ID cards to be introduced. What do you feel. ?

[Fishingboatbobbingnight]

I have worked in serious organised crime for two decades. This is one of the best bits of news I have read in a long while. I have also been involved in ‘small boat’ arrivals. The reason people will by pass several safe EU countries to get to the UK is ‘I can get lost if I don’t get asylum’ ‘UK has no ID cards’ . It’s a no brainer .. why why has it taken so long. ? If you want to have the services your country has to offer - through most of the world - from healthcare to the library- you need to show you are a bona-fida citizen. However , for some unfathomable reason , the flag waving right wingers are always the one to oppose ..is it because they are scared it will work and leave their thinly veiled racism floundering ?

Yes to ID cards = YANBU
No to ID cards = YABU

You’d be surprised.

That you, Officer Crabtree?

Even the BBC had an article yesterday about hotel migrants getting £600 taxi rides. The BBC has had other articles about them being giving credit cards which they spent in casinos. This isn't Daily Mail reporting, it's the BBC.

Have they said how people without a smart phone will get one?

So will this be another thing we have to pay for every ten years like passports and driving licenses?!

How much will we have to give Capita? £50? £100?

They don’t want £600 taxi rides. They want to take the bus or train but can’t do that.

I am strongly against. If such a system is introduced, the database holding all our personal information will inevitably be hacked, either by criminals or by other states, quite possibly both. And even if I trusted this government to keep my data secure and not misuse it, introducing ID cards would be a gift to any future government with authoritarian tendencies.

How about the current government with authoritarian tendencies?

Anyone remember the "we will tread lightly on your lives" bullshit from Starmer?

Drivers license, passports, all our card details saved online, all our info stored in hospitals, dentists, social media. Literally everything about us is out there in some capacity, whether online or various cards we carry. I’m fine with this

Could you please post your name, address and DoB right here on the internet if you hae nothing to hide. You can bet your life a hacker will do so if digital ID comes in

"Tin foil hat" brigade were correct with their predications again then.

And I don't need to scroll through this thread to know that mumsnet will largely be all for it. Of course they will. Didn't expect to read in the OP that people who don't want it are racist though 😂

If you think that your data is currently private, you’re mistaken.

I live in Canada now and we have an ID with our healthcare number on it. I can’t see a doctor, drop off/ request a prescription without my healthcare number and ID proof. So it does exist in some places.

In DH's country of birth every citizen must have an ID card. Most do not need or want a passport. ID cards are issued at birth and are necessary for just about everything. I think we should get on and make them compulsory here. The problem will be ensuring that forged ones are easily spotted.

YABU for "the flag waving right wingers " comment. "Right winger" is now merely a term of abuse that the lefties use. Anti Illegal Immigration doesn't make someone a "right winger". You don't seem to agree with people arriving in boats undocumented and using services and "getting lost" , hence you think it's good to have digital IDs. So the flag wavers are no less right wing than you are.

YANBU - re. the Digital card. I support it and I hope it will be implemented.

If hacking was so easy ‘they’ would empty your bank account.

The OP has given 2 reasons - helping with control of immigration and making it easier for. Gov services to identify who is eligible for their services.

I'll give a third - will make to easier to prove identity. I've had trouble with this in the past, for example in a few occasions when I have had to apply for DBS clearance. I didn't have any of the requisite bills in my name and I couldn't find my birth certificate.

That's hardly a benefit. Nobody is giving them £600. They are being transported to a medical appointment. It's hardly their fault if we have an inefficient system.

The credit card thing was for people who are being deported. They are offered money to give up their assylum claims and leave the country. It works out a lot cheaper than waiing while their claims are processed.

Didn't you? Come on, anyone who opposes Labour is far right + rascist.

Interesting to see who in Labour opposes it....there are many in the party who have a lot to hide after all

Prob be the lowest bid to set up the system or some MPs friend who knows someone in IT. So huge cost to taxpayer then the system doesn't work and people pocket the cash. Or the system is outsourced to a Company which gets sold to another company probably overseas and now all that data is on a server farm in China, Dubai or The Congo and free from UK govt laws

Having lived in countries with ID cards, Latin America, I don’t have a problem with ID cards. But, having grown up in the UK my concern is over zealous people working in authorise jobs.

You don’t have to be a citizen though, surely? That was the point I was rather badly trying to make. I need ID in the US for both healthcare and the library but could access both before I became a citizen

Isn't it specialist teams dedicated to that particular strand of crime?

The finest could be increased and remove the business owner from the business.

Having id cards won't stop the problem until there's sufficient damage done to the criminals.

We've got to stop ourselves becoming a target for international crime, and I've always thought the abise of our porous public services are one of the causes of right wing resentment.

However, I'm more worried about civil liberties. I am genuinely more afraid of a Farage/Trump style corrupt government than I am of any individual migrant. If we look across the world, states are more nefarious than individuals. I worry about not being able to go "off grid", even though in practice I get that its supposed to be much more of a fear if you've got something to hide.

However, if what youre saying is true, we have no choice. I've got both a passport and a driving licence already anyway.

How is this worse than existing databases that hold passport and NI and driving licence data?