TRIGGERnometry - Why You Should Be Worried About Digital ID - Silkie Carlo

00:00:00.000 We are that close to a situation where you basically need a digital ID to go online.

00:00:06.740 The right to work is the first one, then the right to rent, banking, education, childcare,

00:00:14.080 voting. Five billion was wasted last time this country tried to introduce digital IDs. That's

00:00:20.020 about 50 times the amount of the border security command. Very, very clearly this isn't about

00:00:25.340 immigration. The Starmer government has just introduced mass bank spying powers on the

00:00:30.800 premise of rooting out welfare fraud. The Home Office right now is supporting essentially an

00:00:36.180 expansion of live facial recognition across multiple police forces. The time to really put

00:00:41.400 up a fight is now. Relax, relax. This isn't an ad. If you're not a fan of ads, but love

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00:01:02.340 or click the link in the description of this episode.

00:01:06.520 Silky Carlo, welcome back to the show. We love you so much. So it's a pity that basically we

00:01:11.060 only get you on when the government is about to do something really evil. But you are obviously

00:01:15.460 the head of Big Brother Watch and you work on stuff like digital ID, which the government

00:01:22.360 is just announced they're going to introduce without imposing our own views on it. Tell us

00:01:28.440 what are digital IDs and what your concern about them is. Digital ID is going to be a mandatory

00:01:35.640 digital identifier that we all have to have in this country, basically an entry on a government

00:01:41.780 database, which is the seed for something very, very different in this country. We've never had to

00:01:48.700 carry ID of any type, not since the Second World War. In peacetime have we had to carry ID papers in

00:01:55.720 this country. But now we will have to, and it will have to be digital. And it will be the beginning

00:02:02.020 of a massive digital record about every citizen in this country. So I think the questions now and

00:02:09.240 the conversation now is about how far will that grow? How much data will be on it? Where and when

00:02:15.180 will we need to present it? And how might it be used in a way that it effectively becomes like a

00:02:21.420 license, like a permit, that it can be taken away or required for certain things? The government has

00:02:27.900 said in the first instance it will be required in order to work. But already we've heard from ministers

00:02:32.440 over recent days about the numerous other ways in which you will have to have a digital ID to live

00:02:37.800 your life. Such as? So the right to work is the first one, then the right to rent. So that you

00:02:44.820 would have to show your landlord your digital ID. Hang on, sorry, your right to live somewhere.

00:02:50.780 Yeah. It's going to be tied to your digital ID. To make sure you're not an illegal immigrant, mate. 0.98

00:02:54.800 Yeah, I mean, exactly. And the other thing that's notable about that is that this is an ID that

00:03:03.440 you don't only need to show to the state, but you also need to show it to other peers, to civilians,

00:03:10.080 because it's for these kinds of, you know, to your boss, to your landlord, to a bouncer. And so the

00:03:15.860 other types of uses that have already been mentioned, including on the government's own website,

00:03:20.420 are banking, education, childcare, voting. So the possibilities are endless and numerous. And as you

00:03:29.700 say, they really go to the very basics of living your everyday life. If you didn't have one, then

00:03:34.880 immediately you won't be able to work. Silky, so a lot of arguments have been made about why this is

00:03:41.000 actually a good thing. Now, one of them is illegal immigration. In fact, the government is leading 0.54

00:03:45.220 with that, which I think is complete rubbish for reasons that we'll get into. I don't think it's going

00:03:50.160 to do anything to stop illegal immigration. But there are countries which have digital ID. There are people

00:03:55.860 who say, actually, it's super helpful, super convenient, it's super easy, it makes things safe.

00:04:00.120 We know who everyone is. You know, some of these things was out dystopian already. But also, there are

00:04:05.780 some benefits on that. I think anything that is, almost anything that is oppressive can have some

00:04:13.140 benefits. And especially if you're a prime minister who wants to build a really big state and have lots

00:04:19.040 of information about people and know where they are and what they're doing, you could frame that as a

00:04:22.800 benefit and say that it's a good thing. And certainly for individuals to have a digital ID

00:04:28.280 of some type, that could be beneficial. If you choose to, you can get them in the private sector,

00:04:34.740 some people get them from their governments. I think what's very, very different is the idea

00:04:39.360 of a digital ID system being imposed on the entire population and then made mandatory,

00:04:45.600 made as a gateway in order to live your life, in order to work and rent, collect benefits and

00:04:51.200 everything else. It is also important to say in a lot of the examples that have been thrown around

00:04:55.300 recently about the other countries that use digital ID, what's overlooked is that they are

00:04:59.920 linked to human rights abuses everywhere, actually, and also to cyber security incidents.

00:05:08.000 So Estonia, for example, is always brought up as the example, completely different to Britain,

00:05:12.720 very small population. And it has what they call the world's first digital government. So it's kind

00:05:17.440 of like a digital experiment, quite dystopian, if you ask me. But even there, there was a cyber

00:05:22.640 security, sorry, there was a security flaw with their digital ID system. And three quarters of a

00:05:29.520 million people lost access to their digital ID, which then stopped them from doing things because

00:05:35.000 of the security flaw, which, of course, can upend your whole life. If you look at India, for example, 1.00

00:05:41.400 and the biometric ID system that they have there, there are countless deaths that have been

00:05:46.200 associated with the digital ID, because of connectivity problems. And again, basically,

00:05:53.500 technical problems with the whole system, and the way that it's been used to then lock people off

00:05:58.020 of the services that they're otherwise entitled to. And I think there is, you know, you can't always

00:06:04.480 compare these countries with the UK, but there are some lessons to be learned. If you think about,

00:06:08.920 for example, going to see the doctor or going to the NHS, at the moment, it's free at the point of

00:06:13.580 use, you just go and you do it. And that saves people's lives. The more barriers that you start

00:06:18.280 putting up with things like digital ID, in a country where millions of people will never,

00:06:23.880 it doesn't matter what Starmer says, will never have one, whether they choose not to or because

00:06:28.380 they can't. All of that language about access that the government use, we're making it easier for

00:06:35.340 people, we're giving people access. No, what they're actually doing is putting up a barrier,

00:06:39.560 and then saying certain people can come through and everyone else will be left behind. So certainly

00:06:45.640 not the case. If you look around the rest of the world, this works perfectly everywhere else.

00:06:49.560 If someone says that to you already, I just think that they're lying or they're misinformed.

00:06:53.340 The thing that really worries me, Silky, is if you had told me this in 2019 or 2018,

00:06:59.940 I wouldn't have been as worried or as suspicious of government. But after COVID,

00:07:05.440 after lockdowns, after people were getting arrested for going to the beach, I'm like,

00:07:11.300 under no circumstances. I mean, think about a COVID type situation. What would that involve

00:07:16.460 with digital ID? Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I think already we know that, God forbid,

00:07:22.860 if there's another pandemic, this mandatory digital ID becomes a mandatory vaccine ID.

00:07:28.120 Starmer already supported that during the pandemic. And of course, the Johnson government

00:07:32.420 introduced them. And that's what we had. We also had contact tracing where everyone had to

00:07:38.440 use a QR code to go to the pub. Basically, you had to use it to scan in and create a log of all of

00:07:44.560 your social interactions and everything that you were doing. Apply that context with a digital ID,

00:07:51.420 and suddenly you've got something that's not just about getting a job, but actually that creates a

00:07:56.200 very, very comprehensive record of everything that you're doing. And again, is used like a permit.

00:08:01.100 If you don't have the right vaccine status, you're not going to school, you're not going,

00:08:05.840 you're not travelling, you're not, you know, whatever the conditions are. And I think that's

00:08:11.280 a realistic concern. I think something that a huge portion of the public is very, very alive to that

00:08:18.800 risk. And so we should be. Every future moral panic that this country faces will have digital ID

00:08:27.080 present itself in some format as the solution. If you also think about the moral panics we have

00:08:32.300 online, and this is where I really worry about how digital ID will play out because we see so many

00:08:38.760 moral panics about the internet. We will see digital ID introduced as a solution. Children online and

00:08:47.020 their safety, age gating the internet, making sure that people can only see certain content,

00:08:52.300 you know, if they're this or that age. It's a nightmare. Already under the Online Safety Act,

00:08:59.540 we have now age requirements, ID requirements for the internet. We are that close to a situation where

00:09:06.940 you basically need a digital ID to go online. And of course, when this is introduced, the answer will be,

00:09:12.780 why aren't we using digital IDs for access to the internet when there's a pandemic? Why aren't we

00:09:18.520 using it to scan people's vaccine status? And so we're going to see this very, very quickly spiral out

00:09:25.220 of control, I think. And I don't think it's just, you know, I don't want to put too many conditions on

00:09:32.060 what I'm saying. But just to be absolutely clear, it won't be acceptable for anyone to say that raising

00:09:38.520 these risks makes you a conspiracy theorist. We have to put that idea to bed. Because what we are

00:09:44.640 actually saying is this is a politically and historically informed risk assessment, basically,

00:09:50.840 of what's coming. And we've been through that experience just in the last few years with COVID.

00:09:56.420 Well, absolutely. And the other thing that really worries me is this word safety, Silky, because we can

00:10:01.460 see the more we've gone through this period of time, we know that words are being used in one context,

00:10:07.700 but they mean something else. For instance, safety. This is a safe space. No, it's not a safe space.

00:10:11.920 It just means you don't want your ideas to be challenged. So when people go safety, will that

00:10:16.840 mean people who have the wrong opinions aren't allowed in a particular space? Will it actually

00:10:21.540 mean, like you say, a vaccine, if you haven't taken your vaccines? Will it mean, for instance,

00:10:26.300 if you attended a particular protest, does that therefore mean that that is the wrong type of protest?

00:10:31.840 You are far right. Oh, maybe you don't get a doctor's appointment or maybe you can't travel.

00:10:36.560 I think in the context of identity wars and the kind of cultural divisions that we have,

00:10:42.640 introducing an identity card is a really bad idea. And also there is an assault on anonymity,

00:10:48.420 online in particular. And we've seen, yet again, I was reading this weekend, people

00:10:52.340 being visited by the police for saying fairly ordinary things, certainly things you'd hear in

00:10:57.840 any pub. So I absolutely fear that, for example, your online activity will be linked to a digital

00:11:08.560 ID. Or certainly there will be people calling for that. And many of those people are in the Labour

00:11:14.280 Party. You know, it's actually the department that worked on the Online Safety Act, the

00:11:23.680 Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, is now going to be running the digital ID. So the

00:11:30.900 same department that has been calling for ID requirements online, on the internet, on social

00:11:35.220 media, will now be developing the digital ID. In fact, the same individual, I think, will be in

00:11:41.740 charge of the same of this project. So I think that that is a very, very rational concern that we

00:11:49.020 could see this bleed into many different areas. Well, it's inevitable. And look, I'm not the

00:11:56.200 smartest guy in the world, but even I can imagine a hundred different scenarios when I can make a

00:12:02.740 bulletproof argument why this digital ID must be used. I mean, Francis gave one of them. If you are

00:12:07.960 attending a protest in central London, you need to scan in through the barrier so that we know who

00:12:13.620 everybody is to ensure everyone's safety. Who can argue against that? And then you've got everyone

00:12:19.220 who attended a protest. Then you can be extra judicious about monitoring their online activity,

00:12:24.900 making sure they haven't tweeted something wrong in the last five years, and on and on it goes. And

00:12:30.320 that's just one example. But we could apply that principle to hundreds of things. And suddenly,

00:12:35.800 you essentially create a compliance ladder where people have to do what the government thinks is the

00:12:42.600 right thing to do in order to live their lives. And I just, I don't understand, that's not the

00:12:48.620 British attitude to liberty, as far as I understand this country. Completely. This is a completely

00:12:54.200 un-British idea. I think we should talk more about that, especially given that Starmer has introduced it

00:12:59.460 on the pretext of patriotism, which is a joke. But on this point about protests and free speech as well,

00:13:07.460 I think you're absolutely right. And a relevant thing that's happening that I've spoken to you guys about

00:13:12.040 before, is the introduction of live facial recognition cameras, which are being used much,

00:13:18.100 much more in this country now. The Home Office right now is supporting essentially an expansion

00:13:23.200 of live facial recognition across multiple police forces. And we will see that being used at some

00:13:29.180 protests as well. The reason that's relevant is the digital ID is linked to your facial biometric.

00:13:34.960 The government has said that already. So effectively, your barcode, in terms of the state having a record

00:13:43.640 on you, is your face. So at the same time as a facial biometric digital ID is being made mandatory for

00:13:51.340 every single person in the country, cameras are being introduced that scan your facial biometric.

00:13:57.920 So yes, I mean, again, you can't call anyone a conspiracy theorist for saying two plus two equals four.

00:14:05.800 And so we can see that these things, these bits of surveillance architecture put together do create

00:14:12.180 an enormous, very dystopian surveillance state. I do think it's likely that we could see things like

00:14:18.460 that used at protests and in ways that, yeah, as you say, risk, judge people's risk to give them entry into

00:14:27.500 certain places and not to others.

00:14:30.400 Yeah. So I was just going to say, because what we're effectively talking about here is a Chinese social

00:14:34.680 credit score, isn't it?

00:14:36.520 It's something that people have worried about. I've worried about it. And I'm worried about it for a really long time.

00:14:41.840 Um, I think in what form we, we get this kind of mass surveillance system, I think it will differ,

00:14:49.880 but I think also that the, the, the product of it has some similarities nonetheless. If you have a softer

00:14:56.400 system, if you have a system where individuals know that they are being watched and recorded and data

00:15:03.680 about them is being collected and it can be judged, we change the way that we behave. And I would challenge

00:15:08.940 anyone to say that they don't now think twice about the way that they behave online, for example, and the

00:15:14.020 things that they post, because already we have quite, the culture has gone to a place where you worry that

00:15:20.460 what your employer or, uh, a future employer or, or the police might think about some of the things you

00:15:26.780 tweet, um, because of the kind of, um, punitive culture that we've, um, that we, that we've built. Um, so I think

00:15:35.020 already people feel, feel watched and the police themselves and the more bits of surveillance you

00:15:40.520 add on, um, the worse that becomes, whether it falls into a full blown Chinese style, um, social

00:15:47.620 kind of credit system, who knows, but it feels, it feels less laughable today, doesn't it? Then it

00:15:54.220 probably did, you know, five years ago.

00:15:55.980 Well, this is why I really want to unpack and address your point. You've mentioned a couple of

00:15:59.800 times, you know, we're not conspiracy theorists here. And I want to really address this because

00:16:04.040 none, understanding why digital ID and this entire infrastructure is dangerous does not require

00:16:11.540 an ounce of conspiratorialism whatsoever. You just have to apply basic logic. The people who are

00:16:17.200 doing this, it's Keir Starmer and behind him, we know this is being pushed by the Tony Blair Institute.

00:16:22.200 Tony Blair tried to push ID cards through 20 years ago. And the reason is, and Tony Blair will tell you

00:16:28.340 himself, he's a technocrat. That means he believes that government, big government, the introduction

00:16:34.000 of government information about everybody aggregating data, using that combined with AI is a way to

00:16:40.580 drive humanity forward. He will say so himself, you don't need to be conspiratorial. So they believe

00:16:45.960 that if they could have as much information and data about everybody in a centralized location,

00:16:50.500 they can make things better. That's so you don't have to be conspiratorial and think there's some,

00:16:56.500 you know, there's pedo lizards running the world trying to make this happen. You just have to look at 0.94

00:17:01.240 it logically and imagine that you are a person who views the world in that way. And then it all

00:17:07.720 makes perfect sense. Of course, you'd want more data. Of course, you'd want a centralized database.

00:17:12.540 Of course, you'd want to, do you remember the nudge unit? You want to shape human behavior 1.00

00:17:16.900 through government. Yeah. And this is a great way to do that. Yeah. Already, I mean, that's what,

00:17:23.920 although the briefing has been, this is only for the right to work, which is laughable.

00:17:27.680 Many ministers in government are saying exactly that, that it's the bedrock of the modern states,

00:17:33.080 that this is going to revolutionize people's relationship with government. I've also seen

00:17:38.440 a letter that was sent from the government round to... I mean, they're not wrong. 0.97

00:17:41.940 Yeah, absolutely right. But that's what I mean, though. But if you, you know, they are saying it

00:17:47.520 in their own words. But sometimes when you reflect it back, it's calm down. It's just for your right

00:17:52.680 to work, which it's really not. You only have to look at what they're actually saying about the

00:17:56.380 plans. I've seen a letter that was circulated in Parliament to members of Parliament, a letter from

00:18:02.240 the government about the plans, which says all of these things as well. It lists multiple departments

00:18:07.180 in government that could use this. And it talks about completely changing the relationship between

00:18:12.180 individuals and the government. That is what this is designed to do. And I think many members of

00:18:17.440 the public don't like it. And I don't like it, because we see what's coming. What's coming is a

00:18:22.820 very different way of governing the population. Some might even call it population control.

00:18:27.160 And like you say, if you're someone that is in favour of a big state, and nudging people and

00:18:32.200 controlling people and hoarding masses of data on them, then of course, it's a rational thing.

00:18:36.760 If you want to live in a free country in a democracy, then it's a very, very dangerous thing,

00:18:41.420 because people are going to have less power. And the more I've always said it is why I work on

00:18:47.300 surveillance issues and free speech, the more that you are watched, the more data that is collected

00:18:51.940 on you, the less power that you have. When we are then turned from being individuals who are

00:18:59.200 born free on the land and then have all of our rights and freedoms just by virtue of being born

00:19:03.680 here, when that's turned into actually you need to carry a licence, now you need a permit. Now you

00:19:09.260 only get those things if you're carrying your digital ID and telling the government where you are and

00:19:12.940 what you're doing and where you want to work and where you want to rent, then you're not really free

00:19:16.700 anymore. You have privileges, and those privileges can be taken away. A digital ID can't be taken

00:19:24.300 away, exactly. To manage your behaviour.

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00:20:19.500 The biggest red flag for me, and again, if people maybe are not as interested in these issues as

00:20:24.480 the three of us and haven't paid as much attention, or maybe they naturally trust the government more

00:20:28.660 than us, despite what we've seen in the last five years, I respect that. People can have a different

00:20:34.060 opinion, but I just ask them to look at the facts of this. The biggest red flag for me with all of

00:20:39.060 this is they're blatantly lying. They're just lying. They're saying this will help to deal with illegal

00:20:44.260 immigration. And their argument is, we'll be able to identify illegal immigrants when they apply for

00:20:49.420 a job or when they try to ransom it. But we know who the illegal immigrants are, a lot of them, 1.00

00:20:54.220 and they're still in this country. So knowing who they are is not going to help us deal with that

00:20:59.460 problem. I think that I completely agree that a massive red flag on this, and the reason that I

00:21:05.600 think it's gone down so badly with the public is that we are being blatantly lied to. And, you know,

00:21:12.080 the premise that this is being sold on is that it will stop people from working illegally in this

00:21:19.660 country. No one can explain, and we've seen Keir Starmer try, how that is the case. Somebody who comes

00:21:25.960 here, undocumented, and then works for £20, £30 cash a day in the local barbers or whatever, is not

00:21:33.440 going to be stopped by a digital ID. And already in this country, actually, every employer has a legal

00:21:39.300 duty to check someone's right to work. Already, it's quite onerous, really. And the same with landlords.

00:21:45.520 You're supposed to check somebody's passport or their national insurance number or their visa. So if you're

00:21:50.520 not already doing that, there is absolutely nothing to suggest that a digital ID will suddenly make you

00:21:55.520 decide you're going to do checks on all of your employees. It's for the birds. And even ministers

00:22:01.160 that have been sent out to try and defend this in the press have basically said, well, we know it's

00:22:05.720 not a silver bullet, which is just code for, yeah, we know it doesn't work. And that's not the reason.

00:22:11.080 There was one junior minister that went out a few days ago, and when questioned about how on earth do

00:22:17.760 you think it's going to have anything to do with illegal immigration, he actually said, well, of course,

00:22:22.660 it's got lots of other uses, but we don't want to talk about that now because the public will be sceptical,

00:22:28.580 he said. He said, we're not going to boil the ocean now, were his exact words, because the public would be

00:22:34.460 sceptical. They're just saying the quiet bit out loud. Anyone who looks at this seriously for more than two

00:22:41.180 seconds can see it's got absolutely nothing to do with stopping boats, smashing gangs, or any of the other

00:22:46.060 phrases that the government trots out. And I think what's so galling about it is that

00:22:51.080 Keir Starmer has exploited working class people's concerns about those issues and treated us like 0.94

00:22:59.760 we're really stupid to try and sell in something that's actually really oppressive and affects all 0.92

00:23:06.260 of us, all of our rights and all of our liberties. And so I don't see how you can talk about patriotic 0.99

00:23:13.060 renewal when you're treating your country like they're idiots. And he's getting the backlash 1.00

00:23:19.120 that he deserves.

00:23:20.540 Do you think part of the problem is as well for people who are ambivalent or don't really see the

00:23:26.000 problems that might come with this type of documentation is the fact that they've never

00:23:31.000 grown up or seen an authoritarian society? If you think the UK is the norm and that's how societies

00:23:37.840 have always been, then really you're not going to see the impending threat of authoritarianism at

00:23:43.400 your door, are you?

00:23:44.720 Maybe, but we lived through Covid, didn't we? So, I mean, we kind of have lived through some

00:23:49.620 kind of type of authoritarianism. But I think there's something else, I think there's something

00:23:55.620 that speaks directly to British culture here and about the way that we do actually cherish liberty

00:24:05.880 and freedom. And in a way, whilst we do have the fight of our lives on our hands in terms of getting

00:24:13.420 rid of digital ID, what's quite encouraging is that millions of people have said, no, we see this for

00:24:19.940 what it is. We don't trust the government, we don't carry papers, and we won't be carrying digital IDs.

00:24:26.600 And it's because we have never been a population that lives on licence to authorities. The authorities

00:24:31.840 work for us. We don't have to prove ourselves to anyone unless we've done something wrong.

00:24:36.640 And that's the kind of whole notion that underpins our society of the, you know, the free-born

00:24:40.980 Englishmen that just, we just live our lives freely until we incur on someone else's freedom.

00:24:45.620 Other countries that have IDs are countries that have more, like, permission-based systems of rule

00:24:52.900 and law that we don't have. We have common law freedoms. And so I do think it has, you know,

00:24:59.440 Keir Starmer has united the public, but just not at all in the way that he thought. Actually,

00:25:03.800 he's united the public against him. He's managed to tap into national values by demonstrating his

00:25:09.720 complete misunderstanding of them.

00:25:11.340 But do you think as well, how much of this do you think, Silky, is a government

00:25:16.340 they've been in power just over a year. It's a complete shambles. I mean, people are quite open.

00:25:21.820 This is one of the worst, most incompetent governments. I mean, even worse than many of

00:25:26.800 the Tory governments. How much of this do you think is a government realising they don't have any power

00:25:33.240 and they're going to do whatever they can to hold on to what little power they have left?

00:25:36.860 It does seem like a very desperate power grab. But I'm not sure that it will ever see, you know,

00:25:44.580 if we're successful, certainly, I don't know that it will ever see the light of day. What really

00:25:48.580 worries me about it is that it seems to suggest that there are people around Starmer that have

00:25:54.540 an enormous amount of influence that's unchecked. Anyone in Westminster, I'm pretty sure anyone in the

00:26:01.260 country could have heard this idea put on the table and said, don't do that. Don't do that. Now,

00:26:07.960 you're just on the back of a summer of scandals. You've got the lowest approval ratings of any

00:26:14.380 prime minister for decades, I think. And now you want to introduce something, a requirement on every

00:26:23.500 single member of the public, something that affects each and every one of our lives, that millions of

00:26:28.520 people won't be able to have, you know, just every single ingredient for it. You've also got the

00:26:32.120 historical echoes of Blair, the £5 billion of public money that was wasted on the biometric ID

00:26:42.440 scheme two decades ago. Starmer would have to be absolutely insane to put this down on the table now,

00:26:48.500 and yet he has. So clearly there's a political judgement failure, but it suggests that there are

00:26:52.720 people around him who have managed to convince him that this is a good idea. And of course,

00:26:58.240 we mentioned the Tony Blair Institute. There's also Labour Together, a think tank that was a pro-Starma

00:27:03.960 think tank that's very influential. And big tech funding that swims around those think tanks and

00:27:12.840 institutions from companies that would stand to earn many, many, many, many millions of pounds from

00:27:20.680 being involved in a mandatory digital ID system. So to me, and I think many others, this does smack of

00:27:30.700 big tech lobbying, basically, against all rational political judgement. It's very, very hard to think

00:27:37.800 of any other reason that this would be pushed at this point in time. Even Andy Burnham, who was the

00:27:47.540 ID cards minister under Blair, has said that this is, he doesn't support this, and this is the wrong

00:27:54.820 time, and this is a really bad idea. Well, one of the things we've done, and by the way, I've never

00:28:00.140 heard you talk as much about politicians as critically, because you're someone who's apolitical, and you

00:28:04.520 really try and stay out of it. And one thing I really do want to emphasise is how much this is not a

00:28:11.500 left-right issue. And the example that I always give to people is, if you are on the left, and you

00:28:16.980 believe that the evil Farage is about to take over and ruin everything, why on earth would you want to

00:28:22.900 give him and his party this much power to monitor and control what people say and do and where they

00:28:30.560 go? The idea that you would recognise that there's a political system in which your political opponents

00:28:37.020 will at some point be in charge, and you give them this sort of power over your lives, this doesn't

00:28:43.220 make any sense to me. It's an utter madness. There are very, very few issues in this country that could

00:28:49.420 unite Jeremy Corbyn and Nigel Farage, and ID cards is one of them. The left of the Labour Party,

00:28:56.240 if we look at who, the kind of political sands on this, the left of the Labour Party, the Greens,

00:29:01.340 Lib Dems, Reform, Conservatives, SNP, Plaid, everyone pretty much except Starmer and Starmerites

00:29:11.680 are against the digital ID proposal. So yeah, it's dead in the water. The problem is, from a public

00:29:19.880 point of view, the problem is that, of course, the numbers that they've got in Parliament mean that

00:29:24.920 almost certainly this will survive a Commons vote. And so despite the fact that absolutely no one wants

00:29:31.320 this, there is a real, real, real risk that this will pass into law in the next couple of years.

00:29:39.260 So what can we do right now? I mean, the petition, I haven't checked it as of this morning. We're

00:29:43.640 recording this a few days before it goes out. I imagine it's over well over two million now.

00:29:49.020 There's well over two million people have signed the official government, the petition on the

00:29:56.040 government website. We have a petition that has over 100,000 signatures. So yeah, combined,

00:30:01.980 we're probably looking at towards three million signatures on a petition against. And I think

00:30:07.760 now is the time for people, for anyone who cares about this issue, for anyone that doesn't want to

00:30:11.580 be having to carry a QR code, a digital barcode in order to live their lives. If you don't want your

00:30:19.020 children to do that, if you want to have any semblance of a free and open society, now is a

00:30:24.040 time to stand up and be counted. It's really not a time to sit out. And so I'd ask anyone who cares

00:30:30.280 about this to support groups like Big Brother Watch, join the campaign, sign up for our newsletters on

00:30:35.920 this, because this is just the beginning. And it's going to be a bit of a rocky couple of years.

00:30:40.180 Campaigners have done it before. You know, if you think about during the Blair years, this was

00:30:45.520 introduced, I mean, digital IDs are introduced every couple of years on the pretext of something

00:30:49.320 or other. But, you know, a couple of years ago, sorry, a couple of decades ago, this was on the

00:30:55.820 pretext of counterterrorism. And Blair was, you know, this massively popular prime minister, and still

00:31:01.560 the civil liberties campaign has won the argument at the end of the day, and got the Identity Cards

00:31:07.840 Act overturned. We can do it again, we've got to. So I'd ask people to support Big Brother Watch,

00:31:13.180 get involved in the campaign, and hopefully make digital IDs history.

00:31:17.100 Absolutely. And this is a really important moment. I think there's, you know, people have busy lives,

00:31:22.980 they've got families, they've got kids, they've got jobs and other things. But one of the reasons we

00:31:27.040 were so glad to have you on, and we've been talking about this ourselves, I just think people don't,

00:31:32.960 that you see this in the polling numbers, we're told that, you know, about half the country support

00:31:36.820 digital IDs. I don't believe that once they understand what it means. A lot of people,

00:31:42.700 as I would be if we were not doing this work, quite, you know, we're not well informed about

00:31:49.740 these issues, because they're complicated, and not that sexy, etc. But actually, they really,

00:31:57.880 really matter. And I think if people are more informed about it, you will see that the attitudes

00:32:01.880 change significantly. And it might make it through the commons, or even that is, you know, potentially

00:32:07.620 questionable. But you will, I think you will inevitably see a lot of pushback against it.

00:32:12.260 And by the time it comes to actually making it into law, I don't think this government is going

00:32:16.020 to be in charge anymore. That's the thing. So they've said that they want this to be mandatory

00:32:20.720 by 2029. It's not that far away, you know, by the end of their term, that apparently, all of us here

00:32:28.180 in this room would have our digital IDs in our pockets. And that will be required by law. So, you know,

00:32:34.960 I think, yeah, I think there's a big question mark about whether they can actually make that

00:32:40.020 reality. But we can't be complacent about it, because the numbers in Parliament really aren't

00:32:45.240 in our in our favour. I think though, with anything, when you've got half of the public

00:32:50.200 who oppose this, it's unlike any other issue, because it's half, that's half of the public who

00:32:56.820 then are saying potentially that they're not going to carry a digital ID, then suddenly, it's not

00:33:00.540 a mandatory national system, is it? So I think actually those numbers are massively

00:33:05.720 in our favour. If even a fraction of that half of the public that doesn't like this

00:33:10.940 decides to stand up and be counted, then we'll win.

00:33:14.480 No, I'm saying now, I will not carry this. This is not acceptable.

00:33:18.180 This is just not acceptable.

00:33:18.600 You'll be out of a job.

00:33:19.680 Yeah.

00:33:20.400 I think I'll be fine. And that's the point, actually. Those of us who do have that ability

00:33:24.560 to not be restricted by this, have a duty to say right now, I'm not participating in this.

00:33:31.440 This is not right.

00:33:32.440 I think one of the things that campaign groups like us will be important for is we need to

00:33:36.100 find a way of protecting the refuseniks.

00:33:38.180 Yes.

00:33:38.540 People who are going to work and their bosses are saying, look, there's nothing I can do

00:33:41.380 if you don't have your digital ID. You know, we did that during COVID as well. We looked

00:33:45.480 after people that were being shut out of their jobs and other places because of vaccine

00:33:51.200 card requirements. It's un-British. 0.79

00:33:53.900 We're against this sort of thing. We don't need them. It's absolutely ludicrous that a 1.00

00:33:57.960 British passport is not enough for an employer to prove that you're British and that you have

00:34:02.620 the right to work. You've got to have Starmer's ID card. It's absolute rubbish. So it's another

00:34:07.580 reason that, you know, for groups like us really need more strength right now to deal with what's

00:34:14.420 coming.

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00:35:15.480 I mean, the other thing that there's an odd whiff about this, you go, oh, so who's going to be in

00:35:21.000 charge of implementing it? Oh, it's you and Blair, Tony Blair's son.

00:35:25.560 I don't know. I mean, I've heard, I've read about those rumours, but I don't know yet. They're at such

00:35:31.060 an early stage. I don't know that anyone's contracted at all. But one thing is for sure that the companies

00:35:38.280 who are front in line to be contracted are, many of them are the same companies that give vast amounts

00:35:46.600 of funding to the Tony Blair Institute, Labour Together, and some of the people around the Starmer

00:35:52.320 administration. So that is definitely something to look out for. And I know there are lots of

00:35:57.200 journalists that are looking into this now.

00:35:59.260 And I think one of the things that we haven't talked about yet, but we really should be, is

00:36:03.260 they're going to harvest all this data. How secure is it going to be in a city like London,

00:36:09.460 where every six days you get your phone nicked by someone on a bike, and basically it's going to be

00:36:14.140 on an app. Somebody smart is going to come up with something where they're just going to wipe it

00:36:18.440 and or they're just, well, they're going to be able to take your ID.

00:36:21.460 I think it's a massive risk that if we're carrying around something so sensitive on our phones,

00:36:27.220 what happens when your phone breaks, gets lost, stolen. And then there's a whole other layer of

00:36:32.540 security risks, which is that national security these days basically is cyber security.

00:36:38.000 The Ministry of Defence in this country has been hacked, I think, over 40 times in the past decade.

00:36:45.480 We lost information about some of our spies and people who've been working undercover in Afghanistan

00:36:55.660 thanks to cyber security risks. If we can't protect their data, how are we going to protect the,

00:37:03.800 I mean, it'll be well over 100 million people's data, because bear in mind, it's not just Brits

00:37:08.840 who are going to have a Brit card. It's actually anyone living or working in the country.

00:37:14.960 So it's going to be an astronomically sized database. That's happening at the same time

00:37:22.100 as the government is developing something called a national data library, which is basically a centre

00:37:30.180 for processing masses of data collected about the population and introducing AI in more and more areas

00:37:38.500 of government. So it does seem very, very likely that, again, a digital ID will become basically

00:37:44.240 a barcode that gains access to a set of reams of your information that then will very likely be

00:37:52.300 processed by different private contractors or arms of government. Who knows? But if we look at the how

00:37:59.820 what's happened with the NHS, which is a massive trove of data, already we've had the likes of Google

00:38:05.960 gaining unlawfully access to parts of NHS data and processing that with AI. This is like some of the

00:38:14.580 most valuable data anywhere in the world. So it's sort of inevitable that our data will be

00:38:23.020 hoarded and processed in that way. And in ways that we won't have any control over. That's the problem.

00:38:28.240 It's a mandatory system. If Starmer was saying he wants people to opt into this, everyone's going to

00:38:32.100 love it. Come and get your digital ID. Let's see how that pans out. But the whole point is that we

00:38:36.660 will legally have no choice.

00:38:39.040 And what's interesting as well is when we interviewed a professor of AI and ethics from Oxford University,

00:38:44.300 her name is Carissa Valise, it was a brilliant interview. She said that China are actually rolling

00:38:49.560 back some of their data harvesting because they realise it's a national security threat.

00:38:55.760 Yeah. Because if you if you get hacked, then enemies can then use that, manipulate it or do whatever they want.

00:39:03.200 Sorry to interject, by the way. I know a lot of people think about data breaches as like this big hacking

00:39:08.740 operation of multi-million dollars from some evil. No, it's like a civil servant lifts his fucking laptop 0.99

00:39:14.640 on a train. And then that's that's what the data breaches actually look like. 0.99

00:39:18.580 And we can do. They can do. Yeah. In fact, it was something almost exactly like that that happens in the

00:39:25.280 noughties that was critical to the downfall of Blair's ID scheme because people just didn't trust it

00:39:31.620 because the government kept losing masses of data. And it happens all the time. Yeah. And especially

00:39:36.600 now in the context that we're living in where, you know, we do face really serious cybersecurity risks

00:39:42.980 from the likes of China and Russia. This will be that there will basically be a target over this

00:39:49.520 database. And if it is compromised, then the consequences could be really, really grave for

00:39:56.600 for the whole country, to be honest, but also for individuals. The fact that our biometric data will

00:40:04.040 be on there potentially with everything from tax, health, where you live, work, enormous amounts of

00:40:10.760 data about you. But underpinned by that biometric, it's really serious. You can't that's information you

00:40:16.940 can't change. It's not like if you lose a password, you quickly change your password and then try and

00:40:21.340 protect everything again. You can't change your face. You can't change your fingerprints. So it

00:40:26.220 really means that the risks here are elevated massively. And it's also coming down to competency

00:40:31.600 as well. If people are watching this and they're like, I don't know what side of the fence to fall on

00:40:36.220 with this particular thing. Do you trust this government to be able to do anything effectively or

00:40:41.280 competently? We don't have a border. Let's just be honest about that. We don't. People flood in. 0.97

00:40:45.860 We go we're trying to deport people. I think the first flight that we for people to be deported

00:40:51.500 from this country left empty. How do you expect them to run this? Well, and and an IT program that

00:40:58.640 the government running anything, you know, as you say, people always question the competence of

00:41:03.840 government, especially at the moment. But the government running an IT project. No, that that it's

00:41:10.140 always, always plagued with really serious issues and cost the country billions of pounds as well.

00:41:16.520 It's something else. It just hasn't been factored in here. How much is it going to cost?

00:41:20.220 You know, the country just simply doesn't have the money to waste on this going absolutely

00:41:24.380 nowhere. I think the border security command costs about 100 million pounds. There's a budget of about

00:41:31.700 100 million pounds. Well, five billion was wasted last time this country tried to introduce digital

00:41:38.300 IDs. That's about 50 times the amount of the border security command. Very, very clearly,

00:41:43.220 this isn't about immigration. So again, I think if somebody's struggling to kind of choose a side on

00:41:48.860 this issue, the starting point is the government's lying to you. This isn't being introduced in order

00:41:54.400 to root out people working illegally in this country. So the next question is, why is it being 0.99

00:42:01.020 introduced? And how is it going to impact your life? And I think those are some of the things that

00:42:06.420 obviously we're talking about today. I think they're things to be really worried about.

00:42:10.160 Do you think it's a very cynical ploy by Starmer as a way to actually try and sell this to people who

00:42:15.580 are very concerned and quite rightly so about illegal immigration? I think it's appalling. I think it's a 1.00

00:42:21.540 disgraceful way to treat the public. Keir Starmer is treating the public like we're complete idiots. 1.00

00:42:29.600 He's used the pretext to rehash a very old policy that's really unpopular. And he's thought that by 1.00

00:42:35.500 tapping into these concerns, and then talking about patriotism, that he could sell it into the public in

00:42:41.860 a new way. That's backfired. Instead, everyone's looking at him and saying, you're clearly not telling

00:42:46.300 the truth. It's clearly not about that. So you've shown two things. One is that you've got absolutely no

00:42:50.460 idea what to do about people working illegally in the country. And second, is that you don't

00:42:55.340 understand patriotism at all. You don't understand British values, because this is about as un-British 0.92

00:42:59.980 as it gets. We've always rejected ID cards, and we're going to reject them this time around.

00:43:04.880 Well, that's the hope here for me politically. And look, you know, Francis says it's the worst

00:43:09.680 government in history. I actually don't think that's true. I don't think they're particularly

00:43:13.140 incompetent more than the Tories or whatever. And I said this at the time when the election happened.

00:43:18.180 I did an article in a video about it. And the point I was making is Britain's problems are

00:43:23.000 structural in nature. They were going to be very difficult to solve no matter who's in charge.

00:43:27.400 Starmer is very, very unpopular because he hasn't made an impact on those issues. But I just do not

00:43:33.640 understand the electoral logic behind this. It's suicidal. Absolutely. And if they want to try this,

00:43:40.060 I think we will make this his poll tax. It could well be the end of his premiership if he actually

00:43:47.520 goes for this. But the problem is he's committed to it now. So he's either in a position where he

00:43:53.560 has to go all out and then it will become his poll tax or he has to do a U-turn, which will also not

00:43:59.120 be great. Yeah. It's a weird time. That's why I think we can't be complacent about it. It's quite

00:44:06.100 clear the writing's on the wall. This has bombed in the worst possible way. Any policy that affects

00:44:12.340 every single individual member of the public that half of them are saying no to is going to be a

00:44:17.620 disaster. But he's in it now. He's made the commitment. And they've put a time frame on it.

00:44:22.060 They've said that by 2029, each and every one of us will have to have this digital ID. So it does mean

00:44:29.460 really that if we are to defeat it, which I think we can and we will, the way in which that happens

00:44:36.120 will probably be one of the nails in the coffin for Starmer, because it really threatens his

00:44:41.460 premiership. Especially since he's introduced this policy at Labour conference, when the conference

00:44:47.880 is supposed to be about his survival and about the survival of the government. And the flagship policy

00:44:53.080 is giving us all a digital ID. He's shown how completely out of touch he is with the public.

00:44:59.120 He's tried to lie to the public. It hasn't gone down well. And I think he will reap the consequences,

00:45:05.000 but it won't come easily for us as campaigners. Well, we're going to have to make sure that doesn't

00:45:09.840 happen. One of the things I just find, you've highlighted a couple of times already, just how

00:45:15.160 extraordinary the deceit is in this all. Because you've got a large number of people who, as Francis

00:45:21.680 says, rightly are frustrated with the fact that we have an open border. It's not because they hate

00:45:26.700 immigrants. It's just like countries need borders. It's a basic requirement of statehood.

00:45:30.700 And that is being used, that legitimate concern that people have expressed for a long time,

00:45:37.360 which is driving the rise of reform that Labour are so concerned about. That is being used in a

00:45:43.240 way that they're not actually going to fix the problem. Instead, they're going to deliver this

00:45:46.900 authoritarian policy that will be in our lives. Much like, you know, we are now, a lot of people,

00:45:52.800 I think, realizing that many of the reasons the country is screwed up in the ways that it's

00:45:56.640 screwed up is because of the Blair government 20 years ago that introduced a bunch of legislation

00:46:01.060 that we're still living the consequences of. So you're going to get an abortive Starmer government

00:46:05.940 that's in power for a couple of years, whose only legacy is to do these shenanigans. And we are then

00:46:11.960 left, if they are successful, with this crap on the statute book. 0.88

00:46:16.020 Yeah, I think part of the reason that people are flooding to reform is because they don't trust 0.96

00:46:21.520 politicians anymore. And they just want something new. And it seems anti-establishment. That's kind of

00:46:26.340 the read that some people have. And this policy actually demonstrates, yet again, that the public

00:46:37.920 is being lied to by people who think that they can treat us like we're completely ignorant and born 0.93

00:46:45.820 yesterday and the public aren't buying it. I think there was some weird irony about the fact that

00:46:55.060 Starmer introduced this in a speech about patriotic renewal, he was saying. And he was talking about

00:47:00.060 reform quite directly and saying that he was talking about working class people having the

00:47:05.860 politics of grievance. And he was implying that a lot of this grievance that people have is

00:47:10.260 manufactured, which I think is. And then minutes later, he said, so we're going to have a digital

00:47:18.000 ID to stop the boats. So I think he has built up a caricature of the working class and saying that

00:47:25.480 the things that working class people care about aren't really real. But let me borrow one of those, 0.87

00:47:31.260 stopping the boats. And there you go. Here's the policy we've been trying to do for the past couple

00:47:35.420 of decades. It's really, I think it's really, really appalling. If people felt before they didn't

00:47:41.460 know what Starmer stands for, I think maybe they know now. And it's basically some sort of bland

00:47:48.500 Blairite policies and corporate interests. I think that's what this feels like. It feels like

00:47:53.960 population management doesn't really feel like someone that's got an aspiration for the country

00:47:58.440 that understands the things that ordinary people care about or the values that we live by.

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00:49:30.300 Do you remember when we were kids, Silky, and we said something that people didn't like and went,

00:49:36.480 oh, it's a free country, what are you going to do? Nobody says that anymore, do they?

00:49:41.420 It feels much less free, doesn't it? Yeah, no, absolutely. And like you say, if this does go

00:49:48.320 ahead, if we do have mandatory digital IDs, it will be one of the legacies of the Starmer government

00:49:54.140 that we then continue to live with. It's not something... The harms that are caused by something like

00:49:59.500 a mandatory digital ID scheme are long-lasting and irreversible. We have to be really clear about

00:50:05.120 that. You don't introduce something like this and then six months later have it taken away and

00:50:10.540 everyone deletes their digital ID. It doesn't happen. If this is rolled out, it's something that

00:50:15.560 the British public are going to have to live with. If it's something we have to live with, it is

00:50:19.400 something that will expand and grow in all of the ways that we've discussed, from the internet

00:50:23.400 to benefits, health, AI being used to process the data. If you just look at the flow of the tide in

00:50:32.520 politics towards all of these areas, digital ID will become the thing that gets caught up and that

00:50:38.680 gets expanded every single time. In fact, the question will be, why aren't we using the digital

00:50:45.880 IDs for this? Let's say, let's start with, it's going to be used for the right to work.

00:50:50.480 Currently, they're looking at somebody's citizenship and immigration status. Why aren't

00:50:58.180 they looking at their benefit status? That's an oversight, isn't it? Shouldn't we look at their

00:51:02.100 benefit status? If we're looking at their benefit status, shouldn't we look at their bank accounts

00:51:05.860 and see actually what money's in the bank accounts? Again, let's look at this in concert.

00:51:11.180 The Starmer government has just introduced mass bank spying powers on the premise of rooting out

00:51:16.040 welfare fraud. The work and pensions... Can I just pause you there? What does mass

00:51:21.040 banking spying powers, what does that actually mean in the realities of it, the practicalities?

00:51:27.800 So the Starmer government has just introduced a new law that means that private banks have to

00:51:33.520 search data about all of us, basically root through our bank statements all the time,

00:51:38.540 in order to flag people that they think might be receiving a benefit that shouldn't be receiving a

00:51:44.680 benefit. And given how complex the benefit system is, that's obviously destined for disaster.

00:51:52.300 But that's millions and millions of our bank statements being rooted through for government

00:51:59.040 administration purposes, basically. So we're seeing expansions of surveillance in multiple

00:52:04.100 different areas of life. That's on the premise of rooting out welfare fraud. The work and pensions

00:52:09.680 secretary has said in the days after the announcement about digital IDs, we can use this

00:52:16.340 for welfare fraud too. It's something that Blair said years ago. So soon then you've got, it's not

00:52:22.580 just about the right to work, it's also about benefits. When it's about benefits, it's about banking.

00:52:28.560 Again, the government webpage has already spoken about digital IDs being used for private banking too.

00:52:32.800 And then when you've got benefits work and banking, you probably should have health because that relates

00:52:39.400 to your benefits as well. And so the force, the impetus will be, why aren't you using the digital ID for

00:52:49.420 these other areas? It's an oversight, isn't it? And so that's how it will expand.

00:52:54.420 We could cut theft from supermarkets by making sure everyone taps in at the entrance, couldn't we?

00:52:58.700 Sure. Right? You can't come in unless you've scanned your digital ID. You know, we've got a lot of people

00:53:04.320 stealing stuff from shops, right? Because the police aren't enforcing the law. So we could solve that

00:53:09.660 with digital ID. And on and on and on and on it goes. Because once you have the infrastructure,

00:53:15.420 you are not going to run out of reasons to use it.

00:53:17.820 Yeah. I think with all of this, if you don't make the case for liberty, you just give way to

00:53:22.400 authoritarianism. The time to make case for liberty is now. Because this is the opening of the floodgates,

00:53:30.340 the introduction of a mandatory digital ID. That's the point of no return. Once we've got one,

00:53:36.100 fighting its expansion will be very, very difficult. But the time to really put up a fight is now,

00:53:41.240 so that we never have a mandatory digital ID in this country. Because if we do, what's inevitable is

00:53:46.420 that it will spiral into many, many areas of our life. And it will become a permit. And it will

00:53:50.160 become something that is used not to help people gain access to stuff, but to stop people from

00:53:55.440 doing stuff that the government doesn't want them to do. And also as well, just, and I think this is

00:53:59.740 an important point to raise. Let's go back again to COVID. Do you remember the trucker protests?

00:54:04.580 In Canada, yeah. In Canada. Do you remember when they froze bank accounts? Exactly.

00:54:08.500 I mean, if it's linked to your bank account, and you're doing something that the government finds

00:54:12.360 affects the safety of others, and we've spoken about how nebulous that term is. Well, I mean,

00:54:17.940 it's one step away from freezing bank accounts, isn't it? Yes. Well, that's, and look, we,

00:54:22.380 Boris Johnson sat in your seat right there when we interviewed him. And in the sub-stack section,

00:54:28.220 which we're about to do with you, where our supporters get to ask our guests questions,

00:54:32.680 we talked about COVID. And I said to him, look, you are, you were this libertarian prime minister.

00:54:38.720 And yet you did all of these things. And do you know what he said? He said, well,

00:54:42.160 this is what the public wanted. Now, I remember the public, quite a lot of the public wanted people

00:54:47.860 who weren't vaccinated not to be allowed to go to the hospital, not to get a doctor's appointment.

00:54:53.640 So if you were in a situation where the public demands something, and you've got a class of

00:54:58.660 politicians who will do whatever it is the public demands, because the media has lied to them

00:55:02.560 endlessly, what you're going to end up in, if you've got this system, is people denied all kinds of

00:55:08.140 things, not just banking. You know, you attended a protest, or you didn't get vaccinated, or you did

00:55:12.620 this, or you did that. Well, why should you get a doctor's appointment on our brilliant NHS?

00:55:17.900 What, do you deserve that? No. We've tracked your behavior. You tweeted three times about

00:55:22.400 how the NHS isn't as good as it should be. It's, it's, people, you made the point about

00:55:28.540 conspiratorial. I really don't think this is conspiratorial at all. This is not hard to imagine

00:55:33.200 when you look at the last five years that we all lived through.

00:55:36.480 Yeah. I don't think we should be squeamish about pointing out the risks whatsoever.

00:55:40.600 Because at this point, we have lived through that period. And also, we just, we just cannot

00:55:46.300 assess something like this without applying the political knowledge that we have and historical

00:55:52.680 knowledge that we have. And Johnson, the fact that the Johnson government introduced COVID IDs is

00:56:00.180 a perfect example. You had somebody that professed to be a libertarian, who's now saying in light of

00:56:05.440 Starmer's announcement that he will never carry a digital ID. And yet, when he was in government,

00:56:10.660 he basically did introduce one himself. People know that governments kind of follow the tide of

00:56:20.220 public opinion, which, by the way, is not, you know, there are elements to which opinion can be

00:56:25.220 guided and manufactured as well, of course. And I think that's why people don't trust this,

00:56:31.640 and people aren't going to buy it. And millions and millions of people, you're one, I'm one.

00:56:36.180 Francis, you're going to have a digital ID?

00:56:37.560 Oh, absolutely. I'm not here for it.

00:56:39.900 Millions of us just won't do it.

00:56:41.500 Right. Yeah.

00:56:42.040 Well, on that happy note, Cirque, it's always great to have you on the show. Please keep up

00:56:45.160 your good work at Big Brother Watch. We're big fans of yours. It's always great to have you on the

00:56:49.180 show. We're going to ask you a bunch of questions from our supporters in a second. But before we do,

00:56:54.380 what do you think is the one thing that we're not talking about that we should be?

00:56:56.920 I think what no one's talking about is the massive expansion of surveillance in other areas at the

00:57:03.600 moment that, put together with the digital ID, we should be really worried about. The massive

00:57:07.660 expansion of live facial recognition cameras across the country, and mass banks buying powers

00:57:13.600 as well that have been introduced by the Starmer government. So this is a government that's expanding

00:57:18.520 surveillance in lots of different areas. And so when we talk about digital ID, it's important to

00:57:24.720 think about the other things that are happening and how these might link together.

00:57:28.520 Silky, thank you very much. Head on over to triggerpod.co.uk where we ask Silky your questions.

00:57:34.600 At what point do these increasingly authoritarian laws spill over to no longer being a free country?

00:57:40.380 And what point is the tipping point at which we all say no more?

00:57:54.720 Yeah.

00:57:55.540 Just because we think that we all say no more.

00:57:58.400 Absolutely.

00:57:59.500 Thank you.

00:57:59.780 Thank you.

00:58:00.420 Thank you.

00:58:00.600 Thank you.

00:58:00.660 Thank you.

00:58:01.720 Thank you.

00:58:06.040 Thank you.

TRIGGERnometry - October 05, 2025

Why You Should Be Worried About Digital ID - Silkie Carlo

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