UK 'Exploring Plan For Digital ID Cards' (independent.co.uk)
- Reference: 0177947706
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/06/06/2041236/uk-exploring-plan-for-digital-id-cards
- Source link: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/downing-street-id-card-proposal-uk-britain-b2764803.html
> Downing Street is exploring a proposal to [2]introduce digital ID cards for every adult in Britain in a move to tackle the UK's illegal migration crisis, according to reports. The new "BritCard" would be used to check on an individual's right to live and work in Britain, with senior No 10 figures examining the proposal, The Times has [3]reported .
>
> The card, stored on a smartphone, would reportedly be linked to government records and could check entitlements to benefits and monitor welfare fraud. [...] ... it would cost up to 400 million pounds to build the system and around 10 million pounds a year to administer as a free-to-use phone app.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~Mirnotoriety
[2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/downing-street-id-card-proposal-uk-britain-b2764803.html
[3] https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/no-10-examines-plan-for-digital-id-cards-to-cut-illegal-migration-3fqst2dl5
As an American no way would I do this (Score:3)
But this is purely an American problem. When you get pulled over by a cop you do not want to have any problems handing over your ids. Papers please.
And not just because our police are trigger happy and have been known to deport people who are US citizens. But if the cop is just a little tiny bit more annoyed at you he can and will make your life a living hell for the next several weeks or months.
There is currently a large problem of cops accusing sober people of being drunk or high. There is a 2-month backlog with a lot of the blood Labs so they will get blood drawn and then you have to spend the next two months fighting with our legal system waiting for the blood draw to come back. Even then you will have spent thousands of dollars on a lawyer to make sure that you don't spend 90 days in jail and take all the social impacts from getting a dui. As in their companies that won't hire you if you have a DUI...
It doesn't help that every year we put more cops on the street and every year crime goes down. And not just because there are more cops. Actually not at all because there are more cops. Crime is going down regardless and that means the cops have less to do. But they are still expected to arrest as many people as they did last year. It's like everything else we need to see bigger numbers. Line must go up..
All that means to me is that I would never want a digital ID card. Although I will admit this is a uniquely American problem.
Re: (Score:1)
If this guy is from Singapore, then:
Connecting to an unsecured Wi-Fi network => fines of up to SGD$10,000 or be jailed for up to three years.
Littering and Spitting => Littering punishment for first-time offenders starts with a fine of SGD$500 and can go up to SGD$1,000. If you’re caught spitting, you can be fined up to SGD$5,000 and could even be jailed for up to three months.
Jaywalking => fined up to $1000 or jailed for up to three months or both.
Vandalism and Graffiti => Fined up to SGD$
Re:As an American no way would I do this (Score:4, Insightful)
> Nice country you have there. I bet you have to carry a photo ID that is registered with the government too.
You do, there's a mobile ID app too.
The side effect of all these fines is a very low crime rate, a country that's very clean and very safe. And most of these are things that reasonable people would not do anyway.
Similarly most of these things are illegal in other countries too - like drink driving, drugs etc. The only difference is that the punishments are harsher, and the enforcement more rigorous.
I've been to cities where graffiti is everywhere, drugs and drug paraphernalia (needles etc) are all over the place, as is garbage. Quite frankly it's disgusting, and if hefty punishments are the only way to stop it then more countries should copy their example.
Norway has the same cleanliness & safety (Score:2)
They achieve it by not treating people like shit.
If you're going to treat people like shit and you want things to be clean and crime free then you need to have a horrible brutal authoritarian government.
Honestly I would rather just not treat people like shit. But that's just me. And I mean that that's just me. I'm an American and I can tell you right now we love treating people like shit. It's a fucking sport over here. Like we've got leagues and there are people who do it professionally. You can
Re: (Score:1)
fark.com is a satire site. As if you do not know.
Blood tests are only used when breathalyzers are not available, and you have not passed a field sobriety test.
Wrong on both counts (Score:2)
Fark is the news aggregator. It has what I would call a centrist bias because I'm not going to pretend America has a left wing and it's an American website.
Please don't like breathalyzers because they are very unreliable especially when poorly calibrated which the ones in the field always are. This means that anyone who can hire a decent lawyer can easily evade a DUI conviction that's based on a breathalyzer test as they should because well, they are extremely unreliable.
This is also why you should
Re: (Score:2)
> When you get pulled over by a cop you do not want to have any problems handing over your ids
This is a thing in literally every country on the planet that has a functional government. They don't just allow you to drive on public roads without proof of being issued a license to drive. I get that you're opposed to showing a license because you don't have one, but there's a good reason for that: After your 5th DUI, you proved that you're a danger to everybody else on the road, and people off the road. No sane government, anywhere, ever, would allow you to drive on its streets.
> But if the cop is just a little tiny bit more annoyed at you he can and will make your life a living hell for the next several weeks or months.
In your case it was perma
Re: (Score:2)
"It doesn't help that every year we put more cops on the street and every year crime goes down."
Sorry to rain on your claim,
Comparing 2019 to 2023 data for the last five years shows that:
- In Washington State, the increase in murders is more than five times higher than the national
trend (87.4% vs. 17.2%), and the murder rate has increased more than 80% since 2019.
- Violent crime rates have increased 19.6% in the last five years in WA State, while they have
decreased 4.1% nationally.
- Aggravated assault rates
But (Score:5, Insightful)
There are probably a few million people (that were born in Britain) that don't own a smartphone.
Headline a year after the introduction (Score:5, Insightful)
"Identity Data Stolen From All Britons By Smartphone Spyware"
If not
"Foreign Governments Have Access To UK Residents' Private Data Through Their Smartphones"
Re: Headline a year after the introduction (Score:2)
Plus, they'd probably have an ability to unlock your phone from the inside on demand.
Re: (Score:2)
TFA: ...those living in the UK without regular status were âoeexploited by criminal employers, which in turn suppresses wages for legal citizens and migrants alikeâ.
I fail to see how "criminal employers", who don't care legal status now, will be affected by this.
5 years after introduction, your ID will be scanned and a record made when you buy that pint of London Pride that I could do with right now.
A smart card work work better (Score:5, Insightful)
Not everyone has, or wants, a cellphone. Even among those who do, many have just a candy bar or a flip phone. A bill like this can never become law - it's tantamount to forcing an entire populace to purchase a smartphone. It has serious civil liberties and logistical hurdles.
A much better idea is a smart card, or some kind of hardware device. Protect it with a "Personal Identification Number", or a yet to be invented smartcard+fingerprint reader (concerns with biometric identification notwithstanding). Call it a... PIN card. This would have the benefits of A) Being much cheaper and easier to replace, B) Being issuable to those who don't or can't own a smartphone, and C) Not requiring citizens to hand over their entire digital lives to get an ID checked. It could work like, I dunno, a PIN card like you have from the bank - which serves the same purpose: identifying you to the bank.
The fact that this is even being considered suggests to me that either someone saw a flashy powerpoint and hasn't yet been schooled on the legal and logistical challenges, or B) It's a pork barrel project. Either way, it's a problem in search of a solution. The problem is "We need a more verifiable way to identify people when required by law". A smartphone app is not the only possible solution.
I'd even be OK with a smartphone app, as long as it was an option , not a requirement - but we all know where that road ends.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree. I spend about 12 hours a day working behind a computer keyboard/screen so when I'm not working I simply have no desire to carry a smartphone. I have an old-fashioned phone that only does SMS and voice -- I don't want to be connected to the internet 24/7.
What about *my* freedoms and rights?
Re: (Score:3)
> A bill like this can never become law - it's tantamount to forcing an entire populace to purchase a smartphone.
This is not a bill, this is an exploratory proposal. And it is a proposal that has (quote from the Britcard proposal's website) "Ensure accessibility for those with low digital skills and non-smartphone owners, including the provision of in-person support channels"
Calm yourself. You're not just putting the cart before the horse, you've run ahead and invented the fucking car.
Mixed feelings (Score:2)
While I do agree that we need some sort of a national ID card (there's never been one in the UK), I am not comfortable with having to install a government app on my phone.
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There is a National Insurance Card.
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Why do we need a national ID card. I'm happy without one.
My Number (Score:2)
For people who are irked by the idea of being assigned a number, this sort of thing doesn't appeal.
But there's a balance between this drawback, and the convenience and efficiency it introduces. "Immigration crisis" aside, a single card which can be used for taxation, dirvers license, passport, and general identification does have a lot of advantages - both for the authorities and the individuals.
Japan has recently introduced a "My Number" card. It's not necessarily a model to be replicated - there's room fo
IDs don't need to be on the phone or fancy (Score:1)
What you need for authentication without a computer:
* A very good fake ID.
What you need for offline authentication with a local authenticating computer:
* Name, address, picture, signature ID#, and whatever else is supposed to be on the ID
* Something that's hard to fake that matches your actual face or fingerprint (see above)
* A digital signature to authenticate everything above.
* On the authenticating computer, you will need a list of revoked signing certificates or canceled ID cards (excluding those revoke
National Identity card (Score:2)
About 40 years ago, the idea of a National Identity card to stop fraud, did the rounds through multiple countries. At the time, linking everything to one number was seen as a massive enabling of government abuse, fascism and identity theft.
Nowadays, having to publish one's identity for every serious purchase, and corporate tracking through one IMEI or email account, means fascism has been enabled, and (possible) identity theft is a common problem. Plus, people now accept some form of tracking throughout
Let me get this straight (Score:2)
> The card, stored on a smartphone...
So every adult British citizen is required to have a smartphone? Hell no! If my government requires me to have a cellphone, then they can fucking well both provide the phone and pay for any service it might require to fill that government-mandated function. And BTW, the thing is going to be turned off and stored in a Faraday pouch until the card is demanded.
Britain was stupid to leave the EU, but the EU is better off without Britain. Their downhill slide into authoritarian-leaning, Fascism-courting governan
Re: (Score:2)
The UK is behind Spain on this one. Spain's normally twenty years behind, but their [1]smartphone app ID card [dnielectronico.es] is already live.
[1] https://www.dnielectronico.es/PortalDNIe/
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Britain was stupid to leave the EU, but the EU is better off without Britain.
Erm... you do realise many EU countries already have national ID cards and the UK presently doesn't in any form, right?
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Not true. In the UK, both banking and hotel registration are happy if you present your Driving Licence as proof of identification.
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Yes it is true. We don't have a national ID card. Of course we have various ways of identifying ourselves. A way of identifying yourself doesn't equate to a national ID card: there are plenty of ways of being ineligible for a driving license. You can use a passport too, but that is also not a national ID card.
"Crisis" (Score:2)
The government's own figures show that about 40-50,000 people per year arrive via unauthorised means. Of them the the vast majority claim asylum and thus cease being "illegal migration".
The governments own webpage on unauthorised migrants show anything between there being 650000 illegal migrants in the UK back in 2013, and there being the same number now. Heck based on some of their sources the number may have even dropped by 2/3rds since 2010 - the government's own sources are inconsistent on this.
The UK h
Re: (Score:2)
Starmer is a blank slate of beige who has no principles or guiding morals and is utterly shit-scared of the Daily Mail. He's so desperate to stay in power[*] by not losing voters to reform that he's entirely happy to piss away twice the number of votes to the Greens and Lib Dems by trying to be reform lite.
[*] And no one knows why. He doesn't even appear to be in it for the personal enrichment, Tory style, or simply for the love of power. He doesn't have any vision for the country or direction he wants it t
Always the leader (Score:2)
We have digital ids in Poland for how many years now? Can't even remember. There's not much left to explore. Just do it.
Re: (Score:1)
Your logic sucks.
In order to get a "new" ID, individuals would have to prove their identity and give up fingerprints or some other biometric measure.
Try and get government -anything- without a valid ID.
This would be Trump (er excuse me "barking yam") on steroids.
Re: It will tackle the immigration 'crisis' (Score:2)
What are you talking about? The conservatives have already lost their power in the last election.
Re: (Score:1)
The Conservatives tried to suppress votes in the last election. They said it was to prevent voter fraud - which was nearly non-existent at the time. It didn't work.