A government-issued digital identity card could be required by every adult in Britain under a ‘dystopian’ plan set to be announced by the Prime Minister.
The ‘BritCard’ could be used to prove a person has the right to work in this country and even to access public services.
The concept of a mandatory identification system has long been supported by Labour as a way to tackle illegal migration.
But the proposal is fiercely opposed by civil rights campaigners, who warn it will erode civil liberties and turn the UK into a ‘papers please’ society.
Meanwhile, polls reveal a preponderance of the public do not trust ministers to keep their personal data safe from cybercriminals.
Detailed proposals for what has been dubbed a ‘BritCard’ could be announced by Sir Keir Starmer as early as tomorrow.
Alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister will give a speech at the Global Progress Action Summit in London.
These plans will then be subject to a consultation and are anticipated to require legislation. The UK is one of the few countries in Europe without an ID system.
How would Sir Keir Starmer’s new ID cards work?
It is likely to be a smartphone app, rather than a physical card.
A previous UK scheme – eventually abandoned – relied on a digital photograph which could be used to verify someone’s identity by calculating the exact distance between their facial features.
It is likely that any new scheme would require holders to also provide other biometric details – such as fingerprints.
Details on the card could be cross-referenced against a central database holding tens of millions of records for the British population.
Since the initiative is probably going to be smartphone-based, it may also make use of the face ID capabilities that are often found on phones, such as in personal banking applications.
However, the government is thought to be some distance away from coming up with clear proposals.
Hasn’t this all been tried before?
Yes. Tony Blair’s Labour government passed legislation for a national ID card scheme in 2006.
Detailed plans were published when Jacqui Smith was home secretary, although by that time, ministers had ditched the idea of making the cards compulsory.
The scheme actually went into operation in 2009, when Alan Johnson was running the Home Office, with credit card-style cards which each held a microchip.
The Passport Service issued the cards at £30 a pop to volunteers from October 2009.
However, Theresa May, the home secretary at the time, abandoned the entire plan following the general election the following year.
By then, £257 million had been spent on the proposals.
Couldn’t Labour’s new cards just be forged like any other document?
The kind of checks that are incorporated into the system would determine how resilient it is.
Theoretically, a digital ID card would be more difficult to counterfeit than a paper one.
For instance, a live cross-referencing with a central computer database of names and photos would be almost impossible to cheat – because the holder of the digital ‘card’ would have to look like the photo held on the database.
Less stringent checks, however, would have the possibility to be hoaxed.
It is really too soon to judge the potential success of Labour’s initiative.
Will I get fined if I refuse to have a national ID card?
Fines for non-registration were not part of the earlier attempt by the Labour administration to implement a mandatory program.
This was mostly due to the roll-out never progressing to a mandatory level.
The program’s underlying legislation did, however, provide a number of sanctions for neglecting to update data that is kept on you, including your home address or any name changes.
The penalties were up to £1,000.
There were comparable penalties for failing to surrender a card.
It’s still unclear how Labour will implement the new plan and how it plans to handle refuseniks.
What is it meant to achieve?
The card might be used to verify that a person is who they claim to be and that they are authorised to be in the United Kingdom.
Labour is interested in the programme in order to crack down on illegal working.
Theoretically, this would make Britain less appealing to illegal immigrants and small boat migrants.
It would also make life more difficult for foreigners who come to Britain legally but then fail to leave and yet carry on working.
Further uses of the card could be in other situations where people have to demonstrate they have the right to be in Britain – such as the ‘right to rent’ a property.
Where the project would become highly controversial is surrounding access to healthcare and social security.
Labour’s last stab at a national identity card was first floated by then Home Secretary David Blunkett in 2001, when he referred to it as an ‘entitlement card’.
At that stage, it was intended to allow people to prove they had the right to access the NHS or welfare benefits.
But there was resistance from doctors, for instance, who said life-saving treatment could not be denied on the grounds of nationality.
The NHS continues to have tremendous difficulty clawing back cash from foreign nationals who have come to Britain as ‘health tourists’.
What if I don’t have a smartphone?
It is far too early to say how Labour’s scheme would deal with people who do not have a smartphone.
This group is likely to include a large number of elderly people.
If they, or others, were penalised under the scheme, it would risk being dubbed discriminatory.
A solution could be providing an alternative way to access the details typically held on a digital ID card – perhaps using a laptop or desktop computer – when required.
How much is it likely to cost the taxpayer?
Billions of pounds.
It would probably be necessary to start from scratch when developing the IT systems.
Depending on the specification of the card, it could require a network of centres across the country where members of the public provide their biometrics.
What are the potential problems?
It would be a huge waste of money if the system fails, like the last one did.
The scheme’s technology is probably unlike anything the British government has tried in the past.
The civil service’s record on managing the roll-out of new IT scheme is abysmal – a slew of schemes have run years late and billions of pounds over budget.
To put it mildly, this enormous new endeavour would be extremely risky.
Then there are the huge civil liberties questions posed by a national ID card scheme.
Unlike numerous other regions of the world, peacetime Britain has never had a ‘papers please’ culture.
Many will believe their privacy has been violated.
Pressure group Big Brother Watch has said the plan suggests Britain is ‘sleepwalking into a dystopian nightmare’.
The issue of data security comes next.
The government has suffered a large number of damaging data leaks and hacks.
It might have disastrous consequences if a new database with all of the information was hacked.
Do other countries have digital ID cards?
Digital IDs are used in numerous nations, such as Estonia, Spain, Portugal, Germany, India, the United Arab Emirates, and France.
France has said time and time again that Channel migrants are drawn to the UK because of the absence of ID cards, which allows them to operate in the illegal economy.
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said it won’t ‘make a blind bit of difference to illegal migration’.
There will eventually be riots in the streets everywhere. These monsters have forced millions of illegal immigrants on us and are going to force us to have these ID cards because of them, but it will be fruitless.
Anything can and will be forged, just like currency and passports.
Although proponents contend that cutting-edge security features like encryption and user authentication make digital IDs more difficult to fabricate than physical papers, no system is impervious to malfunction or hacking, and digital IDs may and will be falsified or exploited in various ways.
My first thought was, ‘no way are they going to do this.’ My second thought was that ‘maybe it might help crack down on illegal migrants’, and my third thought was ‘no way are the police going to ask anyone likely to be an illegal just in case the other person might get hurt-y feelings.’ So, in my opinion, it’s a waste of time, but of course, nobody is interested in my opinion, especially the government.
However, is this really about illegals or is it just about control, or maybe it’s both? Whatever it is, it’s an agenda, an agenda to control you, and that eventually we will own nothing and be happy.
There was an abundance of people who were brainwashed into downloading the NHS Track and Trace app, and people were using it quite happily without considering the negative effects it would have on us; it was software to control our every move, hence why it was called Track and Trace.
We are spending money that we do not have on digital ID cards that will not deter immigration, even though the UK already has a £20 billion black hole in its economy. There’s indeed something sinister beneath the facade; there always is.
Even worse, you will eventually be required to provide identification at all times and won’t be allowed to leave your house without one. In fact, you won’t be able to do anything without one.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 