Voices: Blair and Hague’s ‘digital ID’ scheme will leave us all vulnerable

As someone who spends an inordinate amount of time on social media with those who think that automated tills at the supermarket are part of a plan for world government, that reptiloids run the earth, and that the Covid vaccines contain microchips put there by Bill Gates, I feel that I am well qualified to reject the whole government digital ID thing.

This is also despite it now being endorsed by Tony Blair, a politician I respect (though the inexplicable involvement of William Hague is less of an encouraging sign). They say it’s part of a technological revolution comparable to the first industrial revolution. Artificial Intelligence and all that.

They argue that if all the information any state agency (and possibly private company) holds on us is combined into one gigantic database, then Britain could be once again leading the world into a new economic future. Imagine!

Health records, tax returns, time detained at His Majesty's pleasure, property owned on the land registry, motoring and other offences, children and ex-wives, educational attainment (or lack thereof), salary, savings, what you spend on petrol, prunes, plimsolls and prophylactics in a year; the absolute lot could, in theory, be tracked, aggregated with everyone else, analysed, and perhaps even sold, either as datasets or as individual data.

Hague and Blair say they want Prometheus unleashed via the Government Gateway. To which I can only reply: “I’m not convinced, and even if I was, I don’t care for it”.

You see, it’s very simple. I don’t trust the British state, neither to construct a workable system in the first place, nor to guarantee its privacy and security. I’ve had some experience of the Gover...