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Amnesty International: Digital ID will ‘put rights of people in UK at risk’ | The National
Labour has failed to read the room: Amnesty International said Starmer’s plans were a “dangerous overreaction” […] Age UK raised concerns that digital ID would disenfranchise older people and those who struggle with reading & writing […] Migrate UK, said that it was “interesting” the UK Government is pursuing the policy despite “overwhelming opposition to
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Tony Blair: “British people will all have their own unique digital identifier, and will make most transactions through their phone, as citizens with government and as customers with firms”
So, like WeChat & AliPay in China then? So the government can shut them off? We don’t need disruption, especially not at the moment, thanks, Tony. “Digital ID Is the Disruption the UK Desperately Needs” https://institute.global/insights/tech-and-digitalisation/tony-blair-digital-id-is-the-disruption-the-uk-desperately-needs
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The Liberal Democrats finally come out hard against something: Digital ID Cards. Let’s hope that they generalise this to all ID Cards…
No to Digital ID Cards | Liberal Democrats People shouldn’t be turned into criminals just because they can’t have a digital ID, or choose not to. https://www.libdems.org.uk/nodigitalid
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Tip for Civil Society: Never Negotiate. Always make them do the bad thing. Don’t help them do it, but make their choice either: do something really bad, or nothing at all
I started messing with Unix in my 2nd year at university in 1986, I got into cryptography in 1990, open source/free software in 1991, and then pretty much constant battles with regulators & authorities ever since. If I was to share one lesson it’d be: always call their bluff. Make them do the bad thing
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“You’re taking me to Harrogate in the middle of the night for a tweet. Is this what you signed up to the police to do?”
My personal opinion is that the guy sounds like an utter troll, but the above is an epic quote: Man arrested over anti-Hamas social media post https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/26/man-arrested-hamas-social-media-post-gaza-israel/ and https://archive.ph/mtlOk
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Thought for the evening: if someone is banned from Google and/or Apple by breaking their EULA or similar, they will be unable to work in the United Kingdom, @Kier_Starmer?
It is entirely possible for people to be (for instance) “Banned from Google”; should that be able to prevent them from working in the United Kingdom? Can the UK government obligate people to have a relationship with one/other major technology company? Are Google & Apple prepared to be sued for denying service to British citizens?
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“Public backs ‘super ID card’ which could be used to report potholes, Tony Blair’s think tank says” | The Independent | WHAT IN THE NAME OF GOD??!?
We already have “the app”, it’s called FixMyStreet, it does not need an ID card to use: Three-quarters of those polled supported the use of such an app to track the progress of applications made to local authorities, while some 69 per cent said they wanted it for voting or receiving official notifications, the Tony
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“What’s the UK issue with ID cards?” | …the answer is as follows: Many Britons are terrible people, and we know it…
I keep being asked or seeing people asking “what is the UK problem with having ID cards? We in Europe have ID cards and it’s fine!” — so I thought I would answer this question from my perspective, once and for all. The answer is: Britons (mostly) have a kind of self-knowledge. There are two
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Farage “firmly opposed to @Keir_Starmer’s digital ID cards” | …I hate it when I agree with him:
“It will make no difference to illegal immigration, but it will be used to control and penalise the rest of us. The state should never have this much power.” Though I suspect that he just wants to have his own (not “Starmer’s”) ID cards, instead. I wonder if this will be Labour’s “Poll Tax”?
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UK agency makes arrest in airport cybercrime probe | The Register | IT WAS A 40-SOMETHING YEAR OLD GUY IN A BASEMENT IN WEST SUSSEX
Your regular reminder that all of the threat intelligence and attribution and SOCs and IOCs in the entire world, will not stop a motivated nerd in a basement: Officers from the UK’s National Crime Agency, supported by a regional organized crime unit, arrested a man in his forties in West Sussex on Tuesday evening on
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Bluesky users discover that even “federated” & “distributed” platforms exhibit “lock-in” due to “network effects”; and “cognitive dissonance” ensues…
I’ve been saying for years that the argument — popular if oversimplified* in digital activism — that “network effects of mass adoption of popular platforms cause a form of lock-in monopoly” is bogus, not because it’s untrue but because it’s mundane and reflects some fundamental aspects of human communication. And here come Bluesky users with
at protocol bluesky content moderation distribution DSA federation moderation monopoly network effectFediverse reactions