Fears Keir Starmer's digital ID cards could be used as population-wide facial recognition database for police mugshots

 Keir Starmer’s digital ID card scheme could be used as a population-wide facial recognition database for police to check mugshots, privacy campaigners fear.

A clause included in Labour’s digital ID consultation could allow police to access facial recognition and biometric data held by the Government.

The digital ID cards will include a ‘a current, high-resolution biometric facial image that meets specified requirements’, the Government announced this week

Documents published by the Cabinet Office state that ‘there is a legal basis for police use of facial recognition, which may include access to biometric data held by government’.

The documents add that under the Government’s proposals the digital ID cards will be subject to existing and any new legal frameworks ‘for using facial recognition in law enforcement’.

Jasleen Chaggar, from civil liberties group Big Brother Watch, said: ‘Snuck into the consultation is an admission that the police would be allowed to repurpose our digital ID photos as mugshots to create a population-wide facial recognition database.

‘It is for precisely this reason that the public is rightly sceptical of a sprawling ID system that has been sold to us under various guises - whether to “stop the boats” or improve public services - but which invariably hands more power and more of our personal information to the state, at our expense.’

She added: ‘Given the public backlash, high costs, serious data risks and likelihood that this could become a mandatory scheme in practice, the government should drop this digital ID disaster altogether.’...<<<Read More>>>...

The path to digital ID mandates: How social media regulation could reshape online privacy

 In a rapidly evolving digital landscape, the push for stricter social media regulations is gaining traction across the United States. Connecticut, Nebraska and Utah are at the forefront of this movement, with proposed legislation that aims to curb the influence of social media on minors. 

While these measures are framed as necessary steps to protect children, they also represent a significant shift toward mandatory digital ID systems. This shift could have far-reaching consequences for online privacy and personal freedom, raising critical questions about the future of the internet...<<<Read More>>>...

L.A. Times Journalist Says Vaccine Passports Are Good to “Break the Resistance Down”

[David Icke]: L.A. Times journalist Harry Litman says that vaccine passports are a “good idea” because they will help the Biden administration “break the resistance down.”

Litman is a a former U.S. Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General, having been appointed by Bill Clinton and now writes as a legal affairs columnist.

“Vaccine passports are a good idea,” tweeted Litman. “Among other things, it will single out the still large contingent of people who refuse vaccines, who will be foreclosed from doing a lot of things their peers can do. That should help break the resistance down.”

The remark was in reaction to reports that the Biden administration has been working with tech companies and non-profits to create a vaccine passport that “will play a role in multiple aspects of life.”

As we previously highlighted, the vaccine passport will likely be rolled into a digital ID card linked to facial recognition technology, greasing the skids for the introduction of an onerous Communist Chinese-style social credit score system....<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...

UK Now Considering Digital Face Scanning to Enter Pubs

 The operative word is COULD. This all about gauging public reaction and also stirring up the fear narratives. Relax. They can't enforce it legally. A bit like the entire hoax under the Coronavirus ACT. You MIGHT get fined for going to the airport to go on holiday is another prime word. It is clever psychological wording working on people's fears. And if they do bring them in ... so many people will not comply ... and shops will refuse ... it will fall apart with all the legal ramifications. Take a chill pill and watch the movie.

[Summit News]: The UK government is funding companies that are producing technology which will utilize digital face scans to check people’s vaccination status and allow or block them from entering pubs, stadiums and other venues.

“Britons could have their faces scanned to allow them to access pubs, gigs and sports events under one government-funded plan being drawn up for vaccine passports,” reports the London Times.

Two companies – Mvine and iProov – are working together on the system after being given a £75,000 grant by the government having already worked with the NHS on facial recognition technology in the form of the contact tracing app.

The technology is being proposed as a solution to concerns that presenting vaccination status via an app on a phone will be too slow when multiple people are entering a busy venue.

“Whoever is standing on the door of the pub is going to have to scan the certificate, read the name and date of birth, then ask the person for an ID document, check that the name and date of birth on the ID document are the same, squint at the photograph on the ID document and then make sure that the person in front of them is that person,” iProov CEO Andrew Bud said. “To which the answer is, that’s not going to happen.”

Bud said that the facial recognition system would reduce this process to a matter of seconds, streamlining the system.

“It speeds the process up and it absolves people of what would otherwise be a very heavy responsibility,” he added.

After months of promising that there would be no domestic vaccine passport, every indication is now that the government is going ahead with it...<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...