A new report from Big Brother Watch warns against the implementation of digital ID due to privacy concerns, while illegal immigration will be largely unaffected.
The Checkpoint Britain analysis was published last week in the wake of Prime Minister Keir Starmer confirming the government was considering a new high tech identity scheme in a bid to curtail the arrival of undocumented migrants.
According to the civil liberties group Big Brother Watch, the implementation of such a step is unlikely to have any meaningful impact on the number of people entering the UK and there is a lack of evidence to show this would help tackle employment fraud. The organisation has also warned Downing Street that positioning the scheme as an answer to these issues risks misleading the public at a time when political tensions are already high.
Ministers have been too vague over what the ID system would entail, the report continues, and there are concerns it could go behind right-to-work and right-to-rent checks. Online banking and retail, booking travel tickets, and accessing healthcare could all fall under the system.
The result would be a ‘checkpoint society’ were identity verification becomes an everyday part of life. This change the relationship between administration and public, with a significant risk of voluntary processes becoming mandatory, locking those who do not want to participate out of job searches, housing entitlement, and medical treatment, a recent YouGov poll conducted on behalf of Big Brother Watch revealed that 63% of adults do not trust the government to safeguard their data.
‘The notion that digital ID will provide a magic-bullet solution for unauthorised immigration is ludicrous,’ said Rebecca Vincent, interim director of Big Brother Watch. “It will not stop small boat crossings, and it will not deter those intent on using non-legal means of entering the country from doing so. But digital ID will create a huge burden for the largely law-abiding 60 million people who already live here and insert the state into many aspects of our everyday lives.’
Image: Onur Binay / Unsplash
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