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

[Westfacing]

How will this prevent boat crossings?

I'm sure paramedics and other emergency services will love having to rummage through the wreckage of someone cut from a car...

Also as for the "insn't the national insurance number the same thing" - no it's not.

NI cards don't have biometrics or photo like a driving licence or passport. Showing a NI card with a name on it does nothing to prove that you are the person issued with that number, unless you can also back that up with other forms of trusted ID. National Insurance numbers can expire - someone here on a student visa would be issued a NI number to work part time, when their studies end that right expires.

Currently the ONLY way to prove right to work is a passport stating UK nationality or with the right stamp in it. Or if you don't have that, birth certificate showing you were born in the UK etc.

Asylum seekers won’t have ID’s when they arrive so this system is as useless as fake documents. Anyway it’s not for them, it’s for you. The Davos crowd openly say they have had enough of democracy and the China model is preferential. Ah well, at least it will make those who knew this was coming into trillionaires at our expense

We have compulsory ID cards in Spain and this hasn't stopped us from having a huge amount of illegal immigrants and illegal employment, particularly in agriculture and care work.

Agree, it won’t stop anybody and the government will just provide them with their digital ID. It’s heavily pushed by Tony Blair, which tells me everything I need to know about it.

We each have an NI number.

Exactly! If that were properly implemented and adhered to by employers it would stop illegal working.

But of course it won't stop people crossing the Channel, which seems to be the latest impetus for this folly.

Who employs them though? Sorry for sounding like an idiot but I don't get it at the moment. Employers are legally obliged to check if someone has the right to work in the UK. If they don't do it, they're breaking the law and I imagine they will continue to do so even if the digital IDs are introduced.

Yeah, there's NI + other checks so not sure how this digital ID can make any change?

Maybe there's more to it than meets the eye 🤷‍♀️

Surely not!

What people don't engage with is that illegal working isn't going to go away, because the demand will still be there. Because we're an ageing society with a labour shortage.

It should be.

Believe me it has disaster waiting to happen all over it.

It is not like other schemes that already exist in Europe for a variety of reasons.

For a start it's going to need a bigger database cos there's a bigger population here and the merging of several large database which it will be involved is very different from having a scheme that was set up years ago and had all these features integrated as needed over a long period. The potential for failures in setting up the system in the first place are enormous.

Then you create a single target point for every god damn criminal out there. ID cards will have value to steal - that makes us all targets in a way we currently are not.

And once they have your ID, good luck stopping the problem as you get caught in a beaucratic nightmare of being total you've done something you haven't, you are responsible for something you aren't or otherwise having your whole life fucked because they won't employ the best people to set this car crash up.

Honestly. Disaster.

It looks like a magic bullet idea to solve a lot of problems but it will create many many more worse ones.

Totally against it.

Well exactly. The last Conservative government drastically increased the penalties for employing illegals and also introduced the Right to Rent which means landlords should be checking immigration status and identity of their tenants.

But abuse of the system is widespread, all the delivery drivers in my city are migrants, I very much doubt any of them are working legally. They scoot about on their illegal jailbroken e-bikes which the police aren't interested in stopping either.

Agree OP

We have NI number, passport, driving license.
Illegals have none of these, MAKE it compulsory for people to have NI, passport if you want job or claim benefits. An employer not complying, fined heavily and then shutdiwn. And stop learner drivers on mopeds!!!

All planned problem, reaction, solution

I don’t carry a bag or purse most of the time. It just seems to me that the ID card would be another way for the Government to keep track of me. I’ve already got a passport and driving licence, really don’t need another ID.

And I can’t see how it’s going to substantially impact immigration given that people will still come to the UK if they’re determined to. There will always be someone willing to pay ‘under the counter’ without checking whether they have the right to work.

I do agree though that the easiest option would be to tell everyone they need a passport, whether they intend to travel or not.

Not everyone could get a driving licence, even a provisional, but everyone could get a passport.

Agree, governments have been trying to implement an ID system for a long time, just needed to create the necessary conditions for it.

Perhaps the government could tackle deliveroo who openly said not long ago that attempts to deal with illegal migration will put up the price of a takeaway with a straight face and not a hint of irony given the number of people found working illegally in crackdowns on food delivery.

You could stop the boat crossings tomorrow by opening an office in Calais where people could make assylum claims, although if they are claiming assylum those people are doing nothing illegal.

Most illegal immigrants don't arrive in small boats from France. They come into the country by other means and simply don't leave again.

My predictions:

At some point the system will undergo a massive, crippling hack.
Some unforeseen consequences will mean this actually makes it easier for criminals to steal your identity.
It will do absolutely nothing to reduce illegal immigration or illegal working.
It will further disenfranchise those without access to technology.
Placing further burden and awkwardness on the UK public in order to deal with immigration is not going to be a vote winner.

You don't need a passport. You can already apply for a goverment issued ID called a Citizen Card.

No thanks. That’s just a step away from an American system

I mean, they weren't wrong.

Which is another one of the issues really. Lots of people derive benefit from illegal workers in the UK, not all of whom know it. It's not just the obvious stuff like delivery drivers and people offering say cleaning and gardening cash in hand.

The public wanting something doesn't necessarily mean the consequences won't piss them off enough to punish the government who delivered it.

But what points?

Crossing the road? Shopping? Drinking beer?

Think beyond the immediate. In theory this is fine, but think what this could be used for.

It’s always small steps, so the argument is always that this step is only marginally worse than what they make us do now.

Just think for a moment what it could be used for if a government got in that wanted to limit your freedoms. Don't have your annual injections? Can't go shopping (See covid vaccines and vaccine passports for this one) Buy too much alcohol? Reduce your access to healthcare as it’s self inflicted. It’s the first step towards ceding to the government massive control over our lives.

It's not crazy to think it will be expanded into a social credit system as in China. If your score is too low in China, you can be banned from flying, rail travel, luxury consumption etc.

It's a lot easier to control people when you can control where they can go and what they do. Protests will be difficult to arrange if people can't get there, for example.

This is all being pushed as an answer to the problem of illegal immigration, but will make no difference whatsoever - those hiring them know perfectly well they’re here illegally and will carry on regardless. This will only impact the law-abiding.

How long until it's revealed that it'll be Palantir in charge of creating the database?

So you want to get rid of the ones who actually want to work but what about the millions who don’t work?

The whole thing is utterly dystopian and won’t do anything to stop immigration.

I find this comment extremely ironic given your chosen user name.