So we’ve that wet dream of Tony Blair raising it's ugly head again. There should be a national ID system. Actually, it’s not just Blair, T - the bureaucracy has been right pissed at the erasure of the wartime system since the 50s when it was abolished.
For there are two ways of looking at, thinking about, the whole governance thing. One is - the Blair, bureaucrats’, version - that the population are cattle, kine, to be managed. For the benefit of the bureaucracy of course - or at very least to be forced into doing what the bureaucracy thinks they - we - should be doing.
Then there’s that stout Englishman, the Anglo Saxon, version, which is that government are just the slaves we communally hire to make sure the bins get emptied. Well, OK, maybe raise a bit of tax for a Royal Navy to sink the Frenchies. But even then, not too much of that - the Civil War was, after all, triggered by Ship Money. Did the people who would not be slaughtered by the first wave of invading Frenchies - because they had the silly excuse of living 25 miles inland - have to pay the tax to run the Royal Navy to keep the Frenchies at bay or not? The King said yes - the King was right - and not for the first nor last time in British political history the guy who was right had his head cut off for being so.
Digital ID, so which version should we have? That one beloved of Froggie-type bureaucrats who view La Profonde as kine to be corralled? Or the Anglo Saxon version where we just devolve the scut work to a few slaves?
Bryan Glick points out - and it’s worth pointing out that I used to write for Bryan, good editor. And if his bosses stopped being so Scrooge with the budgets happily write for him again. Good editor, Bryan is. Used to send me cheques. But bosses, you know, bastards, eh? - how we could get it done right:
There is an alternative model, as the many private sector suppliers of digital identity systems would tell you.
The government could say that citizens who choose to interact with public services online can use any approved digital identity system. The process is already in place – the Digital Identity and Attributes Framework (DIATF) – to offer a legally backed, government-approved trustmark for those systems that meet the required standards.
Immediately this removes accusations of centralised databases or government gathering personal data about citizens through a single, national system. The public get to choose which digital ID system they use – perhaps one from their trusted bank, for example, or through a preferred technology supplier such as Apple or Google on their mobile phones.
The reason this never will be proposed is that it doesn’t fit the reasons why our rulers wish to have an ID system. They’re insistent that we be their kine rather than they our. So, the Hell w’ ‘em.
But it could be done. Government simply publishes an interface - an API - which says that proof of identity needs to be presented in this format. We’re done as far as whose kine is whose.
But we know, absolutely, that they won’t do this. You recall that worst ever computer system in the history of the world? That £12 billion spent upon the NHS National Program for IT? The one that spent the £12 billion and delivered not one single usable line of code?
It didn’t work because they tried to build that central system. When, in fact, what they should have done is simply specify the interface. All NHS systems - absolutely all, from the X-Ray machine to GP surgeries to the records of how many aspirin you took while recovering from your trans surgery - output to this data standard and layout. All NHS systems accept data in that format. No exceptions, ever, for anyone.
We’re done. Give it three years and every NHS system will now talk to every other NHS system, all records are readable across all systems, all tests, scans, patient histories, can be read anywhere on the system. And we’ve also saved £12 billion because we’ve not employed a single bureaucratic kine to fuck it up for us.
There’s even a freebie such interface available on the web from some American doctors.
The same will be true of a Digital ID system. You can use any system to do this. All that’s necessary is that the system output its data like this. We’re done.
Well, with the obvious point that everyone who doesn’t wish to doesn’t have to. Therefore the system only contains those who desire it. We’re back to the correct relationship with government. Sure, hiring you slaves could make our lives easier. So, we’ll keep herding you kine into the office to work for us until this is no longer true.
We the citizenry are the power in this land. You are our slaves. Do not forget this about the people of the seax. Sadly, you are forgetting it and we’re going to have to remind you, aren’t we?
I wonder how many of the people who are against digital IDs are for universal basic income, and I wonder how they imagine the latter will be accomplished without the former.
Very interesting points, as usual.
Here in Canada, notwithstanding our more or less insane federal government, the big banks are already part way to being private ID issuers and keepers for the feds.
When I log in to a federal website, usually one of the tax ones, but also for my firearm permitting, I do so via a Federal 'Partner' site, in my case the TD Bank.