Blaise Tapp: Digital IDs won’t end privacy, that happened years ago
Today alone, I’ve idly scrolled through my social media accounts on three occasions, asked Alexa numerous questions to settle family disagreements and used more digital apps than I care to remember.
On top of that I’ve performed nearly a dozen Google searches, driven into several car parks that use ANPR technology, and have used my cash card far too liberally during a pleasant family outing. It’s been a thoroughly enjoyable, busy and productive day, during which I’ve not given a second’s thought to how much of a digital footprint I might have left. Maybe I should have but this is 2025, where data is king and, let’s be honest, many of us stopped worrying a long time ago about whether we were handing over too much of it over.
This is why I am not one of the roughly 2.5 million people who have signed an (online) Government petition to protest at the Prime Minister’s latest big idea - to introduce mandatory digital national ID cards.
Despite the fact that none of us have yet heard the real details of the plan, huge numbers of people have taken to social media - the irony - to protest about the introduction of ‘mass surveillance and digital control'. That ship has well and truly sailed. All the people you’d expect to be opposed to it are incensed - including those Facebook friends that everyone has who posts about a different conspiracy theory every other day. This is one of the reasons why I’m broadly supportive of an idea that should bring this country firmly into the 21st Century and make society that little bit fairer.
Right now there are too many dark corners in which shadowy types can do their shady deals, while millions of us pay our taxes and our bills on time. Nobody knows if this plan will fulfill PM Starmer’s stated aim of making illegal immigration far less attractive because all of us will require the digital card when seeking work. Who knows if the plan will work - we all know that Governments - regardless of who is in Number 10 - tend to make a pig’s ear of the biggest projects and there can’t be many people who really believe that it will eradicate illegal immigration completely.
What I do know is that I have nothing to hide and my very unglamorous existence will not be of any interest to anyone who might be able to access all of my information if and when it ever all gets put into one place.
There are many things in the world that should concern us right now. Digital ID cards ain’t one of them.