> I'm certain it's worked well in other countries
It has! In the Netherlands for example, it's just an incredibly convenient system, and if there's anything dodgy going on I'm not aware of it.
So what makes the UK so different to the Netherlands? Genuine question, because I really don't know. My only guess is that the people of the Netherlands hold their politicians to account, whereas nothing ever seems to happen to UK politicians whose corruption is so severe that they're sometimes literally criminal.
Notoriously, the national identity system was used during World War II as a system for discovering and eliminating the Jewish community[1]. The lessons learned from that are a frequent topic of discussion in civil liberties groups, and the Dutch experience is often cited, both global conversations and within the Netherlands -- e.g. On Liberation Day 2015, Bits of Freedom held its annual Godwin Lecture on the risks of prioritising ID efficiency over civil liberties[2].
It may be that special protections were coded into the current system to prevent this from happening again, I don't know the details.
Certainly, the reputation for how obligatory papers have been (mis)used in mainland Europe since Napoleonic times have fed into the anglo world's suspicion around introducing similar regulations[3]. There are several recurring memes around how compulsory documents are a sign of an authoritarian environment.
[1] - https://jck.nl/en/agenda/identity-cards-and-forgeries
[2] - https://www.bitsoffreedom.nl/2015/04/30/during-world-war-ii-...
The government also decides how many non-family members can register at an address, so in Amsterdam it is common for people to remain registered at there parents while subletting a room in an apartment.
You also get a DigiD which very convenient but also terrifying, especially when I walk around my neighborhood and see plaque’s in the ground for the victims of the holocaust who lived here.
My Dutch girlfriend does not believe me when I tell here that you don’t have to register where you live with the government in the anglophone world. It’s just so engrained in the society that anything else seems absurd.
I believe in New Zealand other government agencies aren't allowed to access your data without your consent though.
Ireland is not Britain, and people from Northern Ireland can chose to identify as British, Irish or Both by birthright.
A "Brit Card" is not something a significant portion of people would want.
I personally am more disgusted by the nationalistic naming, but I also don't like the idea of needing a smartphone or my walle when walking.
If these aren't true details then the messaging has been poor, per form, and needs to be addressed, quickly.
It also seems it'll actually be called Digital ID by the government, this is more a marketing tool, BritCard.
(Just clarifying if it helps, I see some misinformation out there).
I might trust this government not to do that, but I don't trust a future government (because I don't know who that will be).
While the UK have some level of representativeness, each circuit has a winner takes it all structure, making change quite hard to achieve on a larger scale.
The alternative is a decision that most people don't agree with.
Deals and bargaining all happen AFTER a party takes power and completely hidden until a government can't pass their own bills like the Labour attempt to reform welfare.
With proportional representation the deals are made in order to form a government, BEFORE it has power, and are between separate political parties.
Sure there may be agreements that are not all made public, but these are much harder to keep in the "backroom".
Construct better systems, by all means, but don't just ignore the system that exists.
It would be ignorant not to fear the ID at this point with all the other mechanisms described by OP.
The ID in itself can be a good thing. There is no evil in itself. The context however is very worrisome as it may become a tool of evil.
Classic human.
The UK has an idiosyncratic relationship with freedom. Technically you have little because (formally limited) monarchy. In practice there’s this aversion to IDs, things like freedom to roam which gives a lot of access to private property, and the ability to get citizenship elsewhere and keep UK, which republics like the US and India won’t allow.
And yet there’s massive camera surveillance from the recent nanny state. And libel laws mean you have to be careful what you print about people. Odd place. Maybe the weather inspires it.
>U.S. law does not require a U.S. citizen to choose between U.S. citizenship and another (foreign) nationality (or nationalities). A U.S. citizen may naturalize in a foreign state without any risk to their U.S. citizenship.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-lega...
What does it buy you?
Major corruption, abuse and misconduct still happens. Being able to criticise your government doesn't seem to matter in the social media age. Look at the state of politics in the US right now.
Seems like it's slightly redundant these days – a bit anachronistic?
Kind of odd the obsession with it.
(p.s.: All the social media companies being from the US, of course – thanks for all the misinformation, disinformation and hate speech platforms along with all that 'free speech'!).
Well, for one thing, it's not a transactional question of what it "buys". It's a matter of principle and defense against future repression or manipulation by politicians on a power trip.
For example, given Trump's current and blatant attempts to crush free expression against his own policies and bullshit, or even those who constantly insult and criticize him (whining about it like a little kid actually) imagine how much easier he'd have had it if there were no U.S 1st amendment to use against him.
There's an example of its value. It's just one of many.
If you think being able to protect free expression and the ability to speak out freely against power and its abuse is anachronistic, then I don't know what else to say except that you're a naive or dishonest fool, and possibly part of the very problem in places where péople just don't seem to care that under pretext X or Y, they can be stifled at any time.
Yes, the social media companies produce, or facilitate the production of, vast amounts of misinformation, disinformation and even hate speech, but guess what? All that shit gets produced en masse anyhow by repressive authoritarian regimes with narratives to construct and agendas to maintain. Free speech certainly isn't at fault for its existence, given that such things have existed since there's been propaganda or a perceived need for it.
At least, in a place like the U.S, where free speech remains protected (for now at least), any misinformation, disinformation or whatever speech by those in power or outside of it who create it, can be countered by others trying to speak more truthfully.
Try doing the same against misinformation and disinformation by government in Russia, or many other countries where "anachronistic" free speech is curtailed right to hell.
In essence, when governments can legally censor speech they decide is misinformation, disinformation or "hate speech", they can create all sorts of um, interesting, rubrics for deciding what fits under these labels, and then oops, by coincidence it can be anything that goes against their agendas. Going back to the Trump example, just pause for a moment to think about all the uncomfortable facts and opinions he loves to label as "fake news" or "misinformation" or even as hate speech. Now imagine him having the legal authority to sweep them away.
Nothing in any state guarantees against a future leadership with similar authoritarian proclivities from forming to use anti-free speech laws in similar ways.
There, my good faith response to your completely absurd line of rhetorical questioning.
Id say it’s not a difference in the politicians but the citizens. Pessimism and paranoia are rampant in the UK. We already went through this ID card debate 20 years ago and the fear-mongering won. So the idea just reignites that debate with a lot of baggage.
The UK has various systems in place to ensure people are legally allowed to work, rent, etc but in reality they inconvenience people without actually catching “the bad guys”. This system would make life more convenient and make the chance of catching the bad guys higher.
In truth though the problem is dodgy employers on a large scale. Take Deliveroo or Uber Eats. The accounts are rented out to illegal workers. You could literally catch one for every order you make. But for some reason the government isn’t actually going after the obvious hanging fruit.
Which begs the question - if that's not the purpose of this law, then what is?
Furthermore, the former empire was built so that all of the telegraph and telephone lines went to London. If you wanted to make a call from one African colony to the next, London would be in on the man in the middle.
As well as this vast international capability, there is also the domestic front. During the Miners Strike in the 1980s the secret services were tasked with spying, notably on the leader of the miners, Arthur Scargill. Allegedly he used to pick up the phone and just give them a few words, either to misguide them or to tease them.
This spying continued with Northern Ireland being a 'training ground' during 'The Troubles'. There was also considerable opposition to cruise missiles in the UK during the Thatcher years and all of the people active in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament were under surveillance. This was not the end of it though. Eco-activism was also of interest along with a few high profile problem people.
As well as the secret services, there is also Scotland Yard. They infiltrate every anti-government single issue pressure group as a matter of course, placing people in deep cover. Two Guardian Journalists brought this to light in 2012 or so.
Then, on top of that, there are the capabilities of the big companies such as British Aerospace. They have their spies too.
Hence, on the domestic front, surveillance is vital to cut anyone down to size if they might challenge the establishment at a later date. Everything just gets nipped in the bud.
The 'Special Relationship' is the spying arrangement at the heart of 'Five Eyes'. In the USA, surveillance of the population is not allowed, so the workaround is to get the Brits to do it for them. This is how it works and has been working for decades.
If the UK secret services want to spy on someone in the UK then they will have the manpower to do it without getting caught. They will be able to get school reports, attendance at political demonstrations and much else regarding a person of interest.
There is nothing new that I have said here, Snowden and The Guardian brought all of this to light, in broad strokes. Both HUMINT and SIGINT is world leading. Compare with the USA where they have the dragnet but are not so capable when it comes to the HUMINT needed for monitoring a small group of individuals such as the leadership of a trade union.
It is for these reasons that spying has to be made easy for them, for instance by banning Huawei 5g routers on the pretence that China is using Huawei backdoors to spy on the UK. The problem was not that, it was different. With the likes of Cisco et al, the secret services can specify their own back doors, however, that is not so easy with Chinese owned companies.
There is much in the way of law that has gone along with this, for example the Criminal Justice Act of 1994 and the Terrorism Act 2000. The latter was definitely to target eco-activists, not anyone else. At the time there were eco-activist groups such as Reclaim The Streets that organised things such as rioting in the City of London with no identifiable leaders. They also did not book their protests with the police or organise security for the day, hence they needed to terminated.
9/11 brought new challenges and that brings us on to where we are today. I personally do not think this digital ID is a big deal. Any British citizen can already be easily identified even if they don't know their National Insurance number, and even if they have no photo ID in the form of a passport or a driving license. Name, date of birth and hospital of birth are the three bits of information needed. As well as the police, the NHS can work with that. As for employers and their needs to hire only people legally permitted to work in the UK, this is just for due diligence reasons from their part. If you speak with an accent that can only be British then you can meet the employer's checkbox requirements easily, with no photo ID. Just a bank statement should do.
So, where is this coming from? What plausible reason could there be for a fresh attempt at identity cards, for the umpteenth time?
Brexit...
As you know, Brexit happened and it was ugly. Due to the way that 'The Troubles' ended with the Good Friday Agreement, the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland (The Irish Republic is just 'Ireland', not any other name) has to be kept open.
What this means is that the EU is not a complete fortress, there is this imaginary border in the Irish Sea that can't be closed.
Immigration post-Brexit
A major selling point of Brexit was an end to immigration. However, due to the open border with Ireland, immigration has become a problem to the authorities, not least because working class people despise losing their jobs or getting paid less because there is a constant stream of people that will undercut them in the employment market.
What happens is that some country ends up being regime changed, as per the goals of The War Against Terror. Syria was particularly notable for the refugee situation. However, there is also Afghanistan, Iraq and everything in between up until Ukraine. What happens is very sad. People walk, hitch or smuggle themselves into Europe to arrive in one country such as Greece. Here they are looked after but they are unable to work or escape the refugee camps to buy a house, start a family and all those good things.
So they escape the cage of the EU country they first entered to try somewhere else. Maybe they get to Germany. However, in Germany, they will be asked where they came from, for example Greece, and get sent back to Greece. Maybe they try another EU country, to get sent back again. And so it goes, until someone advises them to go to Ireland, where they can walk over the border to the UK, as in Northern Ireland.
Since the UK is not in the EU, they get a fresh start at claiming asylum. This gets granted and the local authority is then likely to put them up in temporary accommodation.
Next they get 'dispersed'. What this means is that they get sent to another British town or city. Here they get temporary accommodation and a ridiculously small amount of money to live on. This money does not meet their basic needs. The asylum process leads to refugee status, which is not citizenship, however, they are permitted to work, legally. At a guess it takes two years to get to this second hoop. To get past refugee status takes even longer, if successful.
During this time the asylum seeker is not allowed their passport, the government keeps that. They can get a travel permit, however, if they return to their home country then they get banned and are not allowed back.
So that is the general process. To say immigration is out of control is an understatement to some and 'fascist' to others. It is a topic best not talked about, and the practicalities of it are not well understood. A boat crossing the English Channel full of asylum seekers are going to make the headlines of the gutter press, but this Brexit loophole situation is not something that the journalists appreciate fully, particularly if they voted for Brexit, then they are just not wanting to know.
Plausibly, the compulsory digital ID checks for work can be used to make the UK unattractive to asylum seekers that know the deal in the EU.
Currently the biggest threat to the main political parties is Farage and his Reform party. In recent polls, Reform (or whatever they are called) would sweep the board, taking seats from both the Conservatives and Labour. Due to how it works with no proportional representation, the exact outcome of this does not necessarily mean Reform would have a majority, however, it would be the end of the Conservative Party.
Hence, compulsory digital IDs would provide convenience for everyone, when dealing with the government, whilst giving the spies the primary keys they always wanted. However, for reasons of holding on to power, due to the threat of the Reform Party, there may be extra urgency.
This is absurd. The problem is the exact opposite, nearly all IPAs in Ireland come from the UK via the common travel area. Ireland is not in Schengen and is not reachable from the continent by small boat, so there is negligible migrant flow in the opposite direction.
