To be absolutely fuming about the digital ID thing?

[summerlovingvibes]

I work as a nurse in England.

I just feel absolutely fuming about the digital ID proposals and don't know how to channel my anger??

I very strongly object to this. It makes my blood boil when I think about it and I feel anxious knowing that something like this may be imposed on us all.

It is not going to stop illegal immigration. That line is absolute BS. They're doing it for their own selfish reasons.

What do we do? I don't want to not work, but I am going to refuse to have one. So my employer may sack me?!

It's just ridiculous!

Obviously I've signed the petition, emailed my MP, will join any protests etc.

But practically speaking - will my employer actually sack me for not having one?

Tough. It's a public forum. You don't get to open a thread and order up an echo chamber. As far as practical advice is concerned, I suggest you locate and purchase the world's biggest spoon. That will enable you to keep on stirring.

It isn’t a new service. I used it when my parents died in 2015.

Well who do you think will be in power in 10 years time, given that this parliament has another 4 years.

Will you be voting (Farage) for a clearly authoritarian leader who admires Putin, aligns himself with Trump who himself has already claimed his desire to be a dictator?
Most of the kickback on this policy is undeniably coming from reform and their supporters it seems clear.

So supporters of wannabe dictators are now lecturing us on the hazards of dictators getting hold of our personal information to do shiz niz?!?

Make it make sense

Yes, it's a really good service. It was developed by 2 guys at DWP Digital who were frustrated with the process when they had to deal with their own bereavements and the DWP gave them a couple of months to come up with a solution and they just did it. So the total development cost to the tax payer was basically 4 months of junior developer salary.

DWP are really good at digital services and have some very smart people working for them. The Home Office (who will be in charge of the ID system) on the other hand...

What?

This is very simple. If you don't think there is anything wrong with Digital I.D, then prove it.

PM me copies of all your I.D, including your National Insurance number, then send me your financial information, and the password to your NHS account. Then give me your email passwords, social media passwords and all other account logins.

I promise I won't do anything, I just want them so that I can keep you safe.

You can trust me.

There!

Got ya!

Its worked successfully across Europe, without a ridiculous level of drama
There you go...run along now

That isn't even how digital ID works! It gives YOU access to your information. The only information your ID holds, is well - your ID - name, address, DOB etc. It's not linked to your tesco club card, or FB or anything. It is not ALL your data gathered in one place for surveillance or easy to steal reasons. I am abroad and have had this for years.

Putting the potential for active harm to one side, I don’t trust the UK Government’s ability (regardless of which party is ‘driving’ at the time) to run a scheme like this competently.

It’ll be yet another botched project with data security concerns baked in. The cost overruns will be massive and where’s the real benefit to us citizens? How will it take cost or red tape out of the picture?

Hiring companies will still have to see / check it, so there’s no real advantage to them over the checks they’re already supposed to do. It won’t drive down health tourism, won’t stop the grey economy and certainly won’t deter illegal migration. So what’s the point? (other than lining the pockets of the usual suspects who’ll make a ton of cash from all the consultancy and implementation work).

The only ‘point’ to digital IDs, that I can see, comes from the work that this (or a future) Government will do later - when it starts to pull in and link all the rest of the data they hold in various DBs. And it will happen. So the idea that this will stay as something we only ever produce for our jobs, and will never be demanded by Police etc, is risible.

Yes @PaterPowerit’s not for ‘illegal immigration’ there’s no point to it for that, it’s because advances in AI and use of data make your last paragraph possible.

Passports and driving licences are already digital! How do you think they can be ordered online… 😂ask yourself where the data is stored… you just happen to also have a physical copy.

Ive lived in countries with ID and it was really useful. Plus Im old and it wasnt hard. What if you dont have a passport or driving licence? I think some people need to stock up on the tinfoil.

It’s that it’ll be compulsory - that’s what riles people.

As you say, if you want to leave the country, you need a passport. But if you don’t, you don’t.

Now, you may say that if you want to work, you’ll need ID, so it’s the same thing. But that implies that one of the basic British rights - the right to make a living - is going to be monitored and controlled by central government. And a lot of people are instinctively wary of that being the case.

And it won’t do anything to stop immigration. Anyone willing to take the risks involved in coming here covertly is unlikely to be dissuaded by the idea that it’ll be difficult to get a job. That’s a ‘cross that bridge when I come to it’ problem.

Also, the US - where an ID is required to work - is heavily reliant on undocumented labour. So it seems not to be working there.

What it comes down to, then, is that it’ll erode a long-established presumptive right (bad) without solving the problem that it’s intended to address (worse).

"Calm down, it's not up to you to tell people who can and cant post. Are you this argumentative at work."
@MissMoneyFairy

Tf? She created her own thread, and then reiterated what she'd like to discuss on it.

Yes, people can write what they want, when they want, but as grown adults you should be able to contain yourselves and either stick to the topic or save your 'oh so important' opinions for a relevant thread (or start your own thread if it's so important and must be shared with the public). It's basic manners not to fill someone else's post (that has limited space) with irrelevant content that OP doesn't want to discuss. Not to mention the nasty, snide remarks and insults.

Grow up. Some people on here are so overbearing. Grown women who can't stand people to have different opinions and you just have to belittle them and "educate" them on exactly why they're wrong and ignorant. You can't help yourselves can you? And then you accuse her of being argumentative when she dares assert herself against the precious echo chamber.

If they issued physical ID cards instead, where do you think the data would be stored? In paper files?

I live in the UK and very rarely need ID, and when I do it is easy to use the variety of non-compulsory documentation I already have.

By definition if digital ID comes in it will present problems (unless I do not need to get it and no-one ever asks for it)

The government already knows your NI number, passport, and drivers license. NHS is already a public service, so they have your password. If you are a taxpayer, government kows your financials. The ID doesn't suddenly give a random employee the access to make bank transfers from your personal account. However, it does make opening a bank account more secure cause my information is not based on my gas bill.
ID doesn't have anything to do with your Facebook account, but Meta has already sold your info forward, so ID doesn't make a difference

Thank you x

This 💯

Do you not normally think very hard about who you vote for? Genuine question

People seem to lack critical thinking skills. Where are all your details currently stored: driving licences, passports, NI number, NHS health records…? Well…they’re stored digitally folks!. If the government wanted to “track you” they’d already do it. You have never been off grid. So deal with it. They just want to centralise it.

everyone has just jumped on the bandwagon wagon of conspiracy theories and it’s embarrassing. That’s social media for you - people can no longer think for themselves.

Those you keep saying "but your stuff is stored and accessible by government already" keep missing an important point.

Yes, driving licence/passports/national insurance details etc. are indeed stored by government already. But it is actually quite difficult for another department to access them: it takes time, money, due process, and probably mountains of paperwork. In theory, the government probably can access an individual's bank accounts if they really want to, but they have to follow due process. Those safeguards exist for a good reason. The police can, in theory, seize anybody's computer, but they need a warrant to do so. The covid enquiry eventually forced Boris to surrender his Whatsapp messages, but he fought tooth and nail to try to prevent this (and guess who paid for it?). At the moment, it's fairly difficult for the government to "keep tabs on every individual, whatever they do, wherever they go". And I think that's how it should be.

Those safeguards are fragile. They only exist as long as the government "allows" them to exist. A future unscrupulous government could take them away with a stroke of the pen, manifesto or no manifesto. We saw how easily Boris prorogued Parliament, and how easily they declared lockdown, with no scrutiny. We've seen how easily Trump can dismantle the safeguards that make him accountable to anybody at all: tyrants around the world are watching with interest. We saw how easily the Canadian truckers had their bank accounts stopped. We saw how easily the government could suppress debate, and any anti-lockdown sentiment. While Starmer and digital ID's supporters might now be saying "digital ID is all for the greater good", it would make it much easier for a future tyrannical government to link everything together, especially if they abolished cash, and linked everybody's ID to their bank accounts.

I am not suggesting the above will happen, and as I said, those of us against digital ID are not helping our case by screaming "it definitely will happen". But what I think is dangerous is what might happen, what the government are not saying out loud. Starmer might have no intention of doing any of the above, but a future government might, and the infra-structure would already be in place. Democracy is an illusion, and in 2020, the mask not only slipped, but crashed to the floor and shattered. This was a warning to us all.

I like the fact that at the moment, all these things like passports, driving licences, bank accounts are somewhat fragmented, and separate.

Yes there’s clunky and separate digital storage, however now AI and data use is in a different place and set to accelerate in capability. It’s starting to be used in scanning bank accounts. A gov with a digital scheme can do more.

Yes, driving licence/passports/national insurance details etc. are indeed stored by government already. But it is actually quite difficult for another department to access them: it takes time, money, due process, and probably mountains of paperwork.

It’s actually very easy. That’s how your photo can be accessed by both the passport office and DVLC. These things are already linked.

When those other countries introduced I.D, what did their government say it was for?

This government is lying to us about the reasons they "need" to introduce it. So if they are lying to us from the very beginning, what else are they lying about?

How are you so naive?

No they aren't. Not directly. If you work in the passport office, you don't have any access to my bank account or my medical records. A digital I.D will create a file where all this information is available in one place. And the government hasn't said who will have access to it, or for what purpose.

And if you don't think there's anything wrong with Digital I.D, why don't you PM me all your details, bank info, medical records, passport and driving licence copies?

I promise I won't do anything bad to you.

I just want to keep you safe.

You won't do it. You know exactly 💯 why you won't do it. But you think it's OK for the Government to have it. And no. They don't already have that information. The government doesn't know why job you applied for or when and where you tried to buy alcohol. Both of which have been stated by Labour ministers in interviews as reasons why they want to introduce digital I.D.

Wake up!