But now this impediment has been removed as the Government source claims, will the conversation proceed to a helpful conclusion? I doubt it. It’s stuck in an endless rehashing of clichés: ID ‘cards’, Chinese-style social credit system, a papers please society, a honey pot for hackers. The politics of digital ID are not sophisticated or even informed. The lack of a well thought through politics of digital ID cannot be blamed for the current mess. Guy de la Bédoyère’s account in the Daily Sceptic will be familiar to most of us, but could politics actually help? Having once again pressed the digital ID jack back into its box, we have an opportunity to improve our lot before it inevitably springs back into the national consciousness and we repeat the whole pantomime, yet again.
So, what position should those of us on the Right take? On what principles should we base that position? I believe it boils down to this: if we believe in property rights, then we need the means to prove ownership. The property in question is usually thought of in physical terms and the means of proof in that realm are well established. But what about the digital world? Those rights apply there too but the means to prove ownership are not well established and that puts those rights at risk. Less abstractly, there is only so far society can progress with a picture of a gas bill at its foundation. We need the means to prove our identity (and therefore ownership) in the digital realm not because it is mandated by a government that would just as soon have every one of us wearing multiple lanyards, but because it underpins the digital aspects of our society which we want to be fair, orderly and accountable. And we need it with, or preferably without, government....<<<Read More>>>...
