@fencoul I voted "no" because I remember the ghastly mess that was the National Identity Register proposed by the Home Office under Tony Blair (about the ONLY good thing David Cameron did on gaining office was to kill it with fire). And I also remember my father (born in 1924) telling stories of how the wartime mandatory ID card was misused by the police/authorities to harass people, leading to an earlier civil rights campaign (in the 1950s).
@fencoul My opposition is not about whether it can be done securely; it's because you didn't ask whether it can be done *fairly*.
(That is: without it being turned into a tool of oppression. Which is pretty much guaranteed to happen within milliseconds under every Home Secretary we've had since Roy Jenkins …)
👆 It'll happen. Whether we like it or not. Imagine if the private sector got hold of de-facto #Digital_IDs!
"Scan your #AaronBanksCard or #ElonMuskCard now, whichever one you have."
@fencoul @cstross NI numbers have very limited data attached to them, can't be used as ID, & on the rare ocassions they cock up still cause major problems to those concerned.
NHS numbers, while having some very personal data attached, are siloed across a number of systems with robust protections* regarding transfer, & also can't be used as general ID.
Neither of them are Home Office data surveillance mechanisms.
*May no longer fully apply to NHS England
@HighlandLawyer @fencoul @cstross exactly, maybe 10% of implement something like an NI or NHS number is the technical side of how to do it - the other 90% is the reams and reams of policy, legality and enforcement that supports it.
Something that our "oven ready" government have historically had a bit of trouble with.
Fen C
Charlie Stross
HighlandLawyer
Max :
Max
Max