King Charles announces UK government will introduce digital ID
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/king-charles-announces-uk-government-will-move-forward-with-digital-id-scheme/
King Charles III confirmed on Wednesday that the United Kingdom will move forward on a digital identification system to “modernise” public services, despite controversy about the implications for freedom and privacy.
The monarch gave his annual address to the House of Lords marking the opening of Parliament, covering a wide range of challenges facing the nation. During the course of his remarks, he mentioned without elaboration, “my Ministers will also proceed with the introduction of Digital ID that will modernise how citizens interact with public services.”
According to the UK Department for Science, Innovation, & Technology, the plan is that “free digital ID will be stored securely on your phone and will help to prove your identity, including age and residency status, simplifying access to government services and a range of uses across the private sector.” It is meant for employers to check as proof of eligibility to work in the country, though law enforcement “will not be able to demand to see your digital ID,” the government claims.
But the proposal has met significant opposition from those concerned about how it will actually work in practice. Last October, thousands of protesters marched through central London carrying signs reading, “No to Digital ID,” “If You Accept Digital ID Today, You’ve Accepted Social Credit Tomorrow,” and “Once Scanned, Never Free.” More than 2.9 million people have signed a petition opposing the plan.
Prime Minister Keir “Starmer has sold his Orwellian digital ID scheme to the public on the lie that it will only be used to stop illegal working but now the truth, buried in the small print, is becoming clear” that it is “fast becoming a digital permit required to live our everyday lives,” Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo has warned.
“We now know that digital IDs could be the backbone of a surveillance state and used for everything from tax and pensions to banking and education,” Carlo continued. “The prospects of enrolling even children into this sprawling biometric system is sinister, unjustified and prompts the chilling question of just what he thinks the ID will be used for in the future.”
In January, The Sun reported that Starmer backed down from the requirement for workers to “carry a specific card on their phone,” allowing that showing employers passports or e-visas would be acceptable alternatives for workplace eligibility, but also reported that the “government insisted Brits would still have enforced digital right-to-work checks and would set the full details out shortly,” leaving how much will be mandatory unresolved.
“This was always a terrible idea which wouldn’t have made any difference to tackling illegal migration,” Tory shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said in January. “Starmer just lurches from one appalling misjudgment to the next.”
Responding to the king’s speech, Big Brother Watch issued a statement that “[a]ccess to public services we all pay for should never require a digital ID. This would inevitably be an intrusive, multi billion pound system no one wants, no one voted for, and that has no real purpose. Plans so far have indicated that the digital ID would be a cradle to grave system ripe for mass surveillance and more government control over people’s lives.”
“Committing to a national digital ID system in the King’s Speech when the polls show the public don’t want one is utterly tone deaf,” Carlo said. “The Government has already failed to impose a mandatory digital ID system on the public and should now drop this terrible plan altogether before more taxpayers’ money is squandered on it.”