More like manufactured outrage than a genuine fear of Big Brother
I simply don’t understand all the fuss about ID cards. Nearly three million people have signed a petition opposing the creation of “any national ID system”, whether it is Prime Minister Starmer’s plan for a worker’s app – an app that proves you have the right to work in the UK – or a traditional national identity card.
The petition describes Starmer’s app as a “step towards mass surveillance and digital control” yet I hazard a guess that the majority of people who have signed the petition have already shared their most personal details with social media and online retailers.
I am not unusual in that my phone is full of loyalty cards from supermarkets, pharmacies and airlines. I surrendered my identity to Facebook years ago, and am no longer surprised when, five minutes after Googling “washing machines”, adverts for the latest appliances pop up on my feed. Amazon knows far more about my spending habits than my husband ever will (thank goodness) and I do all my banking online.
A government app that holds essential information such as my national insurance details, my HMRC self-assessment files and the various certificates proving my existence seems like a great idea to me. Far more convenient than the haphazard paper filing system that I still hold onto for such matters, just in case.
Last November, I spent a week in Ukraine, where the government introduced its Diia app in 2020. It allows citizens to upload all their vital information to their phone, from their passport and drivers licence to their tax number and birth certificate. Users can access more than 70 government services and can even get married online. Politicians reckon the app has saved the public purse billions of pounds by reducing bureaucracy. It has also proved invaluable during the war with Russia, as it has become a vital tool to connect people with emergency services. Five years after it was launched, 23 million people use the Diia app, making Ukraine one of the world’s leading digital nations.
The furore against an app which is far less powerful than Ukraine’s all-singing all-dancing one seems more like manufactured outrage against Starmer than a genuine fear of Big Brother.