Compulsory Digital ID in the UK: Will it help to stop the boats? NO. It's a joke that the crowds in Calais and the smugglers are laughing at tonight. It won't come in for another four years. As a deterrent, it is about as effective as a chocolate condom. Will it erode Civil Liberties? YES. Now the punishment for decades of weak leadership is imposed on every UK citizen. "We have failed you until now, so you are all going to have to pay" is what Starmer is saying. It will cost £billions. Of tax-payers' money. It is the thin end of a wedge that begins with a Bigger State and ends with George Orwell's Big Brother 1984 State. Right now it's about jobs. A few years on it will be about the NHS, welfare, and then your political beliefs. The State will be able to track you, monitor your activities and take action against you if it deems you a threat to it. It goes against every principle of freedom and civil liberty - which should be the right of every innocent person - not a privilege for the State to allow or withdraw as it sees fit. Is it no more than a desperate gimmick that will never be realised? I HOPE SO. This is just my opinion. I'm glad I have been able to live most of my life free of this kind of regulation and surveillance.
For those worrying about civil liberties - it’s already lost - facial recognition in shopping for example already in place
Sad but true. The battle is already lost, so I shouldn't waste energy fretting about it. Does irk me though that Keir Starmer announces this as though he really believes it is going to help make a difference. The Black economy (illegal working) thrives for the same reason that shoplifting, vandalism and street thuggery all thrive. Because law enforcement is a pitiful shadow of what it once was, and there is no respect for the rule of law anymore among huge swathes of our society. Digital ID won't fix any of that. I feel very sorry for our over-stretched, under-funded and widely vilified Police forces. But effective Policing won't come back just because we create a Police State.
