Government drops plans for mandatory digital ID to work in UK
bbc.com
bbc.com
What I experienced last year was many digital verification steps that were all required: open a UK bank account, sign up for a UK phone number, secure a UK residential postal address, apply for UK right-to-rent codes, generate a UK national insurance number, file for UK healthcare registration, and more.
Each step had different digital workflows and UI/UX. To traverse all these steps took hundreds of hours and a couple months wall time.
Many steps had catch-22s. The UK bank account needed a UK phone number, while the UK phone company needed a UK bank account. The UK payroll company needed a permanent residence, while the UK landlord needed UK payroll stubs. None of the steps had a quick simple way to digitally verify my UK work visa.
IMHO federation could be a big help here, such as for government agencies and government-approved businesses doing opt-in data sharing and ideally via APIs. For example, imagine each step can share its relevant information with other steps. This could make things more efficient, more accurate, and ideally more secure.
I am not sure a government digital ID would help with dealing with businesses.
Right to rent is a stupid and useless bit of bureaucracy which encourages racism - its much easier for landlords not to rent to someone who looks or sounds foreign, especially at the bottom end of the market where people might not have passports.
Edit: I should have said something like discrimination on grounds of race or national origin. The landlords are not motivated by a desire to discriminate, but to avoid have to carry out checks, especially if they do not understand the requirements with regard to visas - easier just to let to someone who (they think!) is definitely British.
A central gov ID means that, for example, the bank don't ask for proof of address by requesting months of utility bills,
> Right to rent is a stupid and useless bit of bureaucracy
It can be abused but arguably serves a purpose. Landlords can already just refuse foreign-looking tenants if they want.
I am pretty sure it would if it was allowed to. Once businesses have one usable source of ID and/or residence, they don't have to create and maintain elaborate alternative ways of establishing this information.
I come from a country where there is a national ID and lived in the UK for a while (before there was any form of electronic registration of foreign workers). I facepalmed everytime I had to interact with a business requiring ID or address, or with the government. This is a long-solved problem and they refuse to use the known, good, solution. They even managed to make a national ID into law around 2010 and then scrape it a year or so later when a new government came into power. I still can't believe it.
Where I live e-government is super smooth, like having your taxes filed for you - all you have to do is to sign it with your e-id. E-id is, as I see it, actually saftey for me as a citizen, with delegated security so that the SP only get verification and the info actually needed from the IDP.
Although requiring it for porn is just sick.
I've lived in other countries in Europe and their government isn't that smooth either. In fact the UK was much better than Spain when I lived there, though things may have changed now.
A key difference is the relationship between the people and the government and the motivation behind creating a federated ID. There's definitely an element of governmental monitoring to the Scandinavian model but the relationship with the government is less adversarial than in the UK.
It is obvious that the government is being deceitful. Noone wants ID cards except the Tony Blair Institute.
They're determined to bring it in and will attempt to gradually. You need an ID for so many things in the UK so it is a lie in some ways.
I normally just use Birthcert and Utility bills.
If you live here you hear about England non-stop on the news. In fact, many papers and news channels report England-only developments as if they apply to the rest of the UK.
Outside of that the news seems to be very focused on what happens in London/Westminster, Ukraine, Palestine or Trump. I don't really care about any of those.
I only pretty much care about things like Digital ID and stuff like OSA.
However Scotland (much like Northern Island) seems like it own little weird microcosm.
I don't really understand the political landscape outside of England and whenever I see statements made by the main party up there (the SNP) they seem to be utterly ridiculous jingoist anti-English nonsense that feels like it stems from Braveheart. I am not going to listen to a politician that basically painting me out to be the enemy, which is odd since most Scottish people I've spoken to are quite friendly.
Would you rather there were no age checks?
You could get a prepaid (pay as you go) SIM for £1 from any phone service shop in a minute.
Few years ago I could get a "Passport" account from HSBC without UK phone at all and without a proof of address, I was simply asked to show my employment contract to THW clerk.
And the rest -- in the UK lives many EU citizens who are used to having the ID cards and are used to their utility. Many are VASTLY superior to what Labour was trying to impose.
The thing is, there's a fundamental difference between these and the ID card UK's Labour wanted to introduce.
It wasn't to make things EASIER. If it was, you'd get a plastic with NFC, photo, perhaps UTR or NINo and a date of birth, with a storage to keep your Oyster card or other sort of ID. Its a solved and tried problem.
It wasn't to make things safer - otherwise you could use it to sign your documents with a certificate - securely, reading your ID by your phone. You could use your ID to ANONYMOUSLY (yes) confirm your age. Not only offline (when buying alcohol as a Muslim for example), but also online.
It was openly planned to be used as a tool of control and oppression. PM was claiming it will be easier to control the pesky immigrants (lying it will make impossible employing someone illegally - lying, because Right to Work scheme is in force right noe, and its also completely online).
It was supposed to be a bind, not a tool. Only online identifier is a nightmare waiting to happen for every single European with a settled status -- NOTHING to prove legal status except for computer saying "yay". People lost job, homes, got bounced off the border because "the computer" wrongly claimed they were not legally.
THIS is what it was supposed to be in the first place.
It's okay if you don't believe me, but in that case please look up three examples: lists if features of the Estonian, Dutch and Polish ID card, what things you can do with use of either, consider the convenience and safety, and THEN compare it with only-online solution touted by the Labour, their intended use and features. Not a list of the documents it will supposedly replace, but features.
And that in XXIst century with eIDAS 2.0 in force - so the best practices available to pick and use.
But no, Britain gonna Britain...
And yes - regarding a UK phone number: you can buy a pre-paid SIM in literally every single supermarket or corner shop / convenience store in the country like you would buy a can of Coke or a pack of chewing gum, this is a non-isue.
What I have a problem with is just how fragmented and broken the UK immigration system is when you have the misfortune of coming into contact with it. It's (like many such large systems worldwide) a set of policies and rules that have accumulated over time into something that is pathologically poorly thought out. I'm going through the process of renewing my spouse's visa (I'm British), and it's fractally awful -- we've just had a snarky email from our landlord who is worried that the right-to-rent permission is expiring, but it's not possible to apply for a renewal for the visa prior to 28 days before expiry of her current visa. I meet all the criteria to sponsor my spouse for renewal, but the evidentiary burden is insane (I've collected 400+ pages of documents so far). Nobody wants this. It is very expensive and difficult (probably >£10k per person until permanent residency in fees, not including legal expenses) to be compliant even if you meet the criteria, which just leads people falling out of status (to borrow an American term). The government (of all stripes) tries to be "tough" but the only lever it knows how to pull is to make the rules stricter, not making them better enforced or align with some meaningful policy agenda.
This farcical situation extends into the UK's broken citizenship model where there are 6 different types of nationality, none of which give any rights you can't build through a hodgepodge of other different statuses. As far as I know the UK is the only country in the world that permits dual nationality with itself!
A government online account which can generate verifiable credentials would probably be helpful in a broad sense but it wouldn't cure bad policy which is rampant in the UK immigration sector. I'd much rather have some kind of digital ID that's clear and authoritative rather than just hoping that Experian has my details right with no recourse if they're wrong.
There is one right. If you are British at birth they can't strip your citizenship and kick you out. Everyone else's residence is at the whim of the Home Secretary.
Not true. If you have dual nationality at birth, typically because you have one British parent and are born in the UK, then you are British at birth but the Home Secretary has the power to strip you of British citizenship anyway.
So, paradoxically, a child born in the UK to a British mother can end up with stronger UK citizenship rights if the mother doesn't reveal who the father is.
That's not as bad as if you are a naturalized British citizen. In that case, the Home Secretary has the power to strip you of British citzenship and leave you entirely stateless (you have no citizenship anywhere), which you can imagine is a very difficult status to live with.
From https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06...:
"Someone who was born British and has no other nationality cannot be deprived of their citizenship in any circumstances."
"Deprivation now affects people born in the UK, not just naturalised citizens"
"Until 2003, however, deprivation was only possible for naturalised citizens."
"The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 extended citizenship deprivation to British-born dual nationals for the first time."
British born, stripped of citizenship
I’m not commenting on the rightness or not of her case, just pointing out that being born British is not necessarily the guarantee you are describing
She is (maybe) entitled to Bangladeshi citizenship which is why the UK government was allowed under UK law to remove her British citizenship because British courts didn't consider her to be stateless.
The only people who can't have British citizenship removed are British citizens with no other citizenship or entitlement to a citizenship. I think in theory that means the British government is legally allowed to remove citizenship from any person from Northern Ireland if they justify it (since they're allowed to claim Irish citizenship under the Good Friday agreement).
This is quite a recent change in the law. Prior to 2014 they could only strip citizenship if you applied and received it without having a right to it (e.g. if you were born abroad to non-British parents). After 2014 naturalised citizens (like Begum) were also liable.
I do think it is a bad law and she is being treated disgracefully. There's still hope the ECHR will sort it.
Of course, as a soverign, the UK is free to ignore the convention, but being able to use it to deal with the nationals of other countries is more valuable than the theoretical ability to eject (whence to?) undesired birthright-citizens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_Relating_to_the_Sta...
How does one apply for this?
It’s also possible for e.g. a BNO to register for British citizenship after a period of residence in the UK. This does not extinguish the original nationality. Most hong kongers with British citizenship are in this bucket.
Not exactly two citizenships of the same country.
It would be perfectly politically acceptable to just do away with the statuses that have fewer than say 5000 people and grant them all full-fat citizenship. Generally people who live in the UK are shocked when they find out that holding a British passport does not entitle you to the right to live in the UK.
Because by requiring children, but not adults, to have digital ID as part of a much larger (and pretty terrible) law that is already close to being passed and disguising it as a safeguarding measure they are sneaking it in for some people AND getting the next generation used to it.
> Digital ID is not bad;
The opposition to digital ID is largely coming from people who do think Digital ID is bad.
A centralized ID system that can be used to safely verify the authenticity of a presenting party is good!
If that system can be used to track this person in more invasive ways than already possible with IMSI catchers, credit cards and facial recognition that is bad!
People think Digital ID is bad and this everlasting evil concept that will further make the most surveilled country in the world an Orwellian nightmare overnight which is a dramatization. The devil is really in the details here and depending on what flavors of implementation determines the "goodness"
Real quackery is allowing people to go to the supermarket all the time, but disallowing them to exercise in the park. Or telling people not to talk to their neighbours over the fence but allowing international flights to continue.
I remember walking on a local government run public golf course once so that I could exercise well away from people, only to have someone come within two metres of me telling me I was endangering them. Yet my local supermarket had dozens of people wandering around inside it. I'm told those kind of contradictions were normal.
You know fine well that many places encouraged their citizens to download apps onto their phones for QR codes or tracking their location. That was publicly advertised in many of them by TV.
>Real quackery is allowing people to go to the supermarket all the time but disallowing them to exercise in the park. Or telling people not to talk to their neighbors over the fence but allowing international flights to continue.
Supermarket is critical for food, not exercising in the park for a couple of weeks is NOT going to kill you
>I remember walking on a local government run public golf course once so that I could exercise well away from people, only to have someone come within two metres of me telling me I was endangering them. Yet my local supermarket had dozens of people wandering around inside it. I'm told those kind of contradictions were normal.
The government response in hindsight was probably overblown in terms of risk management but for the most part in the UK the actions taken reduced the spread until the vaccine and other infrastructure was in place so I would say it succeeded. All of the rules, regulations and laws have been rolled back/unwound and society is back to normal.
>You know fine well that many places encouraged their citizens to download apps onto their phones for QR codes or tracking their location. That was publicly advertised in many of them by TV.
https://transform.england.nhs.uk/covid-19-response/nhs-covid...
"The app has been designed with user privacy in mind, so it tracks the virus not people, and uses the latest in data security technology to protect privacy. The system generates a random ID for an individual’s device, which can be exchanged between devices via Bluetooth (not GPS). These unique random IDs regenerate frequently to add an extra layer of security and preserve anonymity. "
There was no legal requirement to download the app and use it just FYI
A useless government is preferable to an even moderately competent tyrannical one.
For whatever reason, Tony Blair's think tank is obsessed with this idea[1]. As I understand he still has a lot of influence over British politics.
[1] https://institute.global/digital-id-what-is-it-and-how-it-wo...
Probably considers it as unfinished business from his administration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_Cards_Act_2006
I really don't understand the arguments against it. You don't think the State can't shut you down if you break the law already?
What they have done is drop the requirement for a single specific digital ID.
However they haven't dropped the requirement for a digital ID to work - you just have options between more than one digital ID.
> existing checks, using documents such as biometric passports, will move fully online by 2029.
Well I guess that's good at least. I imagine they'll just assign people "digital passports" at some point and you just pay to get a paper copy.
"... Labour MPs are growing increasingly frustrated with the government's U-turns.
Some had already been wary of defending controversial government policies to their constituents because they feared that the policy would inevitably be reversed."
which implies that the MPs are openly admitting that they don't state their personal opinions, merely parrot the party line, but are frustrated when they are required to abruptly change the things they claim to believe in.
What a farce. Members of parliament should have their OWN fucking views about things, and defend or debate those views on behalf of the people they represent.
Many of these people would not be in Parliament if they weren't selected by the party. Most people vote for a party, not the MP. So why would it benefit the MP to have their own views when they can just parrot whatever they've been told to? It doesn't.
I'm sure things have gotten better, but I'll never forget how backwards it all seemed coming from puny Belgium.
While the UK might not have been the first, there was a big push to move government services online over the 2000s. I think this may have been easier than in other countries since so many services were run by post rather than requiring you to go to a particular government office.
Opening a bank account became much more difficult in the early 2000s because of the money laundering/terrorism financing legislation. It became a real pain for international students when I worked in a student union back then.
The liberal resistance to ID cards in Britain was more reasonable before it became required to prove your identity so often. Not having an ID card has become a bit of a pain now, especially for elderly people who may not have a driving licence or current passport.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/fascinating-facts-about-s...
Payslips are fully automated and there is a nice HMRC app that lets you see your PAYE income. Also, the NHS app is not half bad, you can mostly access any previous information but its not always fully populated due to a mixed bag of records
Memorising your Birthday to be 2 years earlier to fool the pub bouncer was what we all did.
> Unlike in most countries, no official attempt has been made to codify ... thus it is known as an uncodified constitution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kin...
When your constitution is ad hoc, it seems only fair that everything else is. Start with the foundation before formalising everything else.
So I'm not surprised to see this trashed.
Could you say a bit more about this? I didn't find it in their manifesto from the last election. Is it a new policy? Do you know which minister is responsible?
At some point we have to stop blaming the previous government.
Net migration went from 100's of thousands to millions, why would we not blame them and blame someone else?
"Migration could get to net-zero in 2026" is what the current government are getting blamed for.