Conservative Member of Parliament Stuart Anderson has voiced his opposition to the UK government’s digital ID plans, meanwhile the proposed legislation continues to be encountering increasing scrutiny from experts and bloggers.
Stuart Anderson, [1] a Member of Parliament for South Shropshire, has urged the UK government [2] to abandon its proposed digital ID scheme, expressing concerns that it could lead to an “authoritarian government.” Speaking during a Westminster Hall debate, Anderson criticized the mandatory ID card initiative, stating it represents an overextension of government authority. His remarks come in the wake of a public petition against the plans, [3] which has garnered nearly over 2 signatures across the country, more than 4,000 signatures came from South Shropshire. “Through responding to my survey, residents in South Shropshire have shown that they are strongly against this draconian policy. I have taken up their concerns in Parliament, where I have called on the Government to cancel the scheme straight away,” said Anderson.
Stuart Anderson expressed concerns regarding digital exclusion, pointing out that approximately 21,422 households do not have access to gigabit-capable broadband. “There are a large percentage of my population that are not connected or do not use IT. I have a concern. Are the pensioners who are digitally excluded in South Shropshire going to be hounded by the Police, chasing them around, asking them to sign up to this? Are people going to be trying to get a job but they can't unless they have this?”
Iain Murray [4] who is Vice President for Strategy and senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and contributor [5] to The Daily Economic states that the political class in Britain appears to overlook important lessons regarding liberty. A proposed digital ID scheme has the potential to undermine a century-long trust between the public and the state. “Today, however, the British public is told that every one of them football supporter or not is to have a ‘BritCard’ identity app on their phone. This would be a constitutional innovation of the worst sort, fundamentally altering the relationship between the citizen and the state, upending the traditional British concept of rights, and will probably paving the way for a complementary abrogation of liberty, a central bank digital currency. It is pretty much commonplace in the United Kingdom today to say that ‘Britain is finished,’ but if His Majesty’s government gets away with this, that may finally be right.”
Meanwhile, Darren Jones [6] who is the chief secretary to the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, informed Cabinet colleagues on that the implementation of a digital ID system would significantly enhance the public's experience with the new state, while providing an update to ministers on the initiative. Mr. Jones has been tasked with overseeing the rollout of the digital ID scheme introduced by Sir Keir Starmer. “Instead, he said, we have to build a new state and shut down the legacy state, with digital ID making people’s experience of that new state fundamentally much better.”
Chris Skinner, [7] who writes for his blog TheFinanser.com, believes the UK government’s digital identity scheme [8] is dead on arrival. “Like the National Insurance scheme, where all citizens have a working number think social security numbers if you’re American the digital ID would be the next phase. It all sounded wowy but nobby. Why? Because it’s been discussed for years and has never worked,” said Skinner. “The fact that the citizen controls their ID is the most important idea here. Why should governments and institutions tell me who I am? I know who I am and can prove it, so don’t keep telling me about ID cards, utility bills, passports and more; tell me about how I can have control of my life digitally, and secure it in a democratised and distributed structure. Meantime, going back to my Labour friends, they tried this scheme in 2010. Whatever happened to that?”