ID cards

[StrongLikeMamma]

What’s wrong with them?

Why are they any better than our current ID forms?

Honestly would love to understand more. I can’t really get worked up about them…. But then also feel they’re probably a massive waste of money right now. What do you all think?

That's NOT the purpose of a Digital I.D.

What IS the purpose? Last time I checked the full list of eligible services hasn’t been published yet.

It's purpose is to provide a seamless way of monitoring you. Oversight into every aspect of your life. It's a digital leash that will be used to control you.

The state already has records about you, a digital I.D will stitch those records together, and create an environment where you must scan your I.D at the whim of the Government.

It is ultimate control.

Wake up.

Crikey. I’m very much awake. I’ve been on two of these threads now and I hope they exist in 10 years time so that we can reconvene and see if there was ever a need for a tin foil hat.

I am abroad and have ID card and a digital ID app and that is not how it works at all. Your identity info is in one place and allows you to access services as you can easily prove who you are. The other systems, finance, health, tax, pensions, benefits are not all in one place. Noone is asking for ID when you get on a train or go into a shop or any of this other hysterical nonsense that is spouted. Of course you need ID to fly. In schengen I don't need a passport as ID is sufficient.

The benefits are that it should vastly reduce fraud - both financial and health care etc. It could work for employment, but that needs to come hand in hand with physical checks on employers. In Belgium they do this - spot checks on local businesses. They often find people working illegally and take action.

I think this is where on MN the divide comes from. People like us with actual experience of digital ID cards are being told to wake up and join the hysteria even though we have 10+ years of experience of holding one and nothing sinister happening, vs people that never held one writing their own stories.

No way it's beyond you. You'd have to be mentally impaired.

waiting for the 'I have nothing to hide' people. We dont know the cost of this system, who will run it, who will be exempt (trust me, someone will be) and how will it not be hacked.

Do you trust the UK Government?

All your records are going to be connected to your Digital I.D. Nothing will be separated.

You seem to think government can be trusted to do "the right thing." History shows different.

People are against digital I.D because they don't want their freedom and autonomy based on trust. They want it based in reality. Look at China, a journalist there wrote articles criticising some politicians. He was "Blacklisted" and his Social Credit Score was wiped out. He can't use a bank account, get on a train or Leave the Country. This is all possible because of mass surveillance and the data capture technology that the Chinese government has.

We are not China! We are far from this. We follow a set of rules and values that don’t just stem from the UK but the UN and in some cases the EU. Stop the scaremongering.

No yet, but if we allow them to keep chipping away at our rights and privacies where will it end?

Even if you trust this government, Nigel Farage has already expressed an interest in further separating us from the EU, applauded trump for his negative comments on the UN and talked of abolishing the human rights act. So how can we depend on those things to protect us from any future government?

Do you trust the future governments of the UK to not abuse the system?

I don't.

What are they chipping away at currently?

Yes, I believe that the international systems in place will protect current legislations. Farage is an example of someone who has lots to say, but no way of implementing anything.

Forcing these cards though is what I was referring to with the chipping way.

Even their response to the petition started "We will introduce a digital ID within this Parliament " literally millions of people have signed saying they don't want it and we're basically getting a "fuck you we're doing it anyway" without even a proper discussion

I also don't understand why the employers who ignore the current checks in place would follow them under this new system? Genuinely I'm not sure if I'm missing something there?

Well you said chipping away at our rights and privacy - but the ID card is just a system. We didn’t get a say when Government Gateway was introduced - where you access many of these services. But it streamlined the way we apply for some services. This is no different.

And the answer to the petition was fine - they reiterated that within the next 3 years while they build it, there will be a commission. That’s not saying FU, that’s saying we are redesigning the current system - we will be looking for your input soon.

Re the work checks - currently you start a job and fill out some information about yourself and bring in a passport or DL. A manager will scan it and send it off to Hire Right which is a background check agency. That manager doesn’t have the capacity to see whether that document is real or a very good forgery, or even if the photo is just a bit funny but you’re actually using someone else’s details. There are also some places that won’t be required to use such system - for example a local independently owned shop, they just have to make basic validations like glance at ID and note down insurance number. But this way there will be a way of background checking if they’re required to send off their digital ID / code to HMRC.

I am very far away from a tin hat wearing conspiracy theorist but I do think this is a very bad idea. It will start off allowing people access services easily but will lead to people being barred from services or freedoms at the whim of a civil servant.

Fancy being barred from flying because your carbon footprint is too high? Or refused access to hospital treatment because your BMI is not within range? It will separate the rich from the poor even further than they currently are.

But why on earth would anyone want to do that? Access to hospital because your BMI is too high? Do they not take down your weight when they triage you currently? Do they not say you’re not eligible for fertility treatments or weight loss programmes based on BMI right now? Come on. They weighed my 4YO DD in primary school and stored her BMI on the NHS system. These are very far fetched theories.

@StrongLikeMamma

nothing wrong with them
all the negative arguments as just stupid in this modern age
its just crazy we don’t have them

its time people in the uk got real

As I said before - this is about PROVING your identity and civil status and ACCESSING systems that YOU might need access too. No-one is going to join all the systems in the UK together in a big database the govt can use to control you. This is just ridiculous. GDPR means data can only be stored and used where and by whom it is relevant to do so. Data on health, religious or political beliefs, sexuality, etc is consider sensitive data and should be strictly controlled. Noone can use digital ID to spy on your tesco shop to see if you are buying too much wine, or infiltrate your scales to see if you are too fat. The ID is used to PROVE WHO YOU ARE, for anyone with a legitimate reason to ask - e.g, an employer, your bank, the hospital, at a polling booth, and can be used by YOU to access things where such a check might be needed, such as accessing your tax records, or your online bank. I have never heard so much bollocks being spouted about this.

I mean, if you have a clubcard, Tesco probably knows how much wine you buy (from them) but you have given them permission to hold that information - and they cannot share it with anyone else without your say so. And you can ask them to delete it at any time. Your phone knows more about you and what you do than the govt will ever do I am sure.

Surely the big online companies have your email, ip address, home address for deliveries, mobile number which can be tracked, bank details so you can buy stuff, who is on your Fb friends list, knows what you search for online - it’s madness to worry about the Gov as big brother when so much of your info and photos is already out there.

I know posters will jump on this to say they never post photos or info blah blah but they are the VAST minority.

They say it's just for work, but if it is, why do I have to have one if I'm retired

My first thought on hearing about this is that it would be handy for me as I currently have no nationally accepted photo ID,i.e. a passport or driver's licence. Then I thought,what's the betting that in order to obtain the digital ID card, we'll probably have to provide a passport or driving licence licence to prove who we are! But,I must admit I'm not too happy about the government's track record for keeping our information safe. And also,what happens regarding people who don't have a smart phone on which to keep this ID card? There must be a hell of a lot of them.