Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

Could you please give me your real name "celticninja", your phone number, your address, your NI number -- oh, and you'll need to install this app on your phone which I promise will never be used to monitor your location, purchases, friends. Then I'll explain.

Also, please authenticate with your digital ID before posting on social media.

Reductio ad absurdum.

And we never heard from then again. Case in point of how someone likes something in theory but in practice it's distasteful.

Not really. British governments have always been increasingly authoritarian.

The stated reason is to stop illegals working.

Unfortunately we have an ID for working, called a national insurance number. We literally can't get legally paid without it.

So a National ID card ... Is irrelevant. You still need this number for benefits, etc.

I've got an NI number, a driving license and a passport. Not to mention a NHS number.

I don't need another form of identification to link together everything about me so my government can leak everywhere.

NI is not ID for working. It's a tax identifier.

The ID for working system is https://www.gov.uk/prove-right-to-work , with its digital ID "share code" https://www.gov.uk/view-right-to-work

(what does the digital ID scheme add to this again?)

> Could you please give me your real name "celticninja", your phone number, your address, your NI number

The police can and will request this information from you, digital ID or not. If you have actual beef with digital ID, present it.

No, police cannot.

The government is pushing Digital IDs on rubbish claims (obviously won't do anything about illegal immigration). Everyone can see that.

So what does this mean about their actual aims?

That is not a requirement though. And if it came in I would be against it. So what is your point?

They can certainly ask, but at the moment can they jail you simply for not answering?

Yet. This slope looks very slippery in the year of the Online Safety Act.

Yes, and to be paid via PAYE you need a NI number.

The prove right to work is a slightly newer thing thats additional

Like they wouldn't bring it in to combat "mis-information" i.e. viewpoints they don't like.

yes. yes they can.

They'll invoke one of the more ambiguous sections, it's usually the anti-terrorism one, but sometimes is the anti-drugs one (i can't remember the numbers), and they'll detain then arrest you and haul you to the police station.

You can complain later, and maybe get some pounds out of it, but make no mistake: if the uk police wants you identified, they will identify you.

Not even a joke, but only a question of time.

The nuance is that you can have a NI number, then have your visa lapse for whatever reason - you still have the NI number. Hence the requirement to prove your right to work through another means.

Previously you could use proof of British nationality or a physical biometric residence card - but they've been replaced by the digital share code system (which tbh hasn't been too bad)

With your logic, everything can be used, or change to be used in a bad way, so nothing should be changed. There is never a guarantee. Seriously, is there anything which cannot be changed to be shit, in the best case to be a worthless money pit?

Edit: btw this proposal already has something which can be criticised: ID on mobile phones… so probably they’d lock everybody into a duopoly.

The share code stuff is not for nationals. It’s not clear to me exactly how it works and whether it’s scalable.

No, those are still the ways of proving you have the right to work, it’s only if you’re not a national that you need the share code.

Sorry I worded that poorly - I was trying to make the point that citizens prove their right to work using passport/birth certificate, and until recently visa holders used a physical BRP, and now a digital system (which oddly enough uses your expired/redundant BRP number as a username)

there's a difference between "the police can request this information from an individual" and "this information will be automatically gathered from everyone at all times and stored by the state". for one, there are circumstances in which the police are allowed to request that information and you can say "no", and there are also practical limits to the number of police that can be out requesting. The central equivalence you're trying to draw here is simply false.

You're arguing that the installation of a literal surveillance apparatus should be tolerated because technology can almost always be used for evil.

What does any of that have to do with an ID card?

Many countries have had ID cards for decades, yet don't have any digital ID system whatsoever.

Interesting. We could turn it into a logical argument just so we can see if this is the case. The course of the argument is:

> Could you explain what is so distasteful about ID cards?"

which is roughly how humans say "ID cards are okay" (P0)

> I mean if you have a passport then you already have an 'ID card', but I certainly don't want to take that out with me to prove my age.

which is roughly how humans say "We already collect information that would be on an ID card and store it against a passport" (P1) provided only for completeness because it is not used later

> "Could you please give me your real name "celticninja", your phone number, your address, your NI number -- oh, and you'll need to install this app on your phone which I promise will never be used to monitor your location, purchases, friends. Then I'll explain."

which is roughly how humans say "If (ID cards are okay) (P0 again) then (there should be no problem sharing that information with me, a stranger) (P2). But (there should be no problem sharing the information with me, a stranger) (P2 again) - is absurd"

Therefore, if all of these were logical, then indeed this is a valid proof that ID cards are not okay by reductio ad absurdum, a valid proof technique.

I suppose the gap in the argument is in the logical statement P0 => P2. If some chain of argument could provide P0 => P2 then this would indeed be a valid proof of the falsehood of P0 by reductio ad absurdum to P2 an absurd conclusion. Of course I wrote it out to illustrate, but it was obvious it was reductio ad absurdum.

It just strikes me as curious that someone would point that out. A bit like saying "syllogism" when someone makes a one-step logical conclusion, which is not something that humans usually post on web forums. Then again, if you say "Knowledge is power" someone will inevitably say "France is bacon" ;) so there's a bit of an ability to prompt things out of human beings that only has phatic purpose. Perhaps Latin, in particular, draws this out of someone but I'd think it odd if people went around saying "quod erat demonstrandum" in replies to someone who proved something.

Nothing but I thought we were talking about digital id.

Yes, let's build the nuke and then put it in the center of London with a big red button. But don't worry, nobody will push the button.

Or, proposal B: don't build the nuke.

At least three comment levels up from mine are about ID cards, not digital ID.

What do you have to hide? Why are you against adding just a little more to the law to protect the children?

Especially when they drop NFC into it and put up observation posts around the city

Yes? They can kill half Europe with a single nuclear power plant if they really want. They are safe only for accidents, and external sabotage. They are absolutely not for intentional internal fuck ups. The whole system is built on that most workers there don’t want that. The whole system is built on trust.

No, I’m arguing that it can be used for good, and it shouldn’t be dismissed when it cannot be used for evil things by law, especially not because of future possible evil usage, because that’s true for everything. Btw, why do use the internet? It’s quite contradictory to argue about this here. And that is the case since almost its inception.

I suspect this particular human was trying to say "straw man fallacy" but ended up with "reductio ad absurdum" instead, which is pretty much the opposite. If you think the first thing entails the second thing then you've executed a successful absurdum, if you think it doesn't then the second thing is a straw man. These are both annoying ways to wrangle about perceptions.

Everything can be used for bad or good, some things the balance is so bad they aren't worth considering.

There is no difference between changing a law more, than less. It can be done the same way, with a single vote. So the balance doesn't matter at all, especially that voters clearly don't make distinctions based on that.