First it was hashtags – now Amber Rudd gives us Brits knowledge on national ID cards

It's best to get these things on the table early for when it's outsourced and sold. Funny analogy though I do find they fall over when you try because Y does something then X should be allowed to.

Amber Rudd

Can't we have stones placed in her pockets, and throw her into the Thames?

Usual suspects

The only ones to benefit from this will be whichever of the usual incompetent suspects gets chosen to run it.

"She then makes a leap of logic – and faith in a civil service that earlier on she didn't even trust to set up a streamlined set of websites"

Having been dealing with the Government Gateway this morning, I also don't trust the civil service to set up a streamlined set of websites.

"Ah, the reason you cannot activate self-assessment with that User ID is because the Government Gateway single log in uses multiple log ins. I know that all services appear on the screen using both user IDs, which are both tied to the same Unique Taxpayer Reference, but you cannot use the one you use to do tax-free childcare to also do self-assessment. But don't worry, we will reset your password. Here are the first six characters of it displayed on a website, the other six are sent to you in an e-mail, you cannot change it, but don't write it down anywhere."

"If the private sector can design websites that track our every move, that come up with suggestions for goods before we realise we want them"

These suggestions generally fall into two groups:

- stuff we just bought so don't need to buy again

- stuff we don't and won't want which is not quite the same as saying they're suggesting them before we realise we want but the difference might not be clear to an easily confused person

On the whole it doesn't put the private sector into that brilliant a light.

"mind-numbingly petty in their requirements and absurdly complex to navigate"

Is this the explanation? Her mind has been numbed.

'This includes simplified access to .GOV websites that "cut through all the different layers now in place", some of which she said are currently "mind-numbingly petty in their requirements and absurdly complex to navigate".'

Or you know, as she works for the Government she could just get them to remove the mind-numbingly petty requirements and have someone from outside the Civil Service design them so they're not impossible to navigate. Because I don't really see another form of ID solving either of those problems.

I have no problem with ID cards. I effectively have one in my wallet already.

I have a objection to you JOINING THAT INFORMATION, exactly like the cookie problem you describe.

Literally, just give people driving licences when they turn 18 that don't have entitlements on them - that's the ID card problem solved.

What *you* want, though, is a central system to tie in everything I do to that number. I don't currently have to provide a driving licence number to, say, rent a house. Or file a complaint against my council. Or ring my bank. Or access an adult site. Or rent an 18 movie.

What I'm concerned about is not another bit of plastic. That's just an expensive exercise in redundancy, we can knock those up today if you want to pony up the money for them.

No, it's that once you get an "official" ID card, what are you going to join together, and what new things will suddenly be linked to / require my ID? The first that springs to mind is things like website access, ISP records, etc. Government are pushing for mandatory ID for such things, rather than just proof of age (entirely different thing). Currently, it would be suspicious and a deliberate act to join, say, my Internet credit card purchases to my running for local councillor. It would involve court orders to banks, police records, etc. etc. But once you join the databases it's "too easy" for someone to do that just playing about on the ID database - we know this because as NHS goes digital the number of people being done for "just looking" at celebrity details are far too common.

And then you want to tie it in via NHS number? Bang, there's my medical records for you too. Benefits. Driving record. All kinds of things currently held at different places which are all formally recording requests for access and providing the minimum information required. Join them together and those guarantees won't survive. It'll be a free-for-all.

We know, because everything from council bin collection agencies to food standards agencies are putting in requests that they never used to be able to before to track and trace people. Join them all into "one easy number" and you will end up with cops sneaking into your celeb profile, linking it to your purchases from your Amazon account for sex toys, your online browsing of legitimate and legal porn, and leaking it to media. Hell it happens WITHOUT those connections, with them just makes it worse. And no amount of log-keeping, warnings, etc. has yet proven effective at stopping people with access doing such things.

Now, there are obviously advantages to linking things. If nothing else, spotting financial fraud, etc. But it has to be controlled and justified. Tying everything to an ID number is a dangerous and stupid thing to do.

I don't care about the card. But it is another worthless piece of plastic. Like Manchester trial of ID cards where people effectively threw their own money in a bin on something that nobody ever really recognised.

I care about the data connections. The government does not, and has no need, to know my Amazon account, emails I use, domains I own, movies I watch, etc. Even if they could legitimately obtain that information if a court so ordered, they don't need to. And I have to trust that the courts wouldn't allow it unless it was necessary for law enforcement. That's my safety barrier.

Linking systems and centralising an ID bypasses that, if all those systems have to query the central database for authentication, they are basically advertising the records that join together. While they are separate, they don't advertise the connections to a single, central authority.

Now, I have "nothing to fear". I trust law enforcement and the courts. You can see my posts on that everything. I really don't care about someone potentially finding out that I earned £X but claimed £Y in income for tax purposes because for me X=Y at all times. That's not the issue. The issue is that the potential for misuse is too great and tempting for a nation state. By not having it, they can't do it, certainly not without expense and a paper trail which is our primary safety barrier. But the second there's a central authority that everyone has to authenticate against and which links into every bank, every contract, every shop, every thing you do in everyday life... that potential can and will be misused.

Even if it's to tax people who buy too many plastic items, or chase why they bought 100g of plastic this week but only put 80g in their recycling bin. Whatever it is, however petty, that potential is damaging.

And I object to *that*.

But we DO need protecting.

Unfortunately we need to be protected FROM the Government, not by the Government as it should be.

Disenfranchisement

Sounds a lot like the last mission creep effort at ID cards. One thing overlooked back then, and probably any future attempt, was British citizens who live abroad (though Brexit may decimate them). Typically they will not get any ID cards based on NHS entitlement, but official ID cards would quickly become the natural form of ID for a whole range of items, as would suspicion of anyone who does not possess one.

Why is everyone sneering again?

Our first duty is to keep people safe

I'm very tired of that old chestnut - the best way to achieve that would be to lock us all up for our own protection.

And given that successive British governments have covered up renditions, torture, extra-judicial killings, undercover police malpractice whilst simultaneously crying "nanny state" whenever there is an attempt to deal with alcohol abuse, smoking or obesity, politicians clearly don't believe it either.

Maybe they should lock themselves up for our own protection.