SugarCatDestroyerThe Reality of Digital ID... But I'm afraid that this kind of crap will end up happening not only in the UK.
Deflated0neI will not be participating when it does.
ExLisperMany countries have digital IDs already and nothing like this is happening. Digital ID has nothing to do we censorship or freezing of bank accounts. Online Safety act was introduces without digital ID. I have a digital ID but I don’t have to show it anywhere.
Yeah I don’t understand the big deal.
We’ve been using digital ID to identify ourselves to online government services in Australia since 2018.
Obviously I won’t be using it to log in to facebook or mucky-jpegs.com but I don’t really see it as a surveillance over-reach.
I don’t really see it as a surveillance over-reach.
Just because you don’t see it now happening, it doesn’t mean it could not be used against people to persecute them, especially in fascist countries, where this would be a perfect tool for tracking people and mass surveillance.
This is a slippery slope logical fallacy.
Thing could be used with nefarious intent therefore thing should not exist.
I’ll admit I’m not really across the technical implementation details. The equivalent apps here in Australia don’t have the capability to track or surveil you.
There’s different variants but the ones here basically just show a photo of your ID with an animated background and generate a time based token that can be scanned and verified.
How will I benefit from having a digital ID? I won’t.
So why give away my privacy and gain nothing?
I don’t think this qualifies as a slippery slope fallacy. The outcomes they describe have backing in the form of places like China and the claims aren’t extremely divergent from what can be expected of corps and govs.
The way you are applying it would mean precluding all outlooks with any negative future to them. It’s not wrong to foresee a bad outcome. What would be a slippery slope is if there were no reasonable examples of abuse of this kind of tech or examples of approaching the explained outcome. Alternatively if they took it to an extreme that wasn’t realistic in amy scenario like determining how many kids you were allowed to have who you could date/marry and all determined by a corp or gov.
Maybe if the world wasn’t shifting to the fascism it would be a good thing. But in a fascist world, digital IDs will be used to persecute people.
I think you’re connecting digital IDs with people’s online activity for some reason. In most countries, authorities can already connect online activity with an individual, since you register and pay for internet. Doing things that the powers that be don’t like will get you in legal trouble. Remember the 2000s when the music industry sued individuals for millions? In China they take down your post if it challenges social cohesion, in the USA they take all of your money and assets for challenging corporate revenue.
Most digital IDs are options for people that already have their bank/credit card on their phone and don’t want to carry a wallet just for ID. Some places like Estonia go further with actual asymmetric keys that let you sign documents with your ID’s private key that proves you signed it.
I think you’re connecting digital IDs with people’s online activity.
Online activity is already being tracked since the advent of Facebook and maybe earlier.
With digital IDs it will be possible to track people’s activity offline.
Wanna buy alcohol? Let’s scan your ID, record all your personal information, record what you were buying, record the time and location! BAM! You’ve just been tracked offline.
Are you an antifascist terrorist? Wee woo wee woo! That’s the sound the fascist police will make when they come to arrest you for that antifa post you made, because they have been alerted of your location in real time.
I don’t understand. Police can track you down via your credit card, your phone, your licence plate on your car, rando security cameras. All of these are hard to avoid. How often does your ID not just get checked, but recorded? It seems like not much of a game changer.
Digital IDs are not used for surveillance. You can just as easily surveil people without them (check out Online Safety Act). Having them does not mean you have to use them all the time.
Online activity is already being tracked since the advent of Facebook and maybe earlier.
With digital IDs it will be possible to track people’s activity OFFLINE. Or are you so naive to believe that won’t happen?
Wanna buy alcohol? Let’s scan your ID, record all your personal information, record what you were buying, record the time and location! BAM! You’ve just been tracked offline.
Are you an antifascist terrorist? Wee woo wee woo! That’s the sound the fascist police will make when they come to arrest you for that antifa post you made, because they have been alerted of your location in real time.
What people criticizing digital IDs are missing is that you can just as easily track normal ID cards.
You know why that lower half is formatted like that? That’s for computers to scan.
What’s that? That’s an ID scanner! Oh the horror! We’re all being tracked offline!!!1!
First of all, UK does not have personal IDs, just the good old passports.
Second of all, when you buy alcohol in a shop, do you actually need to scan your personal ID or just show your age on it?
Well, with digital IDs you WILL HAVE TO scan them whether you like it or not, when you need to prove you age or identity, that’s how they work, and that’s how they can track people vs. traditional IDs which are just looked at and sometimes they will scan a physical copy of the id on paper, that’s all.
I’ve only ever seen these scanners in airports that you posted.
Good answer, I hope that guy understood.
We don’t have the scanners in shops. That’s my point. Just because it’s possible to scan an ID doesn’t mean the government will scan them. Even in countries that have digital IDs you still have normal ID cards you can show to verify your age. “You will now have digital ID” and “You will now have to scan your ID at store” are two completely different things. People that claim that they are the same simply don’t understand either of them.
“You will now have digital ID” and “You will now have to scan your ID at store” are two completely different things.
Correct! Different things for now. But can you guess will come next?
This just makes it so much easier to take that next step.
You know governments don’t turn fascist in one move? But we are 100% getting closer and closer.
That obviously depends on where you live. Spain, Poland or Estonia have had digital IDs for decades now and no one is scanning them anywhere. No one is even mentioning that. If you have an issue with fascist government say that. Mixing the whole concept of digital ID in it just doesn’t make sense.
I appreciate a lot will come down to the implementation, but I haven’t understood the proposal to at all guarantee that checking the ID will require some online check. This is meant to be a ubiquitous ID that we can use anywhere. Would businesses really accept having to use an ID that might not work if there’s a spotty data connection?
My read of it is that it’s intended, in most cases, to work like a railcard or digital bus pass does currently in the UK. Not unlike showing someone your driver’s licence, only the image of it on your phone is guaranteed to be valid rather than needing a specific physical card.
There are a lot of “ifs” and mostly potential downsides. So what are the benefits to this?
Would businesses really accept having to use an ID that might not work if there’s a spotty data connection
Have you ever had issues paying with your credit card due to a spotty data connection? Why would that be an issue with scanning your ID? Especially if the government forces businesses to do this.
My read of it is that it’s intended, in most cases, to work like a railcard or digital bus pass does currently in the UK.
Well yeah, that’s to begin with. But it also gives a lot of potential for further surveillance, and for what benefits? Do the benefits really outweigh the cons? Especially when the world is turning fascist? I don’t think so.
How many times have you gone “oh damn I wish it was easier proving my identity than showing my passport or driving licence”?
I think there are some genuine benefits to be had (though reducing illegal immigration is obviously not one of them). I do think there’s potential for a much simpler ID system. One that includes people that don’t drive, and doesn’t include giving your address to a stranger via your driver’s license.
I have had issues with using cards in poor network areas, yes. It seems totally improbable to me that this system ends up using an exclusively online process for sharing ID.
Sure there’s potential that this will result in a mass surveillance system, and I obviously don’t want that, but I guess it doesn’t feel particularly novel. If you’re paying by card you’re logging all your payments anyway. The question on my mind is where you currently see government overreach with exising IDs? Why would a new form of ID guarantee any of that changing?
On your last question, I genuinely do hate handing over either of the existing IDs, as they do carry more information than the receiver generally needs.
Basically, this is a beta version of what they are going to implement for us.
Frenchfryenjoyer (she/her)Ok but imagine if you’re under a fascist government like in America rn or a genocidal goverment like Israel
You say anything bad about Israel’s actions? digital ID revoked at the literal click of a button, can’t do anything You say anything bad about ICE? digital ID revoked at the literal click of a button, can’t do anything
doesn’t help that fascism is growing in lots of countries
I find this kind of sentiment a bit funny, because we already have much worse
Credit scores are opaque ratings of people kept by private organisations used to refuse business to people effectively based on their spending & borrowing behaviour, many of these will now happily encourage you to link your accounts so they get itemised data from some people now too.
This could literally be happening today and they would just need to say “sorry your credit isn’t good enough”. Credit score factors into your ability to rent & buy accommodation in the UK already.
There’s no reason for these companies to switch to using a government ID for these kinds of decisions because that would have to be a more transparent process and less easily used to their benefit.
FWIW, I’m against mandatory ID even though we effectively already have it in the form of national insurance. IMO the ID being digital should be a non issue as long as it’s optional (there also needs to be a free physical version of any national identity for those without phones).
I support your opinion that something similar already exists, and I am also interested in why it is necessary to introduce a digital ID?
But you know, there was that old comedy where people handed over all their data and decision-making to an intelligent computer, and now we see AI, and eventually this nonsense is considered normal. See what I’m getting at?.. What seems crazy today may become normal after a while.
I don’t think it’s necessary, but I can see some of the reasons it might be introduced
Firstly digital IDs typically come with obvious convenience benefits for the user. E.g. apparently Gen Z doesn’t really carry wallets, so this means they have a way of getting ID that’s better for that way of doing things. They should also be harder to forge, so hopefully can help reduce fraud and identity theft.
I’d say from a government’s perspective, a digital ID program is cheaper to run and allows them to speed up access to some government services. I’d say most of the opportunities for abuse from the government come from when the ID becomes a mandatory thing, then you might get voter suppression and limitations of access to public services
Yeah like I don’t want a digital ID as in for the internet, but an RFID code i can keep on my phone or put on a dongle on my keys that serves as my driver’s license or passport would be nice.
It’s the idea that I have to tell the government that I’d like to attend this adult establishment that I’ve got a beef with. And I’m not as comfortable with ID checks at bars as most people are tbh
You’re gonna have to elaborate on that point. Do you think some products shouldn’t be age-restricted? Do you think it should just be honor-system? Are you simply a profoundly private person and resent that another human knows your name and age?
I’m not saying it should be done away with entirely, I’m saying I don’t quite like it.
It’s varying degrees of all of these things depending on the situation. Idgaf if 18 year olds want to drink and when I was in a country where I didn’t get carded buying beer it was kinda nice. Then there are environments like sex shops where I very much don’t want minors there, but at the same time anonymity or pseudonymity would be quite preferable to giving my government ID. And I’m seeing more and more places scan IDs rather than just look at them. And while today idgaf if the bartender or grocery clerk knows I drink, I’m not quite certain I’m comfortable with the government knowing it, and in some states I’d probably be uncomfortable with the government knowing such things about me.
The increases in age restrictions and need to present ID to do more and more is ceding the right to anonymity, pseudonymity, and to keep the government out of your affairs. It may or may not be worth it, but I keep seeing people acting like we aren’t giving these things up when we do this.
To some extent losing anonymity is the cost of living in a society. Owning property, the entire financial system, the entire legal system, huge portions of civizilation depend on reliable identification.
Scanning cards is fine with me as long as it’s just a validity check but I can’t say I trust Kroger to not build a database of spending habits, for example, so to some extent I share your discomfort. But I think it’s a small concern compared to the way we use cards to pay for everything now. Cash is the king of anonymous consumption.
TrickDacyA bad credit score won't prevent me from buying groceries.
Yes credit scores are bullshit and the capitalist drive to maximize profit returns that leads to the application of credit scores to all sorts of things is a problem, but you're delusional if you think credit scores are WORSE than the potential to entirely freeze bank accounts due to political opinions.
I’m curious about this point because, and correct me if I’m wrong, the UK government can already freeze people’s assets via the police today, it doesn’t need a national ID scheme to do this.
Credit scores are used today to deny people access to housing and finance services predominantly, but can also block people from having mobile phones and even jobs.
And they’re opaque we have no real way of knowing what data is used to determine them and in what way. That might include what you tweet about for all we know
Given a lot of people out there need to be able to access finance in order to be able to handle unexpected emergency costs, a bad credit score very literally could cause someone to not be able to afford groceries. Average personal debt is rising faster than inflation across the western world, so this is an increasingly big problem.
It’s worse because it’s a real problem today, not a hypothetical future one.
Yes a bad credit score could stop you from having access to things in emergencies, yes it could stop you from having access to things that are important in life, but there are a lot of extra steps and special circumstances that have to occur before a bad credit score is directly responsible for your fridge being empty. Most of those conditions involve simply not having money to access in the first place, and very few of them are going to be as sudden and immediately effective as a freeze on your bank account.
Needing access to financial services to handle a possible emergency is all well and good, but lacking that support structure absolutely pales in comparison to simply being forbidden from conducting commerce of any kind. No emergency needed, savings are irrelevant, the only preparation that could help you is a mattress full of cash and that's definitely neither a good solution nor a long lasting one. People live their lives every day with bad credit scores, it sucks but it's doable. Freezing what assets they have would make an immediate and decidedly negative impact well beyond the inability to get a loan. Thinking that credit scores are worse because they're not a hypothetical future problem is like saying a stubbed toe is worse than getting shot, because you haven't gotten shot yet.
Yes credit scores are bullshit
They’re not. They exist for a very good reason, and are purely beneficial to people who repay what they borrow. They only ‘hurt’ people who don’t repay their debts, but only insofar as it makes it more difficult for them to take more money from people that they then also won’t pay back.
They also hurt people who are the most responsible with their credit. They ding you on your score if you don’t carry a balance on your card.
They ding you on your score if you don’t carry a balance on your card.
This is unequivocally false. I can’t believe how pervasive this common misconception still is.
Carrying a balance on your card can only hurt you, as the only thing the actual dollar amount of the balance impacts is utilization, in other words, ‘what percent of your total credit limit are you using’, and for that, lower is better.
I haven’t paid a cent of interest on any of my credit cards for well over a decade; I use it for my everyday purchases, and pay it off every month—my credit score’s firmly in the 800s, and 750 is the ‘you won’t get a better rate’ threshold for 99.9% of lending.
That's why my credit score went down when I paid off my student loans, right? Get the fuck outta here.
No, it didn’t. Maybe your score on Credit Karma did, but that’s because Credit Karma’s system of estimation (VantageScore I think it’s called) stops considering a loan the moment you pay it off, while the actual credit reporting agencies continue to consider it (re average age of accounts) for 10 years after closing if it was in good standing, or 7 years from ‘date of first delinquency’ if it was closed because of charge-off or something like that.
My own average account age is less than 10 years, yet my credit score is in the 800s, even though I have no outstanding loans, I just use my credit card for everyday purchases and pay it off every month.
Get your ignorance the fuck outta here and open yourself to learning how things work.
So all available reporting says my credit score went down when I paid off my loans and has remained in this new lower state for months since, but the secret real number used to decide my fate maybe didn't. Yeah you're right that's great. I feel better already.
Get the fuck out of here with that. Credit scores are purely a value used by lenders to determine how much money can be extracted from a consumer. It goes down if you're delinquent, it goes down it you pay things off early without racking up all the interest they wanted, it goes down if you don't run enough of a balance on your credit cards. It doesn't protect consumers, it barely protects lenders, it's purely used to determine how much can be extracted from a consumer's bank account.
So all available reporting says my credit score went down when I paid off my loans and has remained in this new lower state for months since, but the secret real number used to decide my fate maybe didn’t.
There’s no maybe. I already explained how it works. The only part of it that’s ‘secret’ is the minutia of the score tabulation, to make it harder to game. Loans closed in good standing (i.e. you paid them off) are part of your credit report for 10 years.
Get the fuck out of here with that. Credit scores are purely a value used by lenders to determine how much money can be extracted from a consumer.
This is demonstrably bullshit.
Someone who maxes out a credit card, and then only pays minimum payments, and always makes them late, is, via interest accruing and late payment fees, making the lender basically the maximum amount of profit possible. And yet doing this will result in a garbage credit score, because using every penny of your credit limit is very detrimental to your credit score, and not making payments on time is extremely detrimental to your credit score.
Meanwhile, take me, someone who never pays a cent of interest, because he pays off his card every statement cycle (and on time, naturally), and because of card rewards, I’m the one profiting, the lender is literally the one paying me, and ‘yet’, my credit score is in the 800s.
So how do you reconcile that with your assumed truth quoted above? It’s very hard to understand how anyone can arrive at the conclusion you did, while also knowing (as I assume you do) that late payments simultaneously hurt your credit score and increase profit for the lender, just as one example.
It goes down if you’re delinquent
As it should—the whole point of the score is to rate your reliability in repaying what you borrow.
it goes down it you pay things off early without racking up all the interest they wanted
False. You will never be worse off after paying a loan off early than you were before you took out the loan. Again, I haven’t paid a cent of interest on my credit cards in over a decade, and I paid off the only car loan I ever had, really early, less than a year into it.
it goes down if you don’t run enough of a balance on your credit cards.
Also false. Higher utilization is BAD for your credit score, not good. You’re saying literally the opposite of what’s true, do you realize that? You might want to google ‘credit score myths’ and find an article on bankrate or nerdwallet to educate yourself, you’ve been massively misled about this, honestly.
It doesn’t protect consumers
It gets good borrowers like me lower interest rates, and higher credit limits.
it barely protects lenders
Pretty sure the lenders would heavily disagree with that, lol. For very obvious reasons, anyone who’s considering lending someone money is going to be very interested in what happened the last X times that person was lent money.
it’s purely used to determine how much can be extracted from a consumer’s bank account.
Still false the second time.
Credit scores are opaque ratings of people kept by private organisations
They are only opaque to the extent that reduces the ability to game them. It’s very common knowledge what the primary factors are that determine your credit score:
used to refuse business to people effectively based on their spending & borrowing behaviour
“Refuse business” is deceptively overbroad—no entity will prevent you from fully paying for something in cash based on your credit score, for example. But they may refuse to lend to you, if you have a history of failing to repay money that was lent to you in the past.
There’s nothing shady about that, it makes perfect sense for one to be less willing to lend money to someone who has a reputation of not repaying their debts.
Without a credit score or similar system, lenders either will:
Credit scores are purely beneficial to good/reliable borrowers—it seems that invariably, those who have the biggest problem with them are unreliable borrowers who really wish they could hide the fact that they don’t repay their debts from the next entity they intend to get more ‘free money’ from.
One caveat. You do get dinged on your credit score if you are too responsible with your credit. You get dinged if you don’t carry a balance on your credit card. Credit reports ultimately rate how profitable you are to lenders, not how responsible you are with credit.
One caveat. You do get dinged on your credit score if you are too responsible with your credit.
Untrue. I’m in the 800s, and all I did was consistently pay off my everyday-use credit cards every month.
You get dinged if you don’t carry a balance on your credit card.
Absolutely false:
Carrying a balance on a credit card to improve your credit score has been proven as a myth. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says paying off your credit cards in full each month is the best way to improve your credit score and maintain excellent credit for the long haul.
Credit reports ultimately rate how profitable you are to lenders
No they don’t, or else I, who has literally only profited off my credit cards via the combination of never paying interest, and utilizing cash back rewards from regular use, wouldn’t have a credit score in the 800s.
not how responsible you are with credit.
Explain my 800s score, then. They’re making literally negative profit from me.
If someone has one credit card that’s always maxed out, and while they’re always making payments on time, they’re minimum payments, so they’re accruing essentially the most interest they could possibly be accruing, I guarantee that person’s credit score is much worse than mine, even though there is no arguing that this hypothetical person generates way more revenue for the credit card provider. That refutes your assertion from the other direction.
And that’s without even mentioning how significant a negative influence 100% utilization has on the score.
No, you are incorrect.
This is a screenshot directly from a credit report disclosure from a current mortgage application. This type of credit report is much more accurate than the ones you get from a free site, as they are the version of the credit report actually used by a mortgage lender.
I do the same strategy you do. We don’t carry a balance on our cards. Usually the only debt we have is our mortgage. And yet, clear as day, the credit report disclosure clearly indicates that our score took a hit because we don’t carry a balance. I also have a plus 800 credit score, but it would be higher if I made a habit of paying the bank lots of interest income.
the credit report disclosure clearly indicates that our score took a hit because we don’t carry a balance.
Are you paying your cards off before the statement cycle ends? “No recent revolving balances” means your cards are at literal $0, and have been for 3+ months[^1]. You should let the statement cycle end with the balance of whatever you used it for, then pay it off anytime between that day and your due date. As long as you pay it off no later than your due date, you’ll still pay no interest, but paying it off before the statement ends prevents the agencies from even realizing that you used the card at all—they can’t see your credit card activity, they’re just provided the statement balances.
I also have a plus 800 credit score, but it would be higher if I made a habit of paying the bank lots of interest income.
No, it wouldn’t. Also, if you’re over 750, any further increase is ‘gravy’ anyway, almost no lender has a tier higher than that. The highest ‘breakpoint’ I’ve ever seen is 780.
[^1]: And this is only an ‘adverse effect’ insofar as, after that amount of time, you’re looked at the same as someone who doesn’t have those credit cards at all.
Fear mongering
Those freezes occur today due to court rulings and proceedings
This is removing someone’s economic ability through “they’re being mean to me and my Nazi friends”
Obviously there’s a huge difference
Fascists will twist systems to target their perceived enemies
No further explanation required
And why do you think they won’t twist the current asset freezing system?
Digital IDs changes nothing
infinitesunriseChillPill answered your question meaningfully and you ignored them.
I dunno man - I don’t think I care if the government steals my money in 5 minutes or 5 months
I used to flirt with accelerationism and shades of nihilism. Though these days I tend to feel like those 5 months can make a big difference.