National ID Cards

[Chakhakhan77]

Do you believe the government will bring them in? Keep seeing reports of this, freedom of speech slowly being taken away. Lots of videos of big crowds in city centres protesting about immigration. Are these AI videos? Are people/media exaggerating on the number of boats bringing people in? I don't know what is real anymore!

It’s interesting. When I lived abroad there was a requirement to register locally with details sbout everyone in the household and you told them if you moved / changes. Essentially they held equivalent information on you to the census. You carried ID by law and you’d get a fine if you didn’t carry it. It wasn’t big like 10 euro and you had to attend a police station with ID.

It seemed intrusive initially but you get used to it pretty quickly.

Police would identify the takeaway driver/rider via the id card. At the moment they could give the police a false name and just never turn up for the court hearing,and the police could never trace them again- that’s part of why police tend not to show much interest .

We have a major problem with fake self employment, the “gig” economy and the black economy. Proper employment is pretty good for compliance with id checking, but the black economy and fake self employment is the Wild West out there - anything goes!

I don’t understand why we don’t have them already. Works well in other countries but I don’t wear a daily tin foil hat so what do I know…

Nothing to do with tinfoil hats, but everything to do with over reach by the state and police. They already abused powers and use them in ways that the legislation never intended and clearly can't be trusted. I.D. cards will not solve the problem of illegal work and unlawful migrants but will lead to further abused.

Can you give some examples of how ID cards would be abused by the state/police?

It all totally depends on who gets hold of them.

No idea why we don’t have them already. Useful for so many things

Thing is this government aren’t discussing a simple ID card, they are discussing a ‘digital ID’ system which raises all sorts of red flags.

The big risk with this is that it would lead to a defacto ‘surveillance state’. It also fundamentally changes the idea of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ to ‘guilt until proved innocent’. This would fundamentally change English society. And the people most affected? Minorities, the poor, the elderly, legal immigrants, the disabled, ethnic minorities, religious minorities and even people who are forced to home educate. Look what happened to the Windrush generation for an example of this.

But we would all become suspect no longer citizen. It would fundamentally shift something. It’s not about the actual card or app, it’s about so much more.

A good start would be making drivers/riders carry their driving licences when on the roads. That way the police could actually have a better confidence as to who they're dealing with in an accident or illegal riding/driving incident, know their address, so more likelihood of them paying fines or attending court at a later date.

At the moment, production at a police station within 7 days is an open invitation for identity fraud/impersonation. The person at the police desk doesn't even know that the person in front of them was the one driving on the day, and even the real driver can take in a "look a like" licence from a relative etc.

So you think it's OK to "get used" to totalitarianism?

Which allegedly goes on in huge numbers now

It'll need biometric data and proper checks around those week points of lax checks

If you want to see why people have concerns about a national ID card then take a look at how China uses them to control their population. Backed up by prolific use of facial recognition technology and linked to their ‘Social Credit’ system.

Want to be able to travel abroad (or even step foot outside your home town), or work in the career you’d like, or get promoted, or access more than just the basic amenities etc? Well you’d better not attempt to surf the wrong websites, or agitate for social reform, or demand a pay rise in a ‘socially unacceptable’ way then.

And if you don’t think the UK can behave in unreasonably authoritarian ways already, then I’d suggest you’re not paying attention. National ID cards could be useful, in some situations. But the trade-offs and potential for abuse are too high a price to pay.

I think it’s a good idea. Not everyone can afford to learn to drive for driving license, or go abroad so don’t need to fork out for a passport. My Nan had neither. Locking these people out of voting etc is really unfair. And trying to get official admin done without photo id is nearly impossible.

So drop the ID requirement for voting - by far the easier, and cheaper, method of fixing that fairly niche problem.

They didn’t remove the mail-in option for ballots, so requiring ID at the polling station will have done very little to counter voter fraud / undue influence by patriarchal family members which is what the requirement for presenting ID was supposed to prevent.

Thing is it wouldn’t be a simple ID card.

It would a digital ID system which has huge ramifications for surveillance and privacy.

Do you think that colsw to half the planet is under totalitarianism? Because national ID is very much common thing. Do you think that Germany, Czech, Belgium etc are totalitarian states?

Let's break this down a little.

First of all, the main selling points for this utopian dream are tax evasion and illegal immigration.

In terms of tax evasion, the latest figures show an assumed "loss" of revenue to the treasury of 5.5 Billion pounds. To put this flight of fancy into perspective, the total "Tax Gap" for that year was estimated to be 46 Billion pounds, with small businesses being responsible for over 80% of this. Basically, cash in hand jobs and fudging the books, including lawful, tax avoidance.

So, if fully implemented, at a cost of (London School of Economics estimated) 12 to 18 Billion, it would just about pay for the Department of Cultures annual budget, that's if the scheme were to ever "turn a profit", which considering the government's track record with large projects is unlikely. HS2 anyone!

The cost of this implementing this scheme, coupled with the estimated "savings", just don't make sense.

As for the illegal immigration argument, most illegal migrants declare themselves at the earliest opportunity, they want to be registered an given paperwork. A national I.D card just makes their lives easier, less paperwork. It would just encourage more to come, because the logistics of living here while your claim is waiting to be approved would be so much easier (over 50% are, and of those denied, less than 30% have ever been removed, most of those were voluntary).

Those "hiding in plain sight" would only be found if police were given the powers to "Stop and I.D", literally a "show us your papers" society. Considering the levels of corruption and ineptitude in policing, do we really want to give that power to the police?

Without it, I.D cards would be worthless, as those who want the claim the right to work wouldn't need one, and those who want to hide wouldn't use one.

What national I.D cards do, which all previous posters saying "but I had one in the place I lived in, you get used to it" fail to understand, is they provide a central data point to link everything else to.

Your national I.D card is nothing more than a QR code that links your file to every other government record of you. HMRC, medical, banking, Internet history, GPS location from your phone and car, Passport and various others. All these data points could then be stitched together digitally, providing complete oversight into every aspect of your life. This is the bit all other countries didn't implement, when people talk about the benign nature of I.D cards, that is why they didn't seem too intrusive.

If you have a car built after 2023 you will have a "connected vehicle", I'm willing to bet none of you bothered to read the T&C when you linked your phone to the infotainment system. If you have a Kia, Ford, Peugeot, BMW, whatever, you WILL have signed up for your "Driving Safety Score" and vehicle data, including GPS location and speed, to be made available to "Government Bodies". They even spell out that "Geofencing" is "only to be used under Instruction from Government Authorities".

A national I.D card is just a mass surveillance strategy. It's not about saving money or reducing immigration. It will be a electronic tag on everyone. Once introduced, you WILL begin to see the "environmental problem" pushed like Covid. The old "give people something to fear and you can get them to do anything" mantra.

Flying too much!

"BAD CITIZEN" we will use your linked data to block you from paying for any more flights!

Buying too much alcohol!

"BAD CITIZEN" we will stop your card being used to pay for alcohol. It's all for the good of the environment, and the NHS. All hail the NHS!

We saw from your online history that you support the planned anti-government protest planned for next weekend!

"BAD CITIZEN" we will stop your card from paying for public transport and "geofence" any vehicle you are detected to be travelling in. Can't have you criticising the Government. It's all for the good of the environment, and PUBLIC SAFETY. We want all citizens to be SAFE. It's important to feel SAFE. Don't worry, we will keep you SAFE!

Try washing your car on your driveway in Germany.

Not necessarily. Could contain biometric data only just to confirm the identity of the person with some kind of code that official users can tap/scan into their databases to identify the person and open up their own database details. It certainly doesn't need to include loads of personal information on the card itself.

So basically, completely useless if stolen/lost as it contains no useable information to people without their own access to approved databases, i.e. medical staff having access to medical data, police having access to crime data, etc.

I don’t think people understand the difference between Germany/france that are police states and the UK which technically isnt

i suggest you read @Chiseltip ’s post above…

I haven't found carrying an ID card very "totalitarian" as its main use for me it to collect parcels from the pickup point, I used it a lot for Uni exams (you have to prove ID at exams) and for for medical appointments etc. Also travelled to Finland on it last week.

Here (Sweden) you get them from the passport office at the police station if you are a Swedish citizen or from the Tax Office if you are not. I have had both and it works the same way.

You have to pay for an ID card £30, although I usually get the package deal of Passport +ID card for £70. But that is your full cost as it includes digital photos and biometrics etc that they sort out on the spot (no hanging around in photo booths at shopping centres). They text you when it arrives for pick up and the process takes around 5-7 days.

In Sweden you are assigned one civil registration number at birth by the tax office (or when you move to Sweden) and it is used for everything - healthcare, NI etc etc. The UK could save a lot of money by not having 2 systems issuing numbers for NI and NHS.

You can't freely pollute water systems with shitton of chemicals is terrible, terrible totalitarianism. Shame on them

@Lunde

In Sweden you are assigned one civil registration number at birth by the tax office (or when you move to Sweden) and it is used for everything - healthcare, NI etc etc. The UK could save a lot of money by not having 2 systems issuing numbers for NI and NHS.

Despite using NI numbers, HMRC decided to introduce another different identification number for tax, being the UTR, (unique tax reference number) which is completely unnecessary as they already use the NI for PAYE etc. Just another unnecessarily expensive complication.