Digital Identitly "cards"

This is an idea thats gaining traction both in government and outside of it. I remember the last time identity cards were mooted, some people thought they were a great idea and we should all have them and show them whenever asked for by an official to show that we really are entitled to things like NHS care etc.

For me the same reasons mostly against then still apply, like who has access to this data and when. Should the police be able to access all my data, medical records, banking, phone calls etc because I've been stopped for a minor traffic offence? Should they be able to access them if I'm accused of a more major crime and if yes which crimes?

Should the DWP and HMRC have access to my my digital records, including if I've ever been convicted of a crime?

Is it any of my doctors business what websites I visit?

Will schools have access to a parents digital identity? Will school records end up on a persons digital ID forever more?

WIll we be able to challenge information on it and have incorrect information removed? Think of how a bad credit rating on your house can effect you.

Would having a digital ID mean that we would not have to have other forms of ID, when opening a bank account, buying a house, starting a college course?

How easy would it be for criminals to fake them?

If your identity was stolen, because someone stole your phone what redress would have, like wise if you lost your phone how would you prove who you are so as you can get your ID back?

One of the reasons given for this idea of digital ID is that 'everyone has a phone', well not everyone does, I don't, my Mum dosen't, she can't even use the stupid phone we've got now let alone a smart one. There are still lots of places where theres no or poor signal, what then? If the government were to bring in such a law then should they give everyone a device, such as a phone where they can keep it and show it when asked, will they run courses off line, face to face in the real world for those of us who don't know how to use them, don't have them and don't want them.

What should the penalties be for refusing to carry such ID, or just having lost it or had it stolen or it needs charging and you need to go out etc?

I can see that there would up sides to it too, like doctors and first responders having access to you medical records instantly, especially if you were unconcious. If it meant goodbye to passports then yippee, also if it meant I don't have to scrabble about trying to find enough of the right sort of ID to do something simple like vote or open a bank account. My Mum can't open another bank account with someone she dosen't already bank with as she has no driving licence, never having been a driver and has no current passport because she no longer goes abroad She has no credit record either as she owes nothing, something else that makes banks unable to give her a credit card for even a couple of hundred pounds.

I think over all I just worry about mission creep and safety and if it will do any good, or will it be just another hoop to jump through?

Parents
  • I don’t think having digital identity cards would make a significant difference to the concerns you list as the government, police and customs have access to the information anyway. Criminals already have a choice of ID to fake in the form of passports, National Insurance identity cards, driving licences and so on. 

    The news often has reports of criminals stealing identities and I expect it would be no different with ID cards. 

    i don’t particularly like the way things are going either, but I suspect we will have to go along with it, even if we don’t agree with it. I would like to know if polling has shown clear majority opinion one way or another.

    In many European countries, it has been the norm for years to carry ID cards.

    If it becomes law, you could avoid having to carry an ID card by getting a QR code tattooed on your wrist, alternatively a scannable implant would be discreet LOL.

  • How is the information 'already out there'? At the moment the police have to get a warrent to access things like medical records and financial information and information from phones. I don't like the idea of a more detailed digital strip search because I have a broken indicator I didn't know about. I don't have any remote banking or anything like that, despite my bank trying to force it on me, I only gave them my mobile number because I had to for OTP's.

    I'm quite happy with the idea that if I was found unconcious in the street that ambulance staff could access my records, providing my phone or whatever hadn't already been stolen. What would happen if one's ID was stolen? Would you still get NHS treatement, would you be billed until you could provide a replacement ID?

    My mum for example only has an email address and has bought a couple of things online, that's the extent of her digital footprint, how would people like her who can't really use a simple dumb phone cope with having to show a digital ID?

    Bunny, thats one poll and it hardly shows a majority in favour, it shows a majority who are not sure, even when they think the idea is good.

    Everone seems to be saying the believe it's inevitable, and it probably is, but no one has attempted to answer my questions about who has access to what and when?

    What happens if your identity proof is stolen or lost, like in a house fire?

    Will it be a one stop thing that holds all your information, driving licence, passport, etc and would it mean that I didn't have to have any of the others?

    Will showing it become another hoop to jump through when wanting to do something like open a new bank account with us still having to show other proofs of identity and what would they be?

  • At the moment the police have to get a warrent to access things like medical records and financial information and information from phones.

    I think you will find that this requirement is routinely disregarded or in the case where they are investigating you, they get the warrant and pull your data with you being none the wiser.

    I had a troublesome run in with the police relating to some work my last employer was doing and they raided my home, seized all my computers / phones etc but at that point they had gathered a huge amount of data and were trying to find something to make sense of it all.

    Because I had taken precautions and had everything suitably encrypted they couldn't find what they wanted (it saved my job too) but the level of info they had on me was scary.

    What happens if your identity proof is stolen or lost, like in a house fire?

    The same thing happens now with the old technology. You need to keep backups of your IDs somewhere safe and offsite it you are sensible.

    If someone steals your phone then there is tech to kill the phone remotely, you get a replacement sim card and restore your phone from cloud backup and you are back in operation in half a day.

    I doubt there will be a one stop solution as different groups rarely speak to one another to organise this, but there is likely to be one that is recognised by the others as a proof to get them to issue their own, subordinate IDs. A bit like a passport lets you open a bank account but you need a pin code and signature to prove you are who you say you are in the branch.

    I don't have any remote banking or anything like that, despite my bank trying to force it on me,

    The harsh reality is that you are a statistically irrelevant minority and they will accept losing your business as a benefit to them. Chances are you will be difficult for them to support and not make them much money from savings and selling products to you, so they are better off without you.

    This doesn't help you but it can be an incentive to learn to adapt or be left behind.

    Just to be clear I'm not having a go, just explaining how I think the banks worked after having worked for them for 2 decades.

  • I have tried to find help and someone to teach me, but there dosen't seem to be anyone willing or able, they just end up cross and frustrated with me. Or I end up cross and frustrated with them, like when I spent weeks trying to find some help and ended up with two women sat in my kitchen with a lap top showing me two phones I could get in either argos or tesco, the fact that I didn't know how to use a smart phone went totally over thier heads and they couldn't understand the help I wanted.

    It's not that you ofer help, that makes me think you get vexed with me, but that I don't understand what you're trying to say, if I could find a way into it I'd be very happy, but I don't seem to be able to. Also most of what you say and the way you and others try and explain things is way over my head. I think I must have some buttons or something missing because when someone tells me to a particular place and click something, I can't find the thing to be clicked, or if I do the next step isn't there. So I do get frustrated and cross, I actually think some people enjoy me being so useless, it gives them something to feel superior about, that and they laugh and just end up confused, before walking away.

  • Iain, can I ask, why my lack of tech ability vexes you so much? Because you do seem to get very vexed and cross with me about it and I don't know why?

    I'm not vexed so much as I have seen several people with similar situations in my life and have managed to make great progress with them in helping them become comfortable enough with their tech to dispel the distrust they have in it.

    You write about your frustrations with tech and I try to offer advice where I think it relevant.

    My experience has been that it just takes finding the right connection to your way of thinking to be able to provide support in a way that works for you so I guess it is the problem solving aspect of my nature that encourages me to keep offering to help.

    If you would prefer me to stay silent then please be clear and I will respect your needs.

  • I've never used facebook or any of these other social media sites, they know I exist and try and get me to sign up, but I don't. it is frustrating to me, but I think if somethings for me it won't go past me, it maybe that there are less and less things that are for me and more and more that go past me.

    Iain, can I ask, why my lack of tech ability vexes you so much? Because you do seem to get very vexed and cross with me about it and I don't know why?

  • Nobody really seems to engage with the issues as I see them, which is about who has a right to what information?

    My understanding is that we have moved past the point where the right is no longer something we have any real control over.

    The services we use are typically global in nature so the companies running it will find ways to create subsiduaries in countries where our laws don't reach to so they can pretty much do what they want with our data, and most do.

    Even when they openly state they will not take out data, it has been established that in many cases they took it anyway (Facebook is a high profile case here: https://www.dailywire.com/news/privacy-win-facebook-settles-decade-old-90-million-lawsuit-alleging-it-tracked-users-data-without-consent )

    We are past the point where we can trust these companies so for me the only approach is to limit what I make accessible to them. It is the only control I have when I still want to use their services.

    Hence I have different computers for different purposes, multiple phones and even offline systems that never connect to any networks.

    I'm paranoid because I know what some of these companies do (I even helped companies do it in the past) but accept it as part of the world we live in now.

  • Nobody really seems to engage with the issues as I see them, which is about who has a right to what information?

    People should have voted for Jeremy Corbyn.  Instead they got a succession of Tories followed by a philanderer that has no place in Labour.  Human rights have long evaporated.

    I'm afraid that ship has sailed.  Perhaps people are being philosophical, or they've just been ground down into submission. 

  • I think I'd need to include a copy of my little black book of passwords! I don't know what most of your post was about, dual facet encryption for example, way over my head.

    *************************

    One of the things I've found interesting about this thread, is how people have chosent to engage with it or not. I notice some just give one sentence replies others like Iain choose to focus on my tecnical inabilities. Nobody really seems to engage with the issues as I see them, which is about who has a right to what information? There seems to be a general acceptance that "they" have it already and its something not worth thinking about, let alone fighting for this is how countries sleep walk into fascism

  • Where exactly does one keep things that are offsite and yet still safe?

    I keep things at a family members house in a locked box (not 100% safe I know) so that in the event my place burns to the ground or is emptied by thieves then I can get backup copies of important documents and have hard disks containing things like scans of all my photos, my music library in MP3 files, scans of all useful documents, digital versions of my library etc.

    I also keep copies of some essential docs in the cloud - I use a mix of an iCloud account (free) where I have up to 5Gb or OneDrive (I get 100Gb I think from my Microsoft Office subscription) where I have created an encrypted file in which I keep copies of my passport and identity documents, bank details etc - everything I may need in the case of an emergency.

    I also keep a copy of the encryption software there so I can download and install it to open the file, but I use a software that has 2 passwords, each of which opens a different version of the file - a fake one in case I am every forced to give a password and the real one.A very useful feature.

    Those are my belt and braces for this sort of thing. Dual facet encryption gives about as good a protection as I can think of without needing to get really technical on it.

    I just need to remember the passwords which are very long.

  • I know I'm insignificant to banks and many others, I quite like that actually, and I probably will be left further behind than I already am, I don't know how to use the cloud, I'm don't even know what it is, Ijust visualise it as information floating about like steam.

    Where exactly does one keep things that are offsite and yet still safe? I guess I could bury them in a tin down the bottom of the garden and in the future archaeologists will dig them up and wonder what the purpose of this identity hoard was?

Reply
  • I know I'm insignificant to banks and many others, I quite like that actually, and I probably will be left further behind than I already am, I don't know how to use the cloud, I'm don't even know what it is, Ijust visualise it as information floating about like steam.

    Where exactly does one keep things that are offsite and yet still safe? I guess I could bury them in a tin down the bottom of the garden and in the future archaeologists will dig them up and wonder what the purpose of this identity hoard was?

Children
  • I have tried to find help and someone to teach me, but there dosen't seem to be anyone willing or able, they just end up cross and frustrated with me. Or I end up cross and frustrated with them, like when I spent weeks trying to find some help and ended up with two women sat in my kitchen with a lap top showing me two phones I could get in either argos or tesco, the fact that I didn't know how to use a smart phone went totally over thier heads and they couldn't understand the help I wanted.

    It's not that you ofer help, that makes me think you get vexed with me, but that I don't understand what you're trying to say, if I could find a way into it I'd be very happy, but I don't seem to be able to. Also most of what you say and the way you and others try and explain things is way over my head. I think I must have some buttons or something missing because when someone tells me to a particular place and click something, I can't find the thing to be clicked, or if I do the next step isn't there. So I do get frustrated and cross, I actually think some people enjoy me being so useless, it gives them something to feel superior about, that and they laugh and just end up confused, before walking away.

  • Iain, can I ask, why my lack of tech ability vexes you so much? Because you do seem to get very vexed and cross with me about it and I don't know why?

    I'm not vexed so much as I have seen several people with similar situations in my life and have managed to make great progress with them in helping them become comfortable enough with their tech to dispel the distrust they have in it.

    You write about your frustrations with tech and I try to offer advice where I think it relevant.

    My experience has been that it just takes finding the right connection to your way of thinking to be able to provide support in a way that works for you so I guess it is the problem solving aspect of my nature that encourages me to keep offering to help.

    If you would prefer me to stay silent then please be clear and I will respect your needs.

  • I've never used facebook or any of these other social media sites, they know I exist and try and get me to sign up, but I don't. it is frustrating to me, but I think if somethings for me it won't go past me, it maybe that there are less and less things that are for me and more and more that go past me.

    Iain, can I ask, why my lack of tech ability vexes you so much? Because you do seem to get very vexed and cross with me about it and I don't know why?

  • Nobody really seems to engage with the issues as I see them, which is about who has a right to what information?

    My understanding is that we have moved past the point where the right is no longer something we have any real control over.

    The services we use are typically global in nature so the companies running it will find ways to create subsiduaries in countries where our laws don't reach to so they can pretty much do what they want with our data, and most do.

    Even when they openly state they will not take out data, it has been established that in many cases they took it anyway (Facebook is a high profile case here: https://www.dailywire.com/news/privacy-win-facebook-settles-decade-old-90-million-lawsuit-alleging-it-tracked-users-data-without-consent )

    We are past the point where we can trust these companies so for me the only approach is to limit what I make accessible to them. It is the only control I have when I still want to use their services.

    Hence I have different computers for different purposes, multiple phones and even offline systems that never connect to any networks.

    I'm paranoid because I know what some of these companies do (I even helped companies do it in the past) but accept it as part of the world we live in now.

  • Nobody really seems to engage with the issues as I see them, which is about who has a right to what information?

    People should have voted for Jeremy Corbyn.  Instead they got a succession of Tories followed by a philanderer that has no place in Labour.  Human rights have long evaporated.

    I'm afraid that ship has sailed.  Perhaps people are being philosophical, or they've just been ground down into submission. 

  • I think I'd need to include a copy of my little black book of passwords! I don't know what most of your post was about, dual facet encryption for example, way over my head.

    *************************

    One of the things I've found interesting about this thread, is how people have chosent to engage with it or not. I notice some just give one sentence replies others like Iain choose to focus on my tecnical inabilities. Nobody really seems to engage with the issues as I see them, which is about who has a right to what information? There seems to be a general acceptance that "they" have it already and its something not worth thinking about, let alone fighting for this is how countries sleep walk into fascism

  • Where exactly does one keep things that are offsite and yet still safe?

    I keep things at a family members house in a locked box (not 100% safe I know) so that in the event my place burns to the ground or is emptied by thieves then I can get backup copies of important documents and have hard disks containing things like scans of all my photos, my music library in MP3 files, scans of all useful documents, digital versions of my library etc.

    I also keep copies of some essential docs in the cloud - I use a mix of an iCloud account (free) where I have up to 5Gb or OneDrive (I get 100Gb I think from my Microsoft Office subscription) where I have created an encrypted file in which I keep copies of my passport and identity documents, bank details etc - everything I may need in the case of an emergency.

    I also keep a copy of the encryption software there so I can download and install it to open the file, but I use a software that has 2 passwords, each of which opens a different version of the file - a fake one in case I am every forced to give a password and the real one.A very useful feature.

    Those are my belt and braces for this sort of thing. Dual facet encryption gives about as good a protection as I can think of without needing to get really technical on it.

    I just need to remember the passwords which are very long.