Alphapuggle PieFedPetition: Do not introduce Digital ID cards
submitted by
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/730194
Finally something to unite the nation under š¤£
Labour: hmm, looks like we are still too high in the polls.
At this point I think Keir Starmer is actually a covert conservative trying his hardest to undermine and destroy the Labour party for decades to come.
LINO
The opposition to id cards themeselves in this country is very strange to me. Most civilised countries have some sort of national identification number/card that can be used to access government services, and having worked inside the UK government, I can tell you what a total nightmare it is to develop services for Britons without such a unique id.
What kills me, is that inevitably the id card debate here seems to focus in on the existence of a card rather than what the government wants to attach include with it, like biometric data, or pairing it with an app with invasive permissions. You need an id number for me so that I can be identified when accessing government services, you donāt need to keep a record of every time I boarded a train or more surveillance nonsense.
This country is so used to government surveillance that they automatically assume that āid card means more trackingā rather than objecting to the tracking that already exists (have you seen Oxford Street?) and opposing an id thatād save the country mountains of cash and hassle if used properly.
We just dont trust our own goverment to not use the data malicously, its a bare basic instinct the majority of the country has.
ID cards have always been related in the public view directly to police states and authoritism, whenever you see one of those old films the first thing the person in authority says is āpapers pleaseā. Thats something a majority of british people have been brought up on and its ingrained in us so much, the very mention of an idea pushes us all to shout no.
We have social security numbers already in the UK to identify us when using government services. For me personally, I just donāt want spyware junk on my phone or computer because we all strongly suspect thatās what itās for.
I have a National Insurance number, NHS number, Unique Taxpayer Reference and a Unique Pupil Number. Iāve probably forgotten some. It would be nice if we just used one for all.
Well thatās a particle the government had Introduced by consistently tracking their people
Government Response:
I donāt understand the point of this. The govt is only just now rolling out Gov.UK āOne Loginā with identity verification across its services. That should be enough for what government needs, this is just overreach.
Watch the Tories and Reform rise in popularity by saying how invasive it is, only to keep it and make it worse when they inevitably get in.
Exactly. They could have resolved it by adding pictures to the HMRC app and website as an option. Probably make it mandatory for the employer to upload one at worst.
Iām genuinely in two minds in this one.
Iām currently middle aged and have a driving licence. In 20 years or so I probably wonāt, so will have no formal ID. - Thatās worrying if I need to present ID to receive services, therefore some official form of ID is a good thing.
By that age Iāll probably want to ditch the smart phone for a simpler model and a simpler life (the eyes are going already) so will want a physical ID card, not something on my phone.
I am not sure how Iāll be able to live in older age in a digitalised society, but thatās for another rant.
Would I like an ID card that had all my medical record on it? Yes, I think that could be useful given the sometimes lack of communication been hospitals and GPs. Itās therefore a useful vehicle for good things if they were to be added.
Do I expect that itāll be used intrusively at every possible opportunity? Youbetcha. Corporations will in due course find ways to profile with it, as they do with loyalty schemes and credit cards. State intrusion both local and foreign will also probably happen such as 5 eyes data sharing.
Do I trust that the government could actually pull this off? They canāt build a few miles of fast railway. This will cost billions, result in many brown envelopes and take ages. I certainly worry about the cyber security of such a system if it happens. Whatever happens it must be a wholly UK project.
Will it stop migrants? No. Will it stop the shadow workforce? No. I donāt believe it will do any of these.
Iāll say it. There are far worse regimes out there, but I do not trust my government. I do not believe they work for my best interests nor those of much of society.
I therefore deeply suspect the motives of this scheme and donāt believe itāll solve the problems they say it will.
I think you can get an electoral ID now which everyone can access. Northern Ireland has always had a free āpolling cardā and itās typically the first ID someone gets if they donāt have a passport
About to tip over 900,000.
899,553 signatures
This is a very rapidly popular petition.
People in Britain DO NOT want this.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/730194
900,717 signatures
Very rapid. Was only about 200,000 yesterday morning.
902,839 signatures
Expecting over a million by time I finish lunch.
You finished lunch yet? Iām watching it rn, at 971,487
3 lunches later, itās at 2,493,993 signatures, slowed to about a third of its peak pace. May still hit 3 million by this time tomorrow. Doubtful (but still possible) itāll hit the top spot for most signed petition by the time it gets debated (since they added another 6 days from when it prior said the debate may be happening ~ oh wait, theyāve added another day nowā¦ 7 days to goā¦ So who knowsā¦).
McLovin time
I honestly donāt get the resistance to a standard ID card.
We already have passports, driving licences, and national insurance as work arounds to prove identity, so in and of itself I donāt get why a proper one is a problem.
Iāve literally had to carry a driving licence for over two decades just to get a beer.
Youāre nearly 40 and have to show ID to buy alcohol?
Many places have a āChallenge 30ā policy or similar where they ask for ID if you look under 30.
If you still look youthful at 40 itās possible to get IDād.
Lucky git. Iām 42 and I think the last time I was asked for ID was when I was 26.
They could at least look like theyāre thinking about it before they smash that āobviously over 25ā button.
Iām 41 and still have to bring my passport with me when I need to buy blades or aerosols.
40? ID says heās 18, I swear! Heās old enough!
I had to as well, until my mid 30-s š¬ (Hasnāt happened in a few years though.)
I still remember when they asked for ID to buy one of those Y-shaped potato peelers š How tf I could hurt someone with that, peel them??
When you show your physical ID to buy alcohol itās a one and done offline interaction. Digital ID is an audit log. Itās not impossible to envision how this data might be used against you by 3rd parties, advertisers, insurance companies and governments.
I carry my driving licence too, but by choice.
Iāve been to China. I donāt want this place turning into China. You have to use your ID card for everything, from boarding trains to going to museums. And when youāre not showing it directly, youāre using something else thatās linked to it- like digital payments.
And if weāre having to present an ID card for the mundane it isnāt a stretch to imagine the government having the ability to harvest that information.
I completely agree with not wanting the UK to be China.
But I do see these as separate things - the same issues you describe could be done with driving licences, if someone was mad enough to try.
No they canāt because we use them for different things. One ID means one system that tracks everything. Also, you donāt have to have a passport. You donāt have to have a driving license. Everybody needs an NI number to work, but itās not an ID (No photo, DOB, etc).
This is a perfect explanation. They could make a national insurance photocard if theyād like. Maybe have police require that you present it within a timeframe. Itās the same with driving- you can drive without your licence photocard in the car, you just have to drop into a police station within two weeks if you havenāt presented it when asked.
If you even had National Insurance photocards with just the number and a picture, you could just have the employers store them on premise.
No it wonāt work. Plenty of people donāt have driving licences. This would systemically exclude many blind and disabled from participating in society. Driving licence photocards donāt even have any chips in them, nor a machine-readable zone.
Lisa Nandy was just on Sky news and explicitly said that it is optional to carry it. Youād apparently āhave an IDā but you donāt have to carry it.
Iām not sure what that means for why they need it. Apparently to check work eligibility easily instead of one of several means that are, in her words, āmore easily forgedā.
You could quite easily develop a system like the driving licence check (for when you rent a car, for example, to check your driving status and points) to provide extra information anonymously like age range or work status or whatever you wanted. In fact if we were still in the EU weād be able to participate in the beta that Spain is spearheading for age verification: https://ageverification.dev/. Itās goals are explicitly privacy focused so Iād encourage people to read the details.
As a technology challenge I donāt think thereās a good argument not to have such a system rather than the patch work one we have now that was designed and built close to hundreds of years ago. However politically selling something like this to British people is always going to be the hard part.
Sounds like she was wrong? I wouldnāt really be against a state standard age verification system thatās optional.
Hmm š§ seems I was suckered into the government propaganda machine. I canāt help but think Nandyās comments this morning were calculated to cause confusion in the governmentās favour.
Watch the insurance payouts drop dramatically if these go through. Access to all of your medical history.. Insane.
Still nothing compared to the proposed EU Chat Control.
EU Chat control is ridiculous. Anyone with a bit of knowledge can easily set up a snikket instance and get e2ee. Or just do it over regular email with email clients like k9 and openkeychain
One of the main points about chat control is that it forces software developers to break their own encryption or face whatever the penalties will be.
It is ridiculous and will hopefully be stopped in itās tracks, unfortunately not enough people know about it, and even of the ones that do, not enough of them understand what it is and how dangerous it is.
Basically, the governments have seen how lucrative it has been for the big techs, and how advantageous it can be to control our data. They have seen what the Israeliās have been able to do with that information and tech.
They want in. It has nothing to do with child protection.
If it passes, all politicians better be squeakier and cleaner than squeaky clean. With their data not being scanned, we will likely have to watch them ourselves.