a plus point? Agan we do not know and I think we should.
Let’s get some denials on the record.

How long before we're issued with a meat ration that will be recorded? Once we've reached it, shops won't be able to sell us any more meat products, or alcohol, or sweet things to obese people because the NHS will know our BMI and any related obesity health difficulties. We might only be able to travel a certain number of miles in our cars and then, no more ability to buy petrol or charge them up. Or we'll have to pay extra to make that necessary trip. We won't even be able to pay a neighbour to bake us a sneaky cake because, digital currency. We'll have to barter. A chicken for a cake? Only we won't be able to access independent farmers or even chicken feed. No more cash, no more freedom, everything tracked, restricted, controlled.

See where this is going? And don't claim it won't either. This is just the start.

I think this ‘mission creep’ will be inevitable and be as described above. We will sleepwalk into it.

It also doesn't matter whether or not you carry it around with you/have app on phone at home etc. Your activities will still be recorded on it - bank activity, shopping, health etc. in the fullness of time. We also can't refuse it because it's issued to our identity automatically, like our NI or NHS number. The government will probably get the phone companies, Google, whatever to install the app automatically on our phones. We may even have to log in or we won't be able to access our banking app or something.

As much as I dislike Jacob Rees Mogg, he does sum up the concerns pretty well in this video.

The 'id card' is not for means of identification.

Employers are already obliged to investigate if people are allowed to work - many obviously don't do this, so I don't think they will be checking new official ID

Precisely, OP, and anyway I've no doubt the fake IDs will follow all too soon

No point in expecting it to be a "gateway" to such as the NHS either, when "That's not our job" is already so widely seen on the subject of checking

Looking on the bright side though, someone will doubtless make a nice sum (a Dido-like £37 billion?) out of developing it

I don't have a huge problem with having an ID card per se, but I would object to being required to carry one about my person at all times. I keep my driving licence, library ticket and bus pass in my purse along with all my other cards, and if I'm just popping to the local shop, I stick my bank card in my pocket.

But when I'm going for a walk near my house, I don't bother with any of it and often don't even take my phone*. I like being uncontactable for that hour or so, and hearing just the sounds of nature. I even get pissed off if I encounter someone having a loud phone chat while walking through the woods.

It's the digital aspect of this proposal that bothers me, and its scope for possible abuse if we ever get a government that's minded to use mass surveillance, along with the requirement to have a smartphone.

*This freaks my SIL out no end. She regards it as positively dangerous, despite me pointing out that I'm not out bagging Munros, I'm in Sussex, on the edge of a town and it's vanishingly rare for me not to encounter another human.

Ok I expect law abiding people pay their bill now without an ID scheme and those that don’t will ignore a bill later.

I would assume they would get treated, and then billed later, once their identity was known, @EasternStandard.

The attempt to set up an integrated IT system for the NHS cost £10bn and it never got off the ground. They might as well have ripped up a billion tenners and flushed them down the bog.

That was several years ago, when £10bn was worth a lot more, too.

Exactly, it wouldn’t work. Can you imagine the uproar if people did try to prevent abuse of the system by denying treatment to those without the ID, or even those not entitled to it?

What happens if someone is unconscious after a RTA do they get the NHS?

If you were a nurse or doctor and someone presented themselves to you in hospital without ID you’d not treat them? I dont want that world.

I’m in favour if it stops people using the NHS if they are not entitled. We were in Greece recently and had to make use of their health service whilst on holiday. Obviously we had health insurance, so we’re ok. Why is it assumed that the NHS is. Free for all? I think ID would be helpful in preventing abuse.