Many people in the UK are concerned about Kier Starmer’s latest ploy to initiate nationwide surveillance. In just one day, 1 million UK citizens have signed a petition against this scheme. Based on what I have heard, it will be mandatory and it looks like elderly people who don’t currently use smartphones, may have to purchase them and install this app, whether they want to or not, under the guise of reducing “digital exclusion”.
I don’t know if this app will work on our murena phones. I suspect that it will be full of trackers and require permissions to everything on them.
Would the data providers know if people were using a smartphone or a dumbphone with one of their sim cards?
I am interested to know what other members think about this development.
They have said that physical cards will be available for people without smartphones.
I oppose this but if it gets through parliament, I shall be taking the card option. I have no relationship with Google nor Apple and I mean to keep it that way. Will it work on Murena phones? I don’t know but I don’t trust any phone enough for banking so certainly not for this. That goes for any device where I don’t have root.
I hope you are right. I would also prefer a card, if that was an option. The reason I thought that cards were not going to be offered as an alternative, is that I was listening to an interview with a labour mp this afternoon. She was specifically asked about older people who don’t have smartphones and she did not mention that physical cards were an option. She just started talking about “digital exclusion”. Maybe she was poorly informed about Labour’s plans?
There are too many people who neither have nor want nor can afford to buy a smartphone for them to ignore it. The prisons are full.
I wondered if they might try to bribe non smartphone users into getting one by offering discounts on phones but, apparently that is about 3 million people. Then there are all the people using older, unsupported phones that may well not be compatible with the app. I don’t think that this will be as easy to implement as the government thinks, unless they do offer the card option.
Agreed. What particularly irks me is the way, when challenged about the whole thing, they say people are used to and quite happy to share personal information with Facebook, Google, etc. People have a choice about whether or not to do that and not everybody chooses to. It’s as though they think we’re all the same. It’s absolutely gobsmacking when that thought is at the root of so many current and historic evils.
For anyone reading all of this and thinking “what’s the problem?”, have some historical background reading…
Have just seen this article on The Register about the digital id :
UK to roll out mandatory digital ID for right to work by 2029
It does not mention the option of a card here either.
That was an interesting article and highlights the point well that once your personal information is in the hands of government, anything might happen, whether you don’t have anything to hide or not.
I have heard people on the radio today saying how everybody is happy to share their data, in relation to this subject of Digital ID’s. It made me so angry because it makes my life more difficult every day, than for other people, avoiding sharing my data because I am definitely not happy to do it!
- finding a car park that doesn’t require payment by app, especially when you are in a hurry
- being asked every single time that I go grocery shopping, wouldn’t I like to install their app?
- being asked why I am not on Whats App or Facebook, as if I must be mentally retarded for opting out of social media
- having to open a new current account with a different bank because my bank is scrapping their physical secure key and insisting on customers using a digital key with their app to log in
- Related to the last point, having to travel 7 miles to the nearest bank branch to get my ID checked in person rather than upload a lot of personal documents to some company (Mitek) that most of the UK banks seem to have now outsourced their ID checking to. It is strange that the bank only wanted 1 form of photo ID when I went to the branch but, online the company wanted much more - photo, driving licence or passport, proof of address, date of birth, national insurance no.
It would make my life a whole lot easier if I just gave in and shared everything with everyone. But, I still won’t be doing it, any time soon.
Ten years ago someone called me a dinosaur for not being on Facebook. It made me laugh because having been writing computer software since 1979, I know more about how all this stuff works than she will ever know. It also made me frustrated because no amount of explanation could change her mind. Unfortunately the situation hasn’t changed in the wider population. As Michael Gove said a few years ago, “we’ve had enough of experts.” We’re doomed.
I don’t know as much as you but, probably much more than your friend. However, even though I knew about apps, permissions, trackers, cookies etc, it was still a shock when I got my phone and started running Exodus reports on Apps before installing them. Now, I only install a couple of commercially produced apps (like Signal) and have found a number of great open source apps (thanks to you and some of the other forum members). I still keep the number of installed apps to a minimum and use secondary user accounts that I can easily replace to keep the main account as clean as possible. If I end up having to install this digital ID, I will either use a different phone or install it in it’s own separate user account.
But, now I must go and add my name to this petition against it.
I have also tried to explain to people about all of this but, have found no one else who is prepared to sacrifice some minor conveniences to protect their privacy. I firmly believe that most people willfully don’t want to understand or accept the hard truth.
Signal is non-profit, open source and available from the Guardian Project repository via f-droid. There is no need to get it from the Play store.
If Signal is open source (I got it from the Murena store) then the only other apps I use are protonmail and proton calendar. I think these are fairly private too? Open source apps I use on my secondary account are AntennaPod and Newsblur.
P.S. And Obsidian for Notes and information.
I assume so but haven’t really looked at them. Email is something I generally discourage people from using for anything private or personal due to the nature of the protocol. I just use it when dealing with businesses, government, etc.
I run my own Baikal calendar on my Yunohost server.
I use Proton VPN but I use it as a gateway via OpenVPN on a Proxmox container.
I will not be installing it whether it is supported or not.
Instead fight against you ask all to join this? Digital Id means no privacy at all. If that comes to e os means e os is useless. Also digital ID is first step for EBDC and your freedom and true democracy is lost. I wonder above all how UK come to this point? That any “third world country” has more human rights that you do. In UK! I heard that you in UK get prosecuted for posts on social network against globalism or woke or illegal immigrations? If that true, sorry but e os can not help you.
This is much exaggerated by our equivalent of MAGA types. Arrests are made when the posts contain threats of or incitement to violence.
The introduction of digital ID is likely due to both the current governments fear of losing votes to the aforementioned MAGA types, and the possibility of more closely tracking financial transactions with a view to increasing the tax take as the country is in dire financial straits. Neither are a good reason for doing it and the scope will inevitably widen.
Update :
Nearly 2.5 million votes against so far (including mine).
Regardless, I will not be installing this app on my main phone. If forced to, I will use an old phone with nothing else on it, on wifi. But, I plan to avoid doing this at all for as long as possible.
What I am reading myself this is far from MAGA / MUKGA and your description, for example,
Just today about Rose Docherty on BBC:
"A 75-year-old woman has been arrested for a second time for taking part in an anti-abortion protest outside a hospital in Glasgow.
Rose Docherty was detained on Hardgate Road, outside the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, on Wednesday while carrying a placard which stated “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want.”
…???
Reacting to her arrest, she said: "Everybody has the right to engage in consensual conversation
… "
She was just standing, no approach or word to anyone and get arrested?
This is worse than I was told about UK.Unbelievable.
How did such great nation came to such reality?
After all I read in one day about UK, Digital ID makes perfect sense, like nail in coffin of freedom and democracy.
I didnt wrote this to debate about human rights in UK, but I wonder if Eos have basic vision about near future and how this will refect on it.
Read this
We in the UK, quite reasonably, have various laws regarding harassment. The woman you refer to was suspected of being in contravention of one such law. If charged the prosecution will argue the case in court. She will have the right to defend herself against the accusation. She may be convicted or acquitted. The judge might even throw the case out.
Nothing much can be extrapolated from a single case. But it’s worth remarking that abortion is one of the battlegrounds currently being fought over by the MAGA crowd in the USA. So, since that mindset is on the rise in the UK, my earlier assertion is not exactly unreasonable.
As always, do the research from reputable sources and reach your own conclusions.