Comment by dijit | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dijit | Hacker News Reader

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I would really agree with you, as a person who was born into the underclass I know full well the barrier to entry of getting a “first person in the family” passport and a drivers license has somehow lower hurdles (but those are well known).

However, as mentioned, I can’t in good faith argue for the government to have an easier time categorising people. Such a system is so ripe for abuse. I have even advocated for it based on the Estonian eID system and the Swedish BankID (though I am aware of Danish and Norwegian BankID- I never used those).

I’m still fully convinced that the British “Online Safety Bill” is actually a ploy to ensure that they have linked accounts to identity on any site where comments can be made; so they can prosecute people for expressing opinions[0]. Why else go for Wikipedia, and why else focus on sites with public commentary. You can’t say it’s to prevent pedophiles when with the right hand you imprison people for saying things online while with the left hand releasing actual pedophiles into society[1]

To be fair, they did say it wasn’t primarily about protecting children[2], but then I guess I should figure out what else the OSA is for.

[0]: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-10-2025-0022...

[1]: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/prisoners-ear... & https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce80nl1k0p3o

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44910285

The online safety act is a terrible piece of legislation, along with a variety of other ones promoted as being for "child safety" but having serious external consequences.

But they implemented that act, without needing a digital ID. I don't think they need a digital ID to push authoritarian policies.

And I think a digital ID has possible benefits for people who can't easily fit in to current setups, thus my point about it being orthogonal.

The Digital ID will make it so that there’s no excuse for not connecting your identity to everything you do.

The conservatives didnt need digital id to make id a requirement for voting, labour didnt need digital id to introduce the online safety act. Im not convinced that lack of digital id will deter authoritarian tendencies in uk govs…

It’s not that the lack of digital ID prevents anything it’s that the digital ID makes abuse even easier.

Possibly, although they don't seem very slowed down at the moment...

My feeling is though that digital ID can have benefits which shouldn't be discounted when considering it. Specifically some people have problems with current age verification due to lack of things like passports and driver's licenses which are often used as stand-ins for digital ID.

Also it can make a lot of very nonsensical processes better. Things were companies still insist on physical signatures as though those are good security measures, that could be replaced with digital signatures tied to an identity, which might actually provide some security benefits.

Is there something about digital IDs that make them easier to issue than passports? I understand what you are saying that they could have benefits but is that an inherent problem with passports or just bureaucracy?

UK passports cost almost £100, so a lot of people aren't going to get one unless they need to go abroad. I'd expect a required UK digital ID to be free at point of issue (otherwise there's not much point in it).

> UK passports cost almost £100, so a lot of people aren't going to get one unless they need to go abroad.

Sounds like the UK government doesn’t have a history of making it easy to obtain identification.

> I'd expect a required UK digital ID to be free at point of issue

Where do you expect this point of issue to be and why do you expect it to be free? Is there any precedent to support your assumption?

It sounds like you’re advocating for cheap or readily available government ID. I see no reason why digital ID is uniquely or even well suited for either purpose.

> (otherwise there's not much point in it).

Well the point of the digital ID could be to further marginalize vulnerable communities by not providing easy access to the ID while also making it a requirement for participation in society.

Take a look at the southern United States for inspiration on that approach.

This is exactly the reason Americans (as students of history) are generally resistant to the idea of government identification.

Getting a passport is extremely expensive for the underclass, think of it as being worth half a month of your wages to get an idea.

That’s before you include the mandatory security screening which will cause you to travel half of the UK (on our expensive travel infrastructure!)

If I didn’t have a job lined up I wouldn’t have gotten on, my mum didn’t have one her whole life until after I had gotten mine. It’s an arduous and expensive process for the bottom 20% of society in the UK.

Ok but why would a digital ID be cheaper or easier?

FYI, the conservatives introduced the Online Safety Act. Its provisions came into force under a labour government.

Yep I was disappointed with that, but it does show that both of the main traditional UK parties have the same problems here (haven't looked into the LibDem position on this one)

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