Digital ID needs to be resisted, surely?

[Honish]

There are just under 1 million illegal immigrants believed to be in Britain. The authories know who most of them are, and they are still here. Identifying them has never been the problem. We don't deport them, knowing who they are does not change this. This is one of the most breathtaking, blatant lies, made to us by our PM.

And the provider company for the digital ID, the person set make ever so many more millions than he already has, Tony Blairs son. How are people OK with this?

Remember another shelved and extremely unpopular idea was “pay per mile”: all cars would be tracked by GPS, and taxed according to mileage. Again, if this was in place in 2020, the government would almost certainly have used it to catch people breaking lockdown. This is why we don’t want these things in place at all.

What exactly is the involvement of Tony Blair's son?

I don't love the idea of ID and I'm surprised at a Labour government going with it, but I'd expect it to be popular with the groups it's designed to appease. I don't like that either, but I like it more than the idea of a Reform government.

And all employers employ people legitimately?

I’d be fine if you could use a paperwork app and those who don’t want or need that could make that choice.

If the government wanted to reduce individual's carbon footprint they could use your passport to ration flights. Much more effective. Bonkers to think they will start rationing fuel outside of a massive fuel crisis - and that wouldn't be prevented by having no ID, look at the 1970s 3 day week.

I don't see any problem with ID cards personally - and I think it would reduce illegal working. It won't completely prevent it but would help.

This is in the background, it'll be used as soon as the infrastructure is in place. All under the excuse of carbon reduction.

The government need people to work more, not less and the oil crisis has been replaced with climate change crisis and net zero.

People haven’t noticed increased unrest pretty much everywhere, and then see what happens as climate change ramps up. In the next decade AI and services will pretty much become ‘the bedrock of the state’ as tweeted. They’re not joking.

The eradication of cash and introduction of a digital currency would help to stop illegal working. If the government know exactly where all our money is originating from and going to, then it'll be hard to pay someone without leaving a trail.

I'm not arsed tbh. Sounds like a good idea to me. Catching up with the rest of the world.

I am finding all of the frothing hilarious though

Glad it's amusing for you. Not all of us have grown up in freedom so we're not so amused by the prospect of our civil liberties and freedoms being removed.

Yeh you said. Labour aren’t doing too well so maybe it’ll backfire and they’ll be out anyway. With their dodgy ID plans.

They'll go ahead anyway. This isn't coming from the UK government, but higher up.

I’ve had an ID card most of my life - nothing negative has happened - no one has stopped me travelling, spending my money, driving or working.

Your passport and drivers license are digital. Your bank account is online and your employment information and tax payments are held online and assessed digitally - what do you think will change?

Higher up where?

Higher up!!! The aliens?

What is being removed?

So, not actually resisting, then 😁

I don’t work either. Happy to have one.

Don’t let the piss takers get to you btw. It’s standard stuff.

I don't, in principle, object to an identity CARD - I already hold one from another country.

I object to being told it is to stop illegal working and the 'draw' to this country that being able to work illegally allows. Share codes exist which provide
photographic evidence and status of the person looking for work.

I object to Lisa Nandy doing the rounds last week telling us it was only going to be used for employment purposes and then in her next breath telling us it would make it easier to access government services. Which is it?

I object mainly to this government lying through its teeth and thinking I am a fool.

And it won’t stop a future government implementing it, including one who previously spoke against it, such as Farage. It would be easier for them, because the initial public fury will have died down, and by then, people will be scared of something else.

This came up 20 years ago and people were very unhappy with it. Now not so much.

obviously it is to do with illegal working, tax, benefits, healthcare. This would be the default system for access and also recording your engagement with public services.

It will suit the government because they need to cut the number of civil servants and systems currently staffed by people to manage huge amounts of personal data. Not only are these systems clunky but people are often not great at administering them. A digital ID that manages your public access to benefits will also be able in time to access your bank account to check for evidence of fraud, working cash in hand using AI to check that against millions of other claimants.

I never thought the government had the capacity to implement this because it was too chaotic, and they could not integrate the information needed. 20 years you couldn’t have. Now you can.

I think it will oppressive for many potentially, particularly those who use public services a lot and receive benefits. But the implication here is that the government is entitled to do this since you are using them. This is one of those ideas that probably has utility for right abs left politicians, except Reform, who have other solutions

I agree with you. They do lie. On cards I can’t see the point in spending billions for just that.

If it’s to manage services then it has to be onerous and obtrusive alongside a cashless society to have any Impact. And then it just hits citizens and people who can’t access it turn to increased crime instead.

A better idea is to actually use borders to stop those entering you don’t want and leaving citizens alone.

Why is digital ID going to remove your civil liberties and freedoms, when the government already has access to our information already via passports, driving licence etc? Exactly which freedoms do you think will be removed?

I can understand that people have concerns about digital IDs - but I don't know how much extra information it will give to the Government, that it doesn't already have access to. I could be wrong, but I don't feel it will be handing over much - if any - more information than the Government already has on me, given that I have a passport and a driving licence, am registered for Disability Living Allowance, pay council tax, have an NI number, and paid tax and NI when I was working.