I agree Graham. I just had to jump through hoops to set up a 'Government ONE' account (which will eventually replace the Govt Gateway 12 digit number) to apply online for a replacement driving licence card. It is in effect a digital ID just not in physical form.

Any incoming authoritarian government would be delighted with such a wonderful mechanism to monitor and control the entitlements of their critics...

There are already multiple ways for authoritarian governments to control us Lee. Trump is doing fine in America without the help of ID cards…

Indeed. But you're not seriously arguing that it wouldn't be helpful for an authoritarian government to have such a mechanism to track citizens, perhaps link to social media activity, and remove entitlements of critics at will? Positive arguments for ID cards in normal times fail in *these* times.

If we elect an authoritarian government Lee, our liberal society will already have failed.

It’s already failing with Labour’s attempts at out-Reform-ing Reform 😩

Yes, this is another appalling policy & optic from Labour.

He’s coming across as a bit of an idiot and we can Wonder whether this is how he can get on with Trump. After all he himself muscled in on Labour.

I agree . I had one in Spain , I never felt oppressed by the State 🙄 Great for proving identity in business &legal dealings . And when dealing in govt departments .

“Can I see some ID sir?” “No officer, you can’t. Have a nice day”

I'm absolutely fine with ID Cards. Bring it on. Used by a number of European countries without any issues. I'm a non-driver, so have to use my passport for ID purposes - would be so much easier for me just to have a National ID Card.

Yep

I have Inland revenue number Driving licence Passport Bus pass Bank cards Medical card Registered at two hospitals I am registered at various restaurants, library, and logged in as member on several web sites. I think I am easy to find so why worry about a simplified ID?

Indeed!

Totally. One system for all age and identity ID would have many benefits.

I have a Spanish ID card. It is unavoidable here, and good and useful - and I am fine with it while Spain has a progressive people-focused government. What happens, however, if (in the UK) RefUK or the Tories get into power? Or, even, an authoritarian Labour government stays in power? What then?

The initial use-case here is explicitly to discriminate against a class of vulnerable people. Blows my mind to see so many progressives supporting such a tool.

I wish the Windrush generation had been given an ID to prove their identity, it would have prevented a lot of problems for them later on. I used to work in social housing, vulnerable people had to go through hoops to prove who they were and were entitled to housing.

Asylum seekers already have ID cards to support such a use-case. www.gov.uk/government/p...

Yes, it is not a good reason for them. Good, beneficial, joined-up government may be, but this is not.

Exactly the same is true of eg a “back door” in encryption algorithms. Apart from the obvious point that some dumb civil servant might leave the key lying around where it can be stolen, & e-payments systems depend on E2EE, “why worry I have nothing to hide” ignores possibility of authoritarian govt

Authoritarians don’t need ID Cards to do their worst. We already have passports, driving licences, bank cards, NHS/Social security records, plus multiple online identities.

An ID card doesn’t give the state information about you, it is made out of data the state has. It certifies your citizenship, which is very useful to you if you get a Trumpian regime. If you’re not a wide traveller, you can let your passport expire and then you‘re back with just one ID document.

My Spain ID card does not, for example, have access to my Catalan health data. So it needs an effort to join all of the DBs up in the one card. Which is precisely where an authoritarian govt may choose to go. That would be a ·political· decision.

They could link your health data, empadronamiento and tax data without an ID card if they ignore data protection.

They could, but they don't, which is my point about progressive governments. And they could do this w/o an ID card. Which would just make it easier to access everything if, as is sometimes the case, ID (or health) card has to be presented to access services.

2/2 It would be interesting to know whether there are EU restrictions on such pan-DB linkage. I suspect there may be.

Data protection legislation requires the siloing of data whether EU or national. It’s a basic principle.

And the UK, now not in the EU…?

True-ish. But an ID card can, in a worst case scenario, join them all up.

It will just make it easier to join them up. Sure this can be done already with a bit of effort - look at the way immigration is reportedly operating in the US on individuals’ digital footprints.

I’m making it a point in my social media posts to ensure I never go to the US again.

Same.

Me too.

Let’s just not allow authoritarians to gain power, an ID card will make little difference.

If authoritarians get into power then the game is lost, it would be awful with or without ID cards.

Worse with, though, probably.

Nah, the government already has many databases about you.

Joined up, though, and easily accessible under one card (Spain's ID card does not, afaik, have access to all databases)?

I don't understand the opposition to ID cards. Do people really think the government is unable to track them at the moment? I bet these same people carry a mobile phone with hundreds of apps tracking their location every second.

If the government can track everyone at any moment why do they need ID cards?

It'd make it much easier for SME businesses to check the work entitlement of potential staff. If you make this easy any non-conformance can be squarely pinned on the employer. An official ID should be required to access any government services and would help reduce fraud.

Restrict it to those things and I don’t think anyone would have a problem. The last attempt to introduce ID cards in the UK held over fifty separate *categories* of data and made it a prosecutable offence for the holder not to update the government on changes to ANY of them.

We have ID cards in Germany. Hasn’t stopped the government stoking up a panic about immigrants.

Prima facie, you might think so. Question: exactly what data fields are to be encoded on a newly introduced ‘ID card’? If I were a ‘gender critical’ on a mission right now, I would certainly be seeking to have ‘Sex Assigned At Birth’ encoded. It’s a *golden* opportunity to out and suppress.

They don’t know yet. They are still talking of making working groups to discuss it ….🤦‍♀️