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?

Aside from the obvious problems, I have zero faith in the government to successfully implement large scale projects. I say this as someone who works in large scale government projects… HS2 is the obvious shit show, but just generally the organisation, communication and leadership of these things is beyond the capabilities of current government resource, in my opinion. The things would take years to scope, cost, re- scope and implement. The budget would spiral to stratospheric proportions. And we would all be paying for it.

It’s clearly a joke. Not understanding that makes you look a bit silly.

Totally agree... and obviously someone is going to make loads of money out of this with zero outcomes in terms of the difference it will make to people..

I can't even get my car serviced or a spare house key cut without showing it.

Is this supposed to reassure people??

Mind blowing.

My line of work requires me to prove my right to work fairly frequently (not just one years-long employment), and it's quite a faff with the passport etc., so if digital ID makes things easier I'm all for that.

I don't see how it's going to stop unscrupulous employers from taking on illegal immigrants: as it stands, you can't get out of the check just by saying you've lost your foreign passport as some people seem to think!

A requirement to carry ID at all times, as is the case in many countries, would be an unreasonable imposition. If I go for a jog or a walk on the beach I don't want to be bogged down by carrying an ID card, or even necessarily a phone. (I know it's a small thing but not all clothes have good pockets!)

Sheltered and out of touch over ID cards? What a weird idea.

I find ID cards are just another pointless and annoying way of costing people money and increasing bureaucracy. That's my experience in Spain which I find very backwards compared to the UK and not at all worldly. The amount of things you can't do online and that you have to actually visit the council or an office for is just ridiculous.

The most stupid thing was that my OH couldn't use a card that 'only' had 5 months left on it. Had to get another card just to do something stupid like change the bins into his name. What a fucking palaver.

Stupid. Who's paying? Either us or the Government. I'd rather my money go on cancer services.

If they really felt ID was needed they could mandate passports (which serve a purpose and most people voluntarily hold) or a citizen ID card.

Someone with ID can already prove who they are. If they wanted to crack down on illegal working, just raid the millions of mini supermarkets, barbers, bvape shops, nail bars. If they cared, they would be putting more funding into that.

But no. My real question is which private company is going to make millions out of this scheme?

What on earth will the millions of legal citizens gain from ID cards?

Maybe this is how the govt will use it to stop illegal immigration - by using it as a gatekeeper so that illegal immigrants cannot access basic services without it.

I actually feel quite proud that as a country we have long fought the idea of id cards. The idea being that we expect to be implicitly trusted until we prove we can’t be, rather than having to have a piece of kit that proves we have a right to exist.

I already have a passport, driving lic, NI number

Cant see what extra an ID card will hold.

starmer needs to fuck off

A best mate of the labour party will get the contract. You know that already.

So just reading about the Brit card and modelling on the Estonian ID- it’s not just for proof of right to work.

I don’t want to live in that kind of society. Plenty of us don’t.

Other countries aren't going to change their machines to check a special uk ID card. ID doesn't prove right to travel.

It wont go ahead, Kier will be booted out and Labour will pretend it will all be different with a new PM.

Can someone explain to me what the difference is between this and having ID like a passport or driving licence?

Palantir, probably. People REALLY need to get more aware about this horrific and dystopian company AND Peter Thiel. He doesn’t believe in democracy, he doesn’t think women should be able to vote and basically owns the whole U.S. IT- infrastructure of the industrial military complex.

It's anti-democratic as hell, but they’ll dress it in the clothes of freedom.

I said this earlier, but -

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?

Yes it's 2025 and we need internet security.

Any system with a single point of failure is a problem.

You mention that you have multiple online things which all have information on you.

That's the point. You have multiple things.

A system where you are screwed because one thing fails means you are utterly screwed.

DH and I have multiple bank cards for similar reasons. If you have one stolen / locked / bank system goes down you can still use a different one. And we have cash.

If you can't do shit if the ID card system fails, you are screwed.

And every criminal and hostile state will be after it both on a small level or large scale level.

You'll get thinks like significantly more cuckcooing or abuse of vulnerable persons by using their ID. And more sub contactsing and slavery issues.

I think @SalamiSammich has made a very good point - who is going to pay for all this, and who (or which company) is going to benefit!

I don’t have a problem with having a digital ID myself - I’ve got a passport and a driving licence, so I can’t see how having an ID card or digital ID will take away any of my civil rights. But as I said, I do have to wonder how people who don’t have a computer, tablet or smartphone are going to get it use a digital ID. I am 100% sure my elderly FIL will not be able to use a smartphone - how is he supposed to get or use a digital ID?

And watch the company that gets the contract for it not be a British one...like when the contract for those wonderful blue British passport was awarded to a Franco-Dutch firm that is now part of the Thales Group, based in France

I completely agree OP. It’s a huge privacy concern. People should be really worried about the drip drip drip loss of privacy and autonomy that we’ve all been sleep walking into and this is yet another step in the direction of us being constantly tracked and monitored. It’s incredibly dystopian. I am very disappointed by the Lib Dems considering dropping their opposition to ID cards just because Ed Davies had a little jolly to Estonia and they told him how brilliant it was and it had no impact on privacy….how naive of him.

Some people may be comfortable with the idea of the idea of ID cards now (personally I don’t have that much faith in either our government or our justice system but others may feel differently). But what about if a hard right (or indeed hard authoritarian left) government got into power. And that's far from off the cards in the current climate/unstable world we are living in. Would you be as happy with ID cards then? Privacy is more important than ever.

And you need to think about how they could be used in the future once the infrastructure is in place, not just what the government say they will be used for initially. It could, for example, be used to track us when we move throughout different areas of the country as they do in China, or it could be used to access ANY internet, thereby monitoring all of your online use. And probably in a million ways we haven't even thought of yet as we've seen with the ways that online companies such as Google are harvested and using/selling data. This is a huge threat to democracy especially if a government gets in that is more authoritarian - how will people resist if they can be tracked everywhere, doing everything? Remember the resistance in France during the war, how would they have done that with the tracking methods available now? What would have happened to Jews in the holocaust if the Nazis had had this power - many, many more would have not been able to get away and been killed. Privacy is not just for now, you need to think about what iff the worst happens and I have no privacy, what then?

Plus you need to think about what data will be collected and by who and how securely it will be stored. As an example, in the US currently. there are private companies running some of their traffic AI cameras (which is a whole other privacy discussion for another day!), they take and store that data and sell it on to other organisations; the feeds they transport the data across are also not secure. So who will be running the UK'd digital ID scheme? Is our personal information secure? What else is being done with our personal information? Even if it's not being sold on, the UK government themselves have allowed multiple large data breaches - data online is never 100% secure. The more data that's out there, the more is linked with other data, the more our security and privacy is at risk.

This (horrifyingly) sounds like some sort of crazy conspiracy, but it's not. Start researching it yourself. Look at what Europe are currently trying to bring in at the moment (search for "Chat control" if you want to be horrified), that the UK have shown an interest in. We are on the verge of slipping into the plot of a dystopian film, and we need to be working to move things back, bringing in better protections for UK citizens, not taking a further step in the wrong direction! Privacy is a right, you ca't have a democracy without privacy, and people should be able to choose who has their data, where it goes and understand exactly what's been done with it. We are a long way form that, but in the meantime let's not slip further int the quagmire. Say NO to Digital ID cards!!!!

If you are concerned and want to do more research, check out the following websites:

https://www.privacyguides.org/en/basics/why-privacy-matters/

https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/

https://privacyinternational.org/long-read/5669/blurring-line-how-militarisation-tech-reshaping-our-town-squares

https://www.eff.org/

You can support Big Brother Watch's campaign against digital here:

https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/campaigns/no2digitalid/

And please please write to your MP if you want to protest against Digital ID.

This is exactly the sort of creep we'll see, everything you do will be tracked both on and off line.

This is a genuine question and I feel a bit daft asking it, do you not need a national insurance number to woek in the UK? So would an employer not just ask for that? And id you don’t have a NI and the employer doesn’t care then will they not just ignore the fact you don’t have digital ID too? Sorry if that’s a really daft question. X

Neither passports nor driving licences are compulsory. It's more of a pain in the arse to manage without one, but it's possible and people do. The option exists. They also provide benefits to the owner other than simply existing in society. Passports let you travel, driving licences let you drive. When you pay for them, you're getting something for it other than the things you had the right to do anyway.

Exactly. This is either a populist policy to make it look like they are doing something about immigration, and/or it's a way of bringing in more surveillance under the guise of stopping immigration. It won't stop illegal immigration, or people illegally working. All it will achieve is further reducing the privacy of law-abiding UK citizens, and putting them more at risk of their data bring leaked to bad actors.