Comment by 323 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 323 | Hacker News Reader

In UK it's much worse.

To be eligible to vote, you need to register on the Electoral Register. But when you do that, all UK political parties get access to your information (name and address, maybe nationality). And there is no way to opt out. You can only opt out of commercial companies getting access. Credit ratings companies have access too.

> The electoral register lists the names and addresses of everyone who is registered to vote in public elections. The register is used for electoral purposes, such as making sure that only eligible people can vote. It is also used for other limited purposes specified in law, such as:

    Detecting crime (e.g. fraud)
    Calling people for jury Service
    checking credit applications

> Anyone can inspect the full register. Inspection will be made under supervision. They can take extracts from the register, but only as hand written notes. Information must not be used for direct marketing purposes, unless it has been published in the open register. Anyone who fails to observe these conditions is committing a criminal offence.

> The Electoral Registration Officer has a legal obligation to share some of the information. This includes absent voter information and copies of the marked register (this is the register which indicates whether someone has voted, but no how or for whom they have voted), which can be supplied to the following people:

    Elected Representatives
    Election Candidates
    Political Parties
    The Electoral Commission
    Police forces and similar bodies

https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/info/20097/elections_and_votin...

Is this actually worse? It's not tied to the ruling party specifically.

The UK is slightly weird in not having a single unified national identity system. Instead it has a number of critical ID checkpoints: you need ID to buy or rent a house, and to have a bank account, before we even get into voting for which ID requirements have just been introduced based on the US "fraud" narrative. But there isn't actually a specifically named "ID card" or "ID database".

Instead we have all these para-ID schemes. The electoral register is one of them.

The problem is not the electoral register existing, but that it's used for other purposes too.

Basically any intern which works for a party election team has access to the complete list of UK voters.

> "The UK is slightly weird in not having a single unified national identity system"

Weird within Europe, perhaps, but not globally. None of the other countries I've lived in (USA, Canada, New Zealand) had a national ID system either. Yes, the USA has the Social Security Number (and NZ has IRD number, Canada SIN), but those are all analogous to the UK National Insurance Number.

Note that unlike the US's SSN, NZ's IRD numbers are only used for tax (so yes, your employer and bank have it, but it's not used for identity verification or for things that don't involve tax).

This is true in the US too, at least in most states:

https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/access...

Probably worth mentioning as well that in the UK it's actually now a legal requirement to register to vote if you are eligible to do so.

Since when? I don't recall anything about this.

It's on the letters the council keep sending me warning me that it's a legal requirement to register and I could be fined £80 if I don't. (I am registered, at a different address).

you can register anonymously: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/register-to-vote-...

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