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Comment by wosined | Hacker News Reader

Sounds so authoritarian. Luckily, in the UK you only have to scan your face and ID to access cat photos.

It's all happening really quickly, so I haven't been able to keep up. I know Starmer said that digital ID will be mandatory to work in the UK. Did he mention how that would be implemented? Is the UK going to issue and official device to everyone in country, or are the people supposed to pay for it? What about homeless, poor, and the provisional residents?

> Is the UK going to issue and official device to everyone in country, or are the people supposed to pay for it? What about homeless, poor, and the provisional residents?

What about provisional residents? The digital ID proves identity. It is not a work authorization. Provisional residents can have a digital ID whether they work or not.

As a foreign national living in the UK on a long-term visa I can only say that the decision to discontinue physical BRP (residence permit) cards in favour of eVisas is singularly idiotic and harmful. One piece of evidence being that there are still things you can only do using expired BRPs, which will be in a some kind of zombie mode until mid 2026. After that, eternal misery.

But this is basically nothing compared to what they are doing with their justice system, which mostly affects British citizens, so who am I to complain.

Digital ID isn't really an issue. Most people already have several government digital IDs (government gateway, unique taxpayer number, etc.)

They should have branded it "simplified ID" or something like that.

I'll probably get instinctive downvotes but I think it's important not to mix up the actually-fine stuff with stuff like chat control, otherwise the message becomes trivial to dismiss.

I assume that almost everyone in the UK who is able to work has a smartphone already.

If they were to require digital ID for pensions or disability benefits there would be more problems.

There’s a famous article by Terence Eden about the kind of devices that people are forced to use to interact with the UK Government, written with his experiences working for the government.

The devices include: A Playstation Portable. The latest stats include thousands of visits from XBox and Playstation consoles.

All modern smartphone requirements boil down to Play Integrity and iOS AppStore attestations.

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/01/the-unreasonable-effectiven...

Even if that were the case, by what mechanism are they commandeering it? That's essentially what I was thinking about in this India case.

Undoubtedly most people will comply, but there will be a few who don't, so I'm curious what the plan is to bring them in line.

UK isn't commandeering anything.

The UK government hasn't decided yet how digital ID will work, currently it's just a talking point. Probably it will be an app that you install, like the NHS app. Nobody is proposing that it be installed by default.

Apple separately announced that a Digital ID feature will be built into iOS[0] which the UK may use or not use.

> few who don't, so I'm curious what the plan is to bring them in line

They will be told by their employer to get it otherwise they will lose their job. Just the same as now, only at the moment you need a paper passport rather than a smartphone.

[0] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/11/apple-introduces-digi...

> Probably it will be an app that you install, like the NHS app. Nobody is proposing that it be installed by default.

Whether it comes pre-installed or not is a distinction without difference if you need it for daily life

Edit: In fact, it would be better if it came pre-installed (and be removable) because then you don't need to agree to Google's terms of service to get the APK file. You would get it straight from your OS vendor which is presumably a trusted party if you intend on using that device. (Governments are usually not so forward-thinking that they let you get the APK file from the govt website directly without needing to go through commercial entities for something as essential as a national healthcare app. That would be an even better solution...)

> Probably it will be an app that you install, like the NHS app.

You do not have to use the NHS app. There is a website version.

> Just the same as now, only at the moment you need a paper passport rather than a smartphone.

Which demonstrates how little it achieves. People already need some form of ID for lots of things (notably work and renting housing). It does not have to be a passport though.

You do not need any form of photo or biometric id to work in the UK. I have never given anything of the sort, and have worked here for decades.

All that is required is a national insurance number (equivalent of Social Security Number in US).

Your employer is supposed to check that you have the right to work. This can be done in a variety of ways, depending on your citizenship, looking at your British/Irish passport is one of the ways.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/right-to-work-che...

You don't even need a photo ID to open a bank account in the UK

> Undoubtedly most people will comply, but there will be a few who don't, so I'm curious what the plan is to bring them in line.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by non compliance? Without the ID you will have significantly worse access to services and employers. I think the pressure will be on the people, not the government, to comply.

And if you have a pinephone or so?

Are you talking about downloading reddit, which is infested with the weirdest pornography that exists ?

While I am very much against facial scanning etc, it is quite clear that something needs to be done about the access of porn to kids. It is a drug like any other that we do not allow kids to consume.

I dont know why porn companies arent just sued into oblivion. There are already laws against distributing porn to minors in most places and porn companies do it routinely without any controls.

Virtually nobody has been able to demonstrate any tangible harm outside of weak "ooo morality" type arguments.

I get that intuitively porn is bad, but we are creatures with thousands of years of baggage. Practically every institution, everywhere, has spent trillions of dollars across hundreds of years to convince people sex is bad as a control mechanism. We don't even know if sex is addictive, there's a lot of disagreement about that among experts, let alone porn. All we have, really, is some anecdotes from people on Reddit that they stopped touching themselves and now they're not suicidal. Frankly, I don't think that's much of anything.

I'm not sure it's worth it giving up everything for a problem that we're not even sure exists.

All it takes is a cursory search on google scholar to find papers discussing the addiction potential of online pornography.

So what is your plan on dealing with wikipedia? I accessed porn in 2011 when I was 11. I played Postal 2 when I was 10. But no English skills at that age means not much came out of that game at that time except cat silencers.

How many kids these days play 18+ rated games?

> So what is your plan on dealing with wikipedia?

Im not sure I understand. Are you saying wikipedia has porn?

Yes. It even has articles dedicated to specific sex positions. I definitely looked at those articles fairly often as a young teen.

But should I need to upload an ID to view that? I guess some people think North Korea has the right mindset with information control, so showing an ID to see who's seeing what makes sense. But I'm not of that mindset.

Yes. Not necessarily on any pages. Go to the commons and search with some obvious keywords.

Do a few nude photographs on wikipedia hold the same addiction potential as an infinite stream of short form HD videos - specifically optimized for attention capture - on platforms like reddit ?

I am not even sure whether I should take you seriously.

> a few nude photographs on wikipedia

It’s a wee bit more extensive than that. Videos, more than a few, and most of them not tied to a wiki page.

As someone who tried to run a clean BBS and later a web forum, I’ll never be surprised at the lengths people will go to share porn.

It is still incomparable for all intents and purposes to platforms like reddit etc.

Of course people go to great lengths to share porn. But we should also go to great lengths to protect kids (and adults) from incredibly addictive things like hard drugs, porn, gambling, lootboxes etc.

> Luckily, in the UK you only have to scan your face and ID to access cat photos.

Please wait for us, the relentless chat control legislation will make us (the EU) overtake you and mandatory age verification is pretty much a certainty at this point.

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