Another day, another Government consultation, as turgid as it is disingenuous.
This time it is the Cabinet Office announcing plans to share our personal data more widely across Government departments, so our digital identities can be verified when we access public services but “without creating ID cards” (see how they did that?). Delivering on the British people’s priorities, I suppose. No doubt MPs’ inboxes have been filling up with desperate cries from constituents: we demand that Government extends its provision for sharing and verifying our digital identity. By coincidence, a similar demand came from a former Prime Minister in Davos (where else?) this month. Tony Blair (who else?) continued his agitation, now into its third decade, for a global digital identity system, which of course must include our full vaccination status.
It has to be said that the Cabinet Office proposals do not extend that far – yet – though presumably an interface with the existing ‘NHS pass’ software has already been developed. The Government is hardly going to ditch a system which cost (us) so much to develop, and the Government Digital Services unit (GDS) doesn’t come cheap, employing “around 750 product managers, software engineers, designers, researchers, technical architects and other specialists”, dedicated to advancing the U.K.’s “current and future digital identity ecosystem”. Curiously, even though the current consultation is still in progress, the posts of Head of Security and the gloriously named Head of Fraud (£61,710, if you’re interested) have already been advertised. Remember voting for any of this?
The consultation includes several hand-wringing questions about those who may find themselves excluded from accessing public services as a result of these developments, especially those with protected characteristics: can we help Government to understand how such groups might be affected and how they can be assisted? No consideration is given to those who might actively wish to opt out: it will all be so convenient. In any case, the arguments against any dissenting group – the non-compliers, the refuseniks and the actively hostile – have already been well-rehearsed over the last three years: by not embracing your digital identity, you are excluding yourself from accessing public services, just as surely as those health workers made themselves unemployed by exercising their right to decline an injection.
Daily Sceptic readers will know that, like programmable Central Bank Digital Currency, digital identity is one of the cornerstones of the ‘fourth industrial revolution‘ agenda which has completely captured governments across the Western world. Does anyone seriously believe our Government will not implement these latest proposals, irrespective of public opposition? Australia is pressing ahead with its own digital identity scheme; in Canada, PM Trudeau has helpfully made it clear that federal funding for local healthcare services will only be made available to those provinces which fully embrace and implement digital identity systems. If you have the stomach, you will see that our Government website contain page after page setting out the framework for regulation and implementation of the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ (already finalised, apparently, after the last public consultation, which attracted 270 responses). Similar information appears on the websites of other governments (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, USA, France, Germany, Netherlands et al.) and supranational institutions (e.g. the UN, the European Commission), often using exactly the same words, translated as necessary.
My MP dismisses my concerns about the roll-out of digital identity cards as conspiracy theory stuff. I must remind him of the annual ‘World Government Summit’ which took place in Dubai last week, attended by some 25,000 government and NGO staff from all over the globe. In one address, they were told that “whoever masters the new technologies will be the master of the world!”. I won’t spoil it for you by naming the speaker or doing the accent.
The Cabinet Office’s consultation ends on March 1st.
Jean Marat is a pseudonym.
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