Privacy groups, data protection experts and British consumers have attacked the Government’s plan to introduce a mandatory digital ID scheme, amid claims that personal data will become “fodder for hackers and a launchpad for an Orwellian surveillance state”.
With an online petition already reaching 550,000 signatures, Big Brother Watch maintains that the question is not if a database holding everything from identity data to biometrics will be breached, but when.
The organisation insists the scheme – due to be unveiled today – would create a honeypot for hackers, putting the privacy, safety, and dignity of millions at risk.
Big Brother Watch digital communications officer Abhinaya Murthy said: “A recent Cabinet Office review into eleven major data breaches over recent years lays bare just how routinely the public sector mishandles sensitive information.
“These breaches expose the consistent failure of the Government and the public sector to safeguard the public’s most sensitive information.”
Independent YouGov polling commissioned by Big Brother Watch reveals that the majority (63%) of the British public do not trust the Government with keeping their data secure.
Murthy added: “Checkpoint Britain? No thanks. A mandatory digital ID system would make a bonfire of our civil liberties. This system would fundamentally change the nature of our relationship with the state and turn the UK into a ‘papers, please’ society.
“Now, more than ever, we must build the strongest resistance to Orwellian digital ID plans – our rights and freedoms are on the line.”
Meanwhile, Mishcon de Reya senior data protection specialist Jon Baines wrote on LinkedIn: “This has been tried before and been dismissed. I’m very far from convinced that there is a pressing societal need for it, and concerned that it would be, and would result in, a function creep.
“It is a core part of our history, and of our society, that we don’t willingly offer up, on demand, who we are, why we are, where we are, and what we’re doing.
“Of course we’re already tracked through our mobile phone usage, our online payment information, the extraordinarily pervasive CCTV network, etc. But that’s all messy and not joined up.
“My concern with digital ID would be it would be very easy for there to be a subtle, but profound, shift from that messy, officious situation, to something more ordered, more used and more intrusive.”
Even so, many countries have implemented or are developing national digital ID systems, with prominent examples including Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, India and Singapore. Other nations such as China, Japan, and Canada are also using digital ID for citizens and government services, though the maturity and scope of these systems vary significantly.
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