ID cards at long last

Can't see a problem. There is so much info stored digitally already what is proposed is next to nothing. Recentky opened a new savings account, goodness I was asked just about everything about me except the kind of soap powder I use all in the name of security. ID is proposed for those who work and at a guess I'd say the majority of those people will have smart phones.

That’s just an hysterical rant and does nobody any good other than stir factional rancour.

I prefer a rational dissection of the previous plans as the LSE did in 2005 highlighting why the policy was flawed. Nothing has changed. It’s still a bad idea that will not solve the issue that Starmer claims it will address and yes, Blair is behind it.

We need proper cross-party debate and Parliamentary due process to stop this.

Some extracts from Camilla Long's take on the matter from today's Sunday Times:

"Isn't there a point where a democratic party can start to feel, well a bit undemocratic?

Take digital IDs for example. Not mentioned since 2011, when David Cameron scrapped voluntary cards introduced by Tony Blair for being "intrusive, ineffective and enormously expensive". Then suddenly, last week we're told everyone will have to have one to tackle illegal immigration. How? Oh they'll stop the illegal immigrants getting jobs, were told.

You just think: but you couldn't stop a known terrorist entering a country and raping someone in Hyde Park. What makes you think you can stop anything this time? Or will you simply solve the problem by giving the illegal immigrants digital ID cards themselves when time comes.

As it happens, I'm not against digital ID. On the one hand it seems like overreach; on the other, if done well, yes it could solve problems. Your NHS stuff, school stuff, council stuff all in one place - it is the future; Luddites never win. We give away so much of our data already, what's the objection? My objection is: do we trust this government to do any of it? Who even is this government now?

Behind the policy is inevitably the glinting "tech evangelist" Blair whose chino - drenched $140 million a year think tank has been pushing "super ID cards" which will dramatically simplify your experience of government. "Just a few taps" coos its report, and you could be reporting issues like potholes or sorting your tax code. God, he's good, isn't he? Truly our leading opioid salesman. Here's a problem you didn't know you had; now here's an incredibly easy solution - you won't feel a thing. Just a few taps.....and suddenly you've handed over every single bit of data and the government is denying you services because of your poor credit score as China already does. It will be the tech equivalent of being pushed into a war you never asked for and suddenly a million people are dead. The problem isn't, as Lord Frost has pointed out, about handing over your data, it is about who controls that data and how they use it. Fine if it's an organised, capable and calm government with a few big political wins under its belt. But these guys? You want Taylor Swift/Lord Alli freebie-truffling, tax dodging guys to be overseeing something as big as this? You want the people who are so out of ideas that they had to ship in a whole other government, the perma disgraced Peter Mandelson, Peter Kyle the tech minister and Jonathan Powell, now Starmer's right hand man on national security. Like the child in the horror film, I see dead Blairites everywhere. The stage management of Starmer's relationship with Trump - the flourished letter in the White House, the state banquet, - it is all peak Blair. The designer clobber, the pop concerts, hating the working class "the politics of predatory grievance" as Starmer sniffed at a speech on Friday. Blair, by the way is already bored of the prime minister. By Friday he'd moved on to another host organism: Gaza. His think tank has already fleshed out plans for a "Gaza Riviera" complete with artificial islands like Dubai. Unsurprisingly, he also has an idea who can be his interim leader: him The one who led us to a fake war against 25 million Iraqis, killed their leader and then tried to turn them into Pret loving, lesbian tolerating sofa government success. We all know how that went.

Meanwhile every minute that people are angry about digital IDs is a minute they're not angry about Angela Rayner, Peter Mandleson, Morgan McSweeny's mysterious £700,000 donation. I can't think of anything except cynical reasons for the prime minister to be pushing this flashy new narrative change mere days before the Labour Party Conference. All this is to solve Keir Starmer's problems because he can't get on top of immigration, he can't nail crime, so the next stop is ID cards. The result is we simply have to give up more of ourselves, as is always the case with bad politicians".

Have just asked Chat GPT for thoughts. It said it couldnt find a single definitive list either. Best effort reconstruction and a likely plausible list:
- Central National Registration Office
- Ministry of Health
- Ministry of Food
- Ministry of Labour and National Service
- Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance
- Home Office
- Ministry of Supply (war production and peoplepower)
- War Office
- Police forces/civil defence
- Ministry of Transport/Shipping/War transport
- Board of Trade
- Local authority/registrars of births and deaths

It then offered to double down on the searching - to see what else it could find (to see if it could produce a full list that way)...so a fairly comprehensive snapshot picture..

I have been informed by my family that ID cards a waste of time and money. More concerned about what KS not doing and this is a distraction away from what he is failing at.

Thanks for that comprehensive explanation.

Three administrative uses up to 39 is quite a jump. Shame that list doesn't seem to be there any longer. Thinks - I wonder if Chat GPT can cast any light on that???

Hmm...interesting that rationing is one of the original stated reasons back then - given the situation we're in now is looking "threatening" re a possible World War 3 (wonder if we'll have a better idea after Tuesday's meeting of darn nearly all of America's military "top brass" in America).

One of the reasons I moved to Wales and promptly got on with growing what food I can in my garden 12 years back and encouraging others here (individual gardeners or little local schemes) is I cynically expected another World War at some point on some excuse and expect rationing to be one of the first things we notice going on....

I know what you mean by "function creep" - but wondering what other ways the 1939 version ended up being used please?

This is the 319 page 2005 LSE paper The identity project : an assessment of the UK Identity Cards Bill and its implications about the previous attempt to introduce ID cards which was eventually abandoned after Conservative opposition.

eprints.lse.ac.uk/684/1/identityreport.pdf

It’s worth reading in its entirety but you can do a search on *function creep *to jump to various sections in the paper.

There is a link at footnote 336 to this:

Supplementary memorandum by the Information Commissioner

At the time of the Government's original consultation in July 2002, a number of possible uses were suggested and these centred on combating illegal working, better administration of public services and as a safeguard against identity theft. The fight against crime and terrorism were scarcely mentioned. In the latest proposals, however, crime and the terrorist threat have been given increased prominence. I remain concerned that we need to be clear about what are the pressing needs for an identity scheme and that any such scheme is limited to dealing with these.

I am mindful of the fact that at the time of the introduction of the last national identity scheme in 1939 three administrative uses were envisaged (national service, security and rationing). Some 11 years later 39 government agencies made use of the records for a variety of services. [53] At the time of the debate on the abolition of that scheme, preventing bigamous marriages had become one of the main arguments in favour of the retention of the scheme [54].

Unfortunately, the footnote links no longer exists or at least I can’t find them. I was hoping for a list of the 39 agencies.

I can see from various Parliamentary discussions in Hansard under the heading National Registration Act 1939 that up until the early 1950s, long after the war had ended, one had to show an ID card to be a be able to transact any business with the Post Offfice (including collecting a parcel) or to stay in a hotel.

Jon Agar in

historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/identity-cards-in-britain-past-experience-and-policy-implications/

mentions a censored function. This is pure conjecture but it did occur to me that if the government were using the National Register to uncover bigamous marriages they might also have been using it to uncover homosexuality. I’m mindful that Alan Turing was arrested in 1952.

This is what makes me very nervous about an ID scheme and how government, particularly a fascist government, could use our data including biometric data. Do we really want our personal lives tracked in this way? Technology has moved on a great deal in 20 years. Parcels are already tracked for their journey from retailer to buyer but do I want a fascist government knowing what books I buy? They would have me flagged as a "loony lefty" in no time.

If a Reform government deport people with ILTR who would they target next for sanctions? LBGTQ? SEND? Neurodiverse? All groups of people they have spoken out against. Anyone currently afforded rights and protection under the Eqality Act 2010 or Human Rights Act 1988 legilslation which protects us all?

The very real concerns about ID cards which were expressed in the mid 2000s are no different to what they are now. I suspect the goverment think we either aren’t familar with the debate or have forgotten. I haven’t. We mustn’t sleepwalk into this under the naive notion that someone law-abiding has nothing to fear.

petra

Our best tenant was a lady who plied her trade from our property. I’m not talking Tupperware parties 😂
She never faulted on her rent, kept the flat beautiful.
We had her for 6 years.
It was only when talking to one of the other residents in the building that we found out.

You paint a colourful picture of your letting history petra, well hopefully the woman in question didn't have a controlling pimp and worked purely for herself.

On that subject, another really horrible facet of today's world, is the fact that AirB&Bs have been used in such a way and very much with "girls" being moved around the country by those in control of them. Again, part of a murky underbelly that won't be affected by the implementation of ID cards.

I wasn’t sure GS- my meds don’t come with all that information

Our best tenant was a lady who plied her trade from our property. I’m not talking Tupperware parties 😂
She never faulted on her rent, kept the flat beautiful.
We had her for 6 years.
It was only when talking to one of the other residents in the building that we found out.

TerryBull
Situations like that don’t faze him at all 😉
We had another property where the tenants didn’t pay another penny after the deposit and a months rent.
Unfortunately we were living abroad at the time. We asked a couple of friends to go and sort it. They left 😂

MollyGo
Of course it’s the government’s responsibility to make sure that all government/ police systems are secure as possible.
But it’s not their responsibility when it comes to private businesses or charities.
A high percentage of these hacks are down to poor maintenance/ out of date software.
It costs money for professionals to clean up your system. A lot of money.
Then there’s the educating your employees in safe practice. All costs money.

If tenants don't stick to their side of an agreement - then why should those of us that are letting to them stick to ours? I've done it myself - when I had lodgers in way back when and a tenant that was trying to break the agreement after he moved in got told "Pay tomorrow as agreed or move out tomorrow - your choice". I knew he had no plans on "paying tomorrow" and so I got back early from work, my intuition told me to take a look at one particular file on the shelves out of the collection of files he'd put there and I promptly saw a letter on the top saying "Full student grant awarded - 2 months back" (so much for the lies he told me about not getting a student grant after all - for his teacher training course - and hence "couldnt pay the rent as agreed"). So all his belongings got parcelled up and put for him to remove and the police escorted him away.

Mind you - my father was "firmer" with him than I was. He only lost his room because of lying to me re the rent. But my father informed me (after the event) that he'd ensured he'd not passed his teacher training course......(apparently they need good references - which my father knew...because he'd retrained as a teacher there himself). I wonder how much my parents phonebill was that day.....

Yes, apparently "it's a thing" petra, the agents told us in the aftermath. Your OH is brave Clearly we were naive about it all, much the wiser now even if it is too late.

TerryBull
Same thing happened to us. We let the flat to a married couple and the wife’s niece.
The first we knew that our tenants were hot bedding was when the owner of the flat below told us there was more than 3 people living there.
First thing my partner did was to go and buy a new lock and key. Then went to the flat where it was obvious they were hot bedding
He told them they had 2 hours to get out. They said you can’t do that His reply was watch me
The lock was changed and 2 hours later they were gone.
His next visit was to the managing agents. 😡

Mollygo

Last time it was going to be rushed through in a supposed answer to voter fraud.
I didn’t know it was to stop the boats. I thought it was to stop illegal employment.

I read yesterday, a suggestion that we should have a referendum about ID cards. That would be another incredible waste of money we haven’t got.

I don’t object to ID for the reason given,
but I don’t think it would work, because those for whom it would cause the greatest problems would continue to subvert the rules over employment the way they do now.

It’s like watching COVID all over again with people (including MPs) choosing which rules to follow and finding ways to avoid those they don’t want to follow.

My major concern is the inability to stop computer hacking.

This:

"but I don't think it would work because those for whom it would cause the greatest problems would continue to subvert the rules over employment the way they do now.

It's like watching Covid all over again with people (including MPs) choosing which rules to follow and finding ways to avoid those they don't want to follow.

My major concern is the inability to stop computer hacking"

On top of that, I really don't see how it would stop the boats.

Oh well that ship's sailed growstuff we're selling up it's under offer. I agree, I value good tenants over what the maximum achievable rent could be, we only upped the rent once and it was still several hundred pounds under the going rate. We took our responsibilities as landlords seriously, contractors were always called out immediately for any issues. Another gripe we had with letting agents, we weren't happy with their plumbers, when we asked their appointed firm for the specification of the pump that needed to be fitted "they said they weren't prepared to divulge that information". Never been met with that before, damn cheek! which made us seek out an alternative, that and paying top dollar for shoddy work. Initially, we found letting agents made life easier, but on closer examination they didn't, because we couldn't liaise with the tenant direct as to fixing up arrangements for visiting tradespeople, not that towards the end the tenants were particularly co-operative on that front. Trouble was the flat is 50 miles away from us otherwise I think it would have been easier to find our own plumbers, electricians, decorators etc. and manage it ourselves.

Mollygo The link between "stopping the boats" and illegal employment is because many of those most vocal about asylum seekers and illegal immigrants claim that the UK is an attractive destination because we don't have ID cards.

The Australian Digital ID (I posted the link at 0722) does seem to be the authorised sign-in to the equivalent of the Government Gateway. I am puzzled as to why anyone would feel threatened by that. The projected savings in costs seem very impressive.
The only difference seems to be that the UK one will be required for work. Apparently NI numbers are vulnerable to fraud.

Last time it was going to be rushed through in a supposed answer to voter fraud.
I didn’t know it was to stop the boats. I thought it was to stop illegal employment.

I read yesterday, a suggestion that we should have a referendum about ID cards. That would be another incredible waste of money we haven’t got.

I don’t object to ID for the reason given,
but I don’t think it would work, because those for whom it would cause the greatest problems would continue to subvert the rules over employment the way they do now.

It’s like watching COVID all over again with people (including MPs) choosing which rules to follow and finding ways to avoid those they don’t want to follow.

My major concern is the inability to stop computer hacking.

TerriBull I'd definitely find a new agent. I've been a tenant in the same property for 11 years and I don't think the landlord can believe his luck.

The landlord only lives a couple of miles away and i know him reasonably well. I asked him why he uses an agent (at 15%) and he just says it makes his life easier - he's 85 and can't be bothered getting quotes or arranging gas checks, etc.

He's actually changed agents twice while I've been here because he wants an agent who is good for him and his tenant. He's always asking me whether I'm happy with the service they offer.

It definitely sounds as though the tenant is in breach of contract, although I have no idea how easy it would be to enforce the contract and evict of necessary.

GrannyGravy13

This is being rushed through, in a supposed answer to small boat crossings

How is it going to stop the boats ?

I don't think the small boats is the only reason. It's been on the cards (sorry about the pun) for some time.

I think the small boats issue is being touted to support introduction because so many people are claiming one of the pull factors of the UK for asylum seekers is that it's so easy for them to work in a black economy (not sure that's true but ...).

growstuff

TerriBull

Then there's this scenario, we have a rental flat, which we are now in the process of selling. The tenants we have had for the past three years are foreign nationals, the letting agents carried out their status checks for us, all in order. They have now moved out. We have just had the flat painted and went to check on that on completion of the work, whilst we were leaving the flat we were beckoned over by the occupier in the flat downstairs from us. "Did you know?" said he "that there were more than the two people living upstairs, maybe another 3 or 4. Of course we didn't but would account for the state they left the property in, given it's 2 bedrooms and therefore not suitable for say half a dozen, it would also account for the fact that we had found some post addressed to people other than the tenants and they didn't resonate with us as any previous tenants in the 12 years we've owned it. When we spoke about this matter to the letting agents, they said, "oh yes this is not altogether uncommon" They only do annual checks on their lettings. So in that situation, as a landlord, how could there be a verification of ID when there will almost certainly be people who won't be on the tenancy agreements.

Didn't the extra tenants have beds? Quite honestly, it sounds as though the letting agent didn't do a very good job.

I live in a rented house and have an inspection every six months. I'm certain the inspector would notice if I had extra tenants living here. She even commented that I had an extra electric toothbrush plugged in (because my partner often stays here).

Kind of off topic, but I just thought I'd paint a clearer picture. Yes the letting agents were useless, they really didn't earn the 11 and a half per cent deducted. Annual inspections only. Initially when they sent the photos through on the first couple, the flat appeared to be sparsely furnished. Later on it was crammed to the gunnels. We had to visit a year or so ago, apropos of some work that was necessary and had been carried out. The lead tenant wasn't very happy about that and kept putting us off, we respected their privacy and this was the first visit in a couple of years, but no we didn't see any extra beds, but then again we weren't looking as those suspicions had never been roused with us. Similarly, we needed to have a new pump fitted in the shower room, and given this was something for their benefit they mucked the plumber around, as to letting him gain access. The managing agent also advised that the block would need new internal fire doors and again someone had to be there to let them inspect the internal front door, this was also difficult to fix up because the lead tenant went from amenable and one time to being fairly uncooperative and cagey. Another thing I remember, the management company sent out a communication that a neighbouring flat had complained about our tenants showering at all hours of the day and night. Yeah still I didn't twig!

All in all, the lease was signed on the basis of a two tenant occupation, and they therefore were in breach of contract. We certainly would not have agreed to have multiple occupants "hot bedding" or the like, although I understand why that's a thing in this current climate of dire shortage of lettings, that doesn't mean landlords have to agree to having their property let on an overcrowded basis, but who knows what will come down the line.

Have just seen they're in the process of doing this for children - and I'd not heard a peep about that!

Apparently it's being introduced for children via the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill. It won't get deleted once they reach 18 and will follow them through their lives functioning this way.

I have very conflicting views on Blair, some excellent things were done during his government, but I think he may have been responsible for starting changes to the labour party that haven't in my view worked out so well in the long term.