Starmer has on his vanity trip to India hailed the country’s creeping and deficient Digital ID scheme as a “massive success.” Making himself look like a tool…
The PM, who is apparently one of the only people in the Cabinet let alone the country who supports Digital ID, said yesterday that India has “already done ID and made a massive success of it… There is a case to be made about the benefits of voluntary ID into other areas, and obviously we need to make that case. I don’t know how many times the rest of you have had to look in the bottom drawer for three bills when you want to get your kids into school or apply for this or apply for that, it drives me to frustration.” There’s your mission creep…
Those with knowledge of Aadhar, the Indian state’s sprawling two-decade old Digital ID, know it is hugely deficient. The claim it has saved the state $10 billion per year – repeated by Labour – is in dispute. There have also been millions of glitches which blocked pensions to lepers and education to schoolchildren on benefits. The entire billion-strong system was compromised by a bad software patch and a new enlargement of the scheme to voter identificiation has disenfranchised millions of citizens. The new thrust of the scheme – to reach a “360 degree view” of citizens’ behaviour – has been disowned by the government official who came up with it…
Like Starmer-Card, Aadhar was founded on the grounds it would only be used to help Indian welfare recipients get their payouts more securely. Meanwhile ID photos of 70,000 Discord users have been breached by a hack. The petition in the UK against Digital ID has 2,847,925 signatures…
