The Reality of Digital ID... But I'm afraid that this kind of crap will end up happening not only in the UK.

https://lemmy.world/post/37101796

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).

A 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.

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.