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Should we have a universal ID card?

Should the UK have a digital ID scheme

  • Yes I think so

    Votes: 91 47.9%
  • No I don’t think so

    Votes: 92 48.4%
  • I’m not sure

    Votes: 7 3.7%

  • Total voters
    190
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gabrielhj07

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Spot of good news for us all.

Labour scraps plans for compulsory digital ID

Labour has abandoned plans for compulsory digital ID for workers despite previously insisting it was key to tackling illegal migration.
Migrants will no longer be forced to show virtual identity cards to prove their right to work under the proposals.
All other parts of the scheme, due to be introduced in 2029, are already set to be voluntary.
It represents Labour’s 10th about-turn since entering office. In September, Sir Keir Starmer promised that migrants would “not be able to work in the United Kingdom” if they did “not have digital ID”.

Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the Prime Minister, said on Tuesday that he was “positive” the scheme would become popular.
He told an Institute for Government event: “I’m confident that this time next year, the polling will be a much better place on digital ID than it is today.”
But the Conservatives said the scheme was “set to become yet another costly, ill-thought-out experiment abandoned at the first sign of pressure from Labour’s backbenches”.
Mike Wood, shadow Cabinet Office minister, added: “While we welcome the scrapping of any mandatory identification, this is yet another humiliating U-turn from the Government. Keir Starmer’s spinelessness is becoming a pattern, not an exception.”

The Liberal Democrats also welcomed the change, but said “No 10 must be bulk ordering motion sickness tablets at this rate to cope with all their U-turns”.
A Government spokesman said: “We are committed to mandatory digital right to work checks.”
“We have always been clear that details on the digital ID scheme will be set out following a full public consultation, which will launch shortly.

Mr Jones’ comments do sound suspiciously as though he’s waiting until people forget about it before they bring it back in.
 
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WelshBluebird

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Spot of good news for us all.
Only for those of us lucky enough to have a driving licence or passport and dont mind the pain proving id for rent, work or buying property etc.

The lack of a proper nationwide scheme seperate from driving licence eligibility and passports is a very real problem for lots of people in the country.

And even those of us who have such forms of ID, the current process for things like proving your ID when buying property is painful and belongs in the past.

(Of course there are many ways of solving this, one of the easiest mentioned in this thread is allowing driving licences that dont actually allow driving, its more a frustration with nothing being done yet again).
 
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brad465

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Only for those of us lucky enough to have a driving licence or passport and dont mind the pain proving id iw for rent, work or buying property etc.

The lack of a proper nationwide scheme seperate from driving licence eligibility and passports is a very real problem for lots of people in the country.
AIUI the scheme remains, but just won't be mandatory for work, so should still provide a means to assist accessing such services.
 

nilvaj395

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Only for those of us lucky enough to have a driving licence or passport and dont mind the pain proving id for rent, work or buying property etc.

The lack of a proper nationwide scheme seperate from driving licence eligibility and passports is a very real problem for lots of people in the country.

And even those of us who have such forms of ID, the current process for things like proving your ID when buying property is painful and belongs in the past.

(Of course there are many ways of solving this, one of the easiest mentioned in this thread is allowing driving licences that dont actually allow driving, its more a frustration with nothing being done yet again).
And how would you sign up for Digital ID... basically in no different way than anything else with a passport (or driving license if they'll accept that, with alternatives if you dont have any e.g birth certificate).

To be fair, a lot of people just get a provisional license for an ID for general life. Obviously, it isn't always possible due to health restrictions not allowing the ability to drive, which is something where an alternative would be good, but this is what passports and using said passport to get a PASS/CitizenCard are for.

We do have a PASS/CitizenCard scheme, but it's treated like a joke by most places and sometimes you'll get rejected even with a valid one because someone doesn't know what it is or doesn't believe it which defeats the entire point (had experience with this personally). They even have a webpage to report somewhere where you have been denied.
If your PASS card is refused by a retailer you should complete the online card refusal form below. This information will help us contact the venue and find out why the card was refused on this occasion and take the necessary action, where possible, to prevent a repeat of this situation next time. This card refusal form will ensure you provide us with the necessary information that will help the card issuer follow up your enquiry.
So we basically do have a form of non-driving physical (at least for age and identity) ID that you can apply for in this country, but it isn't promoted or taken seriously. You also (unless you want to use a referee) need a driving license or a passport to apply for PASS cards so why would someone pay more just to get another identity card when their provisional license already does the same.
 
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Baxenden Bank

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And how would you sign up for Digital ID... basically in no different way than anything else with a passport (or driving license if they'll accept that, with alternatives if you dont have any e.g birth certificate).

To be fair, a lot of people just get a provisional license for an ID for general life. Obviously, it isn't always possible due to health restrictions not allowing the ability to drive, which is something where an alternative would be good, but this is what passports and using said passport to get a PASS/CitizenCard are for.

We do have a PASS/CitizenCard scheme, but it's treated like a joke by most places and sometimes you'll get rejected even with a valid one because someone doesn't know what it is or doesn't believe it which defeats the entire point (had experience with this personally). They even have a webpage to report somewhere where you have been denied.

So we basically do have a form of non-driving physical (at least for age and identity) ID that you can apply for in this country, but it isn't promoted or taken seriously. You also (unless you want to use a referee) need a driving license or a passport to apply for PASS cards so why would someone pay more just to get another identity card when their provisional license already does the same.
Catch 22 which no-one has the answer to.
To get ID you will need to provide a passport or photo driving licence. If you have those digital ID offers no benefit. If you don't have them you won't be able to get digital ID so become marginalised or totally excluded.

There was no detail in the previous announcement about how that group would get their digital ID, just vague piffle about a future consultation. I will translate for people:
No one has actually thought it through. We wanted to announce something to look like we were doing something (anything!) which a focus group has told us voters are concerned about. When the details are actually looked into the whole thing falls apart.

Has the great Sir Keir said why he has, yet again, U-turned?
 

styles

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Only for those of us lucky enough to have a driving licence or passport and dont mind the pain proving id for rent, work or buying property etc.
You'll still be able to sign up for one, it's just optional for everything now.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

Has the great Sir Keir said why he has, yet again, U-turned?
There's national elections in Wales and Scotland in 4 months time and he knows digital ID is opposed by the majority of voters he would like to sway would be my guess.
 

sor

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Yes, some very welcome news this morning. Unsurprising really, given the scale of opposition to it.
It's more an indictment of how social media and right wing media has, for lack of a better term, created a lot of "brain rot". Support was relatively high before they got stuck in. As this thread shows, there aren't that many valid arguments against the proposal, just vague hand-wavy nonsense that is completely untrue or just the usual nonsense about how it will lead to a 1984 papers please tyranny.

I think the only argument I've read that is in any way sensible was the prospect of forcing Irish citizens in NI (who either are not or do not want to be British) to get one of these.

As long as it gets implemented anyway and British/Irish passports and valid UK visas are seen as an equivalent document for those who do not want one then that's fine. We need to fill in the gap for those who cannot have a passport or driving licence (the latter is not a proof of citizenship anyway), and we desperately need to move away from this insanity where employers/landlords/banks need to accept a range of documents that they have no way of validating. Utility bills as proof of identity - jesus wept.
 

Tetchytyke

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As this thread shows, there aren't that many valid arguments against the proposal, just vague hand-wavy nonsense
Digital ID cards are a solution looking for a problem.

There are no valid arguments to bring them in. And given that the government were wanting to spend billions of taxpayers' money on the scheme, it is for them to demonstrate that the expenditure was necessary to solve a problem that was costing the country more than the solution.

we desperately need to move away from this insanity where employers/landlords/banks need to accept a range of documents that they have no way of validating. Utility bills as proof of identity - jesus wept.
Utility bills are very easily verifiable.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

Spot of good news for us all.
Not really, its now the worst of all worlds: the government will be spending billions of our money on a pointless scheme and, as it will be voluntary, nobody will use it.

I imagine that it will stop being voluntary at some point when it is brought in. Or will only be hypothetically voluntary in that the financial regulators will force banks to only accept this ID.

Only for those of us lucky enough to have a driving licence or passport and dont mind the pain proving id for rent, work or buying property etc.

The lack of a proper nationwide scheme seperate from driving licence eligibility and passports is a very real problem for lots of people in the country.
But, as others have said, how will you prove your identity for Digital ID if you don't already have those documents? There is an advantage for only having to do it the one time, admittedly, but I'm not sure that advantage is worth the £2bn or so cost of Digital ID.

Digital ID will cost billions. Use that money to reduce the extortionate cost of passports and you might find that more people will have passports. The only real barrier for the majority of people getting a passport is the cost.
 
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styles

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It's more an indictment of how social media and right wing media has, for lack of a better term, created a lot of "brain rot". Support was relatively high before they got stuck in. As this thread shows, there aren't that many valid arguments against the proposal, just vague hand-wavy nonsense that is completely untrue or just the usual nonsense about how it will lead to a 1984 papers please tyranny.
I'd be cautious, to use conservative wording, about extrapolating opinion from a post on a special interest forum to the general public at large.

Also there are plenty of comments in this post which are against the original proposal so I don't even think this 'as this thread shows' statement holds true to be honest.
I think the only argument I've read that is in any way sensible was the prospect of forcing Irish citizens in NI (who either are not or do not want to be British) to get one of these.
I feel like you didn't actually read the comments in this post then.
As long as it gets implemented anyway and British/Irish passports and valid UK visas are seen as an equivalent document for those who do not want one then that's fine. We need to fill in the gap for those who cannot have a passport or driving licence (the latter is not a proof of citizenship anyway), and we desperately need to move away from this insanity where employers/landlords/banks need to accept a range of documents that they have no way of validating. Utility bills as proof of identity - jesus wept.
But this digital ID won't prove address history anyway, so you'll still have circumstances where you need to show proof of address. Take Enhanced DBS' for example - the reason for requiring address history isn't ID checking - it's so the local police forces at previous address' can be contacted to check local intelligence which isn't recorded on the PNC. The proposed digital ID doesn't appear to account for proving address history, making it a half-baked approach tbh.
 

Baxenden Bank

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I think the only argument I've read that is in any way sensible was the prospect of forcing Irish citizens in NI (who either are not or do not want to be British) to get one of these.

As long as it gets implemented anyway and British/Irish passports and valid UK visas are seen as an equivalent document for those who do not want one then that's fine. We need to fill in the gap for those who cannot have a passport or driving licence (the latter is not a proof of citizenship anyway), and we desperately need to move away from this insanity where employers/landlords/banks need to accept a range of documents that they have no way of validating. Utility bills as proof of identity - jesus wept.
The argument is how those people who don't currently have satisfactory ID (satisfactory to those wanting everything nailed down to the nth degree) can get such ID. Any solutions? If a digital ID can in future be obtained by provision of a combination of birth certificates, utility bills etc then that combination is acceptable anyway. ID which is worth it's name must by definition be difficult to obtain (and therefore be difficult to forge). How did India or Estonia enrol their (effectively) entire populations? Did they just hand them out like sweeties or have substantial hoops to go through?

Are we proving right of abode/citizenship, identity of person or right to work (regardless of nationality)?
 

sor

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Utility bills are very easily verifiable.
They really aren't. Utility companies aren't in the business of dishing out info on their customers to random third parties. For "frontier workers", the government says utility bills proving you are not resident in the UK are acceptable as part of your proof of right to work, which I take to mean that it needs to be a bill issued by a *foreign* utility company. How on earth does an employer validate that?

Even as proof of address it is pretty poor. It proves you've got access to an online account of someone who lives there, unless you're in the habit of making a counterfeit bill for this purpose (which is probably why some firms won't accept a PDF or home printed document, which is just kafkaesque)
I'd be cautious, to use conservative wording, about extrapolating opinion from a post on a special interest forum to the general public at large.

Also there are plenty of comments in this post which are against the original proposal so I don't even think this 'as this thread shows' statement holds true to be honest.

I feel like you didn't actually read the comments in this post then.
I think you're placing too much emphasis on one remark. I am referring to everything I have read across all the places I post, though I mentioned this thread so others can go back and read for themselves.
But this digital ID won't prove address history anyway, so you'll still have circumstances where you need to show proof of address. Take Enhanced DBS' for example - the reason for requiring address history isn't ID checking - it's so the local police forces at previous address' can be contacted to check local intelligence which isn't recorded on the PNC. The proposed digital ID doesn't appear to account for proving address history, making it a half-baked approach tbh.
Goalpost moving. DBS checks are a different beast to the standard identity checks that everyone encounters at some point in their life.

The argument is how those people who don't currently have satisfactory ID (satisfactory to those wanting everything nailed down to the nth degree) can get such ID. Any solutions? If a digital ID can in future be obtained by provision of a combination of birth certificates, utility bills etc then that combination is acceptable anyway. ID which is worth it's name must by definition be difficult to obtain (and therefore be difficult to forge). How did India or Estonia enrol their (effectively) entire populations? Did they just hand them out like sweeties or have substantial hoops to go through?

Are we proving right of abode/citizenship, identity of person or right to work (regardless of nationality)?
The government has access to various databases to handle this in a way that the average employer, landlord and (to some extent) banks cannot. My employer doesn't know I am a British citizen from merely presenting a birth certificate. The government can figure it out from the fact that I needed to provide my parents' birth certs to prove that I have a right to post-1982 citizenship and thus eligible for a British passport that my employer can then assume as proof of right to work, but they have no technical means to validate that I didn't show them a counterfeit passport. If I did not have a passport already, then I would be required to provide this to get one of these new digital IDs.

I have never had an employer or landlord sit me down and ask questions about who I bank with and roughly what I owe / have saved away, who my mobile phone is with, questions about a family member. Those are all questions I had during a passport interview (as anyone who has applied for their first adult passport in the last 20 years or so has had to do).
 
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styles

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I think you're placing too much emphasis on one remark. I am referring to everything I have read across all the places I post, though I mentioned this thread so others can go back and read for themselves.
But you made this thread the central point of the argument?

sor said:
As this thread shows, there aren't that many valid arguments against the proposal, just vague hand-wavy nonsense that is completely untrue or just the usual nonsense about how it will lead to a 1984 papers please tyranny.

This thread is not representative of wider society and I believe it would be naive to suggest so.

You also discounted the arguments presented without any evidence other than suggesting they're 'invalid'.

Goalpost moving. DBS checks are a different beast to the standard identity checks that everyone encounters at some point in their life.
It's not goalpost moving to give a common use case example of how a proposed universal identity system isn't actually very useful. If it can't be used... universally... it's not very useful, just costly.
 

Tetchytyke

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They really aren't. Utility companies aren't in the business of dishing out info on their customers to random third parties.
There are ways of verifying these bills and any reputable company will have access to tools which allow them to do so. There are also many ways of identifying fake or altered documents.

they have no technical means to validate that I didn't show them a counterfeit passport
Verifying a passport is even easier than with utility bills. Easiest thing in the world.

Any number of specialist KYC companies will do it for you, takes a few seconds to get the response back.

How did India or Estonia enrol their (effectively) entire populations? Did they just hand them out like sweeties or have substantial hoops to go through?

India already had more substantial ID mechanisms than the UK, with even their equivalent of HMRC issuing plastic ID cards.

From my (very limited) understanding, India also uses biometric data to prevent more than one card being issued to a single person. So you could use a fake name to get a digital ID but you wouldn't then be able to get a second one in your real name. Of course people intending to live and work here illegally probably wouldn't mind getting a digital ID in a fake name as a one-time only offer; they're unlikely to want to use their real name.
 

sor

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There are ways of verifying these bills and any reputable company will have access to tools which allow them to do so. There are also many ways of identifying fake or altered documents.

Verifying a passport is even easier than with utility bills. Easiest thing in the world.

Any number of specialist KYC companies will do it for you, takes a few seconds to get the response back.
I think this argument needs some more meat on the bones, rather than this constant insistence that it's so easy. What are the companies that offer these tools doing, or at least claiming to do, especially in "a few seconds"? Of course with a government digital ID we actually could have accurate results in about as short a time.

If you're in physical possession of the passport you could use a smartphone app to read the chip, but no one actually does that in practice. I'd struggle to believe that anyone who is not either the UK government or another border agency is going to have the relationships and processes necessary to do anything else here.

Given the recent data breaches involving firms that are providing age verification "services" to online companies that need to comply with OSA and similar legislation around the world, I'm not inclined to believe they rival the fraud squad. Again - an area in which a government digital ID could really help. No more middlemen.
 

Tetchytyke

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I think this argument needs some more meat on the bones, rather than this constant insistence that it's so easy. What are the companies that offer these tools doing, or at least claiming to do, especially in "a few seconds"? Of course with a government digital ID we actually could have accurate results in about as short a time.
If you hold the physical passport in your hand you can check the security features of the passport as well as the MRZ data at the bottom of the page. If you have a scan or photo of the passport then you can check some of the security features of the passport as well as the MRZ data. It is very difficult to competently fake both the security features in the passport and the MRZ data. And no, you don't need to read the chip to check these things. Not all passports have chips.

Passports are very interesting documents, the security features in them are really quite advanced. Try holding one up to the light. Try holding one under UV light. They're very hard to competently fake.

I'm sure a government digital ID would be just as quick as that, but that rather begs the question as to why would we spend over two billion quid to get something which is no better than what we have now?

Given the recent data breaches involving firms that are providing age verification "services" to online companies that need to comply with OSA and similar legislation around the world, I'm not inclined to believe they rival the fraud squad.

I'm not sure that's quite the gotcha you think it is, given the government's past history of complex IT procurement. Fujistu's Horizon was a government IT project. How did that system, which apparently was incorruptible, turn out?
 

WelshBluebird

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Of course the answer to how someone could get such an ID is actually pretty simple if you put yourself in that position.

Right now people without a driving licence or passport essentially have to jump through a million hoops each time they need to prove their id (starting a new job, renting a new place, buying property etc).

So the answer is those people already have to to through this pain. It isnt impossible - its just a massive pain. So what you do is make that pain a once off to get this ID.

And again even for those of us who do have passports etc, a digital ID can help make existing processes much much easier. When I bought my house I had to send copies of my passport and driving licence, my wife's passport and driving licence and my dad's passport and a utility bill. Imagine instead I could have just send three links that would have valided a digital ID for the three of us.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

Utility bills are very easily verifiable.
It isnt just about that. Its also about how much of a pain it is. Especially going forward as utility bills themselves often arent hard documents anymore (and could easily disappear with smart meters etc). And of course just the insanity of organisations having to have long lists of ID they accept (and the knowledge needed to handle them). It's so much easier if you just had one form of ID everyone has.

And you talk about money, imagine the cost of the waste the current situation causes!
 

87electric

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Right now people without a driving licence or passport essentially have to jump through a million hoops each time they need to prove their id (starting a new job, renting a new place, buying property etc).

So the answer is those people already have to to through this pain. It isnt impossible - its just a massive pain. So what you do is make that pain a once off to get this ID.
And that is a carrot to implement the first (optional at first) version of digital ID.
What I would suggest is that digital banking will at some point be the major factor in all this over time.
CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) will happen. After that, EVERY interaction in society will fall into place behind the digital ID framework.
The first steps taken was by Tony Blair’s government in 2006 when it attempted to introduce the Identity Card Act. That failed. It‘s a long game and still might take 30 years or so to fully realise.
 

DarloRich

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I still think we should have an ID card in this country but sigh. Belgium and Holland haven't descended into some kind of crank/conspiracy hell hole by having such a system!
 

nilvaj395

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Right now people without a driving licence or passport essentially have to jump through a million hoops each time they need to prove their id (starting a new job, renting a new place, buying property etc).

So the answer is those people already have to to through this pain. It isnt impossible - its just a massive pain. So what you do is make that pain a once off to get this ID.
So you jump through all of those hoops once to get a passport? It's really no different, especially because you'll need a passport to get the digital ID in the first place!

There is truth to what you said that a digital ID would make it easier than having to send your passport off especially if you need it, but I feel like just dealing with that for the rare cases that actually happens is much better than making the governnment waste billions on a scheme for only those edge cases.


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

The only area I agree with is this is those those can't get a a provisional license due to illness or otherwise , should be able to get something similar to a provisional ID for general life. That's supposed to be what the PASS card is for "leave your driving license / passport at home" but no one knows about it or treats it as a serious form of ID for anything outside of venues (even then it isn't taken serious either).
 
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Broucek

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(Of course there are many ways of solving this, one of the easiest mentioned in this thread is allowing driving licences that dont actually allow driving, its more a frustration with nothing being done yet again).
Don't be silly. Why piggy back on existing technology that works when you can design something new with higher costs and a less certain outcome? /s
 

nilvaj395

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I'd be cautious, to use conservative wording, about extrapolating opinion from a post on a special interest forum to the general public at large.

Also there are plenty of comments in this post which are against the original proposal so I don't even think this 'as this thread shows' statement holds true to be honest.

I feel like you didn't actually read the comments in this post then.
Like you said, it's really polarised 'you're either on one extreme or the other' to dismiss anyones concerns or views as being driven by right wing rhetoric, or to suggest those against are right wing supporters. It's dismissing the people themselves rather than their view and there's people across the political spectrum with views against the scheme.
 

Broucek

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Like you said, it's really polarised 'you're either on one extreme or the other' to dismiss anyones concerns or views as being driven by right wing rhetoric, or to suggest those against are right wing supporters. It's dismissing the people themselves rather than their view and there's people across the political spectrum with views against the scheme.
I despair at the tribal polarisation of so many things in the modern world. How on earth can an issue like COVID lockdowns be a left/right issue???
 

martin butler

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So, whats it down to cost? or a realisation, its unpopular? I'm able to easily prove who I am, i have a driving licence, and Passport, but then, the likelihood of me having to prove my identity is very unlikely, I'm in a settled home, I'm retired, and I'm not in a group likely to come under scrutiny, by a future government, male and white, etc, but for a young person, it could easily become a very different ball game, Imagine an ICE like situation here, where masked thugs, went house to house, arresting people just because of their colour, if you can't prove your here legally, you're going to be deported, so there has to be some way that anyone should have a way to obtain a legal document that states their right to stay, or that they were born here.
 

WelshBluebird

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So you jump through all of those hoops once to get a passport? It's really no different, especially because you'll need a passport to get the digital ID in the first place!
A passport is expensive and not an option for some people (e.g. of more complex origins).

So again yes if you want / can get / can afford a passport then you are right. But for people who cant its actually those hoops every single time they need to prove their identification.
There is truth to what you said that a digital ID would make it easier than having to send your passport off especially if you need it, but I feel like just dealing with that for the rare cases that actually happens is much better than making the governnment waste billions on a scheme for only those edge cases.
I dont think starting a new job, renting a new place, buying a new property, opening a new bank account or credit card etc are "rare cases". They are quite frequent life events.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

The only area I agree with is this is those those can't get a a provisional license due to illness or otherwise , should be able to get something similar to a provisional ID for general life. That's supposed to be what the PASS card is for "leave your driving license / passport at home" but no one knows about it or treats it as a serious form of ID for anything outside of venues (even then it isn't taken serious either).
And maybe that is part of the solution, alongside the digital driving licence stuff thats been developed too. Im not saying the solution cant be based on something that already exists, but I am getting pretty frustrated with people who are incredibly privileged to have multiple forms of photo ID just totally ignoring the real issues other people have.
 

bahnause

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If you hold the physical passport in your hand you can check the security features of the passport as well as the MRZ data at the bottom of the page. If you have a scan or photo of the passport then you can check some of the security features of the passport as well as the MRZ data. It is very difficult to competently fake both the security features in the passport and the MRZ data. And no, you don't need to read the chip to check these things. Not all passports have chips.

Passports are very interesting documents, the security features in them are really quite advanced. Try holding one up to the light. Try holding one under UV light. They're very hard to competently fake.

I'm sure a government digital ID would be just as quick as that, but that rather begs the question as to why would we spend over two billion quid to get something which is no better than what we have now?
A few points:
It does not cost £2 billion. The investment sum may be £2 billion. In return, efficiency gains will be achieved in the future through the automation of processes. For both sides. This is particularly true in the area of online business.

Data protection is another issue. Copies of documents should not be circulated. This is especially important if irrelevant data has not been blacked out and the document has been identified as a copy. There is no guarantee that documents will be deleted and disposed of properly after use. Fun fact: The distribution of copies of government ID cards is prohibited or subject to appropriate restrictions in many countries. Anything else would be very foolish. For example, a copy of a German passport cannot be passed on without the note 'copy' and the relevant data blacked out (photo, eye colour, height, signature, access number and document number on the back, and machine-readable zone at the bottom). Next fun fact: A copy produced in this manner is often not accepted in many places. No one could explain to you why not (there is no reason), but many will refuse.

The first principle of data protection is the economical use of data. An e-ID is designed to embody this principle. In many cases (e.g. age confirmation), a simple yes/no answer is sufficient. Name, height and address and much more is irrelevant.

I'm not sure that's quite the gotcha you think it is, given the government's past history of complex IT procurement. Fujistu's Horizon was a government IT project. How did that system, which apparently was incorruptible, turn out?
Anyone who, for data protection reasons, sends utility bills or copies of (official) documents via unencrypted and insecure channels, or even hands them over in physical without any guarantees what data will be used for how long form instead of using a secure interface, should think twice about whether this is a good idea and beneficial for data protection.
This thread has already explained several times how such systems can be set up securely, with as little data consumption as possible and without using any central databases.
 

Baxenden Bank

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I have had a quick look at how Estonia did things. Detail is limited, mainly being they have it, aren't they great, without the detail/history of how they got from no digital ID to fully digital ID.

One article here gives "a personal identification number known as the “Isikukood” was assigned to every citizen and resident of Estonia". It doesn't say how that was then distributed to those individuals. Or whether that process led to the discovery of individuals who, for some reason, had failed to be assigned an Isikukhood. Perhaps they already had a very accurate database of their population.

One feature is that you also get issued with an Estonian State email address to which all official correspondence is sent.

Two PIN numbers are also required for different purposes (one four digit and one five digit).
 

Tetchytyke

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It does not cost £2 billion. The investment sum may be £2 billion.
So it costs £2 billion then.

Next fun fact: A copy produced in this manner is often not accepted in many places.
Next fun fact: the UK is not Germany, copies are accepted in this manner here if they have been suitably certified.

One article here gives "a personal identification number known as the “Isikukood” was assigned to every citizen and resident of Estonia". It doesn't say how that was then distributed to those individuals. Or whether that process led to the discovery of individuals who, for some reason, had failed to be assigned an Isikukhood. Perhaps they already had a very accurate database of their population.
It probably also helps that Estonia's population is about 1.3 million people. For context, West Yorkshire alone has a population of about 2.3 million people.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

And you talk about money, imagine the cost of the waste the current situation causes!
What waste?

I'm in the process of applying for a mortgage. I've just sent my bank statements, a copy of my electricity bill, and a copy of my passport to my mortgage broker. I sent them electronically in an encrypted 7-ZIP folder.

With a digital ID this would save me having to send a copy of a passport and, possibly, a copy of the electricity bill. I'd still have to send everything else. The time saved is minuscule.

Labour has numerous techbro types funding it or involved with it at a policy level. As with so much in life, the techbros are trying to sell their product and the gullible politicians either don't realise or don't care that they're getting the advertising push. After all, it's only public money involved.

Anyone who, for data protection reasons, sends utility bills or copies of (official) documents via unencrypted and insecure channels, or even hands them over in physical without any guarantees what data will be used for how long form instead of using a secure interface, should think twice about whether this is a good idea and beneficial for data protection.
GDPR applies in the UK.

Beyond that, have you stopped to wonder why Palantir are so desperate to see a digital ID be implemented in the UK? Quite why the brains who also brought us Cambridge Analytica would like a easily accessible database of everyone in the UK remains a complete mystery.
 
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bahnause

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Next fun fact: the UK is not Germany, copies are accepted in this manner here if they have been suitably certified.
No, they are not. I tried. And it is a waste of time and resources having to jump through all the hoops to get a certified copy of an official document with all the right parts redacted / not redacted. This is not a viable „solution“. Not for high street shops and even less for online businesses.
GDPR applies in the UK.
GDPR is not enforcable once the data is out of your hands. Passport scans and other nonsense are not tracable and cannot be revoked.
Beyond that, have you stopped to wonder why Palantir are so desperate to see a digital ID be implemented in the UK? Quite why the brains who also brought us Cambridge Analytica would like a easily accessible database of everyone in the UK remains a complete mystery.
Can you please stop with your mysterious database? It is not needed for digital ID. Thos point has been mentioned multiple times now. And by the way, no need to worry anyways because
GDPR applies in the UK.
Or does it not?
 

Tetchytyke

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Can you please stop with your mysterious database? It is not needed for digital ID.
How would one issue and subsequently verify a digital ID if one does not retain a record of who those digital IDs have been issued to?

Doesn’t matter whether it’s a giant Excel sheet or a bespoke database or even a blockchain record, there has to be a record otherwise how can the issuer ever verify a digital ID is legitimate?

No, they are not. I tried.
Weird. My day job involves conducting due diligence on people and we accept it, as do all the other companies in our sector.
 
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