2025-09-28
If it looks like a distraction, inflames the media like a distraction, and riles up the sceptics like a distraction ... maybe it's just that - a distraction.
By the by, it was also built up like a distraction for some time prior to the announcement.
It's not that I approve of DID, it's just that if we thought about this for two minutes, we might realise that the government could probably implement everything that a digital id would enable, and do it tomorrow, without bothering to set up a new id system.
They are only "incompetent" when (a) they want to divert tax money illegally to their cronies or (b) they want to wriggle out of taking the blame for breaking their promises to the electorate.
Virtually everybody already has a National Insurance number, which is linked to almost every activity that we undertake. And cash in the form of notes is already read by machines that issue them from our bank account, and receive them when we buy the essentials of life at shops and supermarkets, notes which have individual numbers that can be read by machines ...
People who don't have an NI number because they aren't permitted to work here could be simply issued with a NI number that prohibits them from working here. Voila - a National Id number!
So the only link "missing" is to tell the authorities what we bought at the cash desk/machine by linking the pound notes/bank debit to the items on our till receipt - not exactly an insuperable problem to a supermarket or shop once the software is updated and installed - they might not even know it's happening ...
All other electronic banking transactions could be similarly linked between accounts, and may already be so linked for all I know - it's not rocket science, and likely already exists behind the scenes even if not yet extended to all small traders - but how much do we buy from small traders in the scale of things?
And so to the question that matters - what are they trying to distract us from?
