I don’t want to call you out for this because it will make you quite defensive, so take it in the spirit that its intended: you seem irrational on this point. Perhaps theres an emotional element, because you’re frustrating me quite a lot.
The UK would be far from the first country in the world to have an ID system; we don’t need to deal in hypotheticals. I am extremely sympathetic to the idea that the UK government might abuse the system, but I need to be very fucking clear right now: just because its difficult to tell you how much easier its made my life does not diminish it.
Given you likely wouldnt be able to live in Sweden since Brexit; you’re unfortunately going to have to take my word for it. But it absolutely does help tackle illegal workers.
Without a personnummer you cannot get access to social services; people try to get around it but it is very difficult.
You're just frustrated I called out your main justification for Digital ID as BS.
Sorry you didn't make a stronger argument. It's one I've read a 100 times: 'we have it where I'm from, it's all I know, therefore it must be good'. Perhaps the UK should adopt Swedish as the official language too (given everything in northern EU is superior)
If you want to make an argument about tackling fraud etc, start with data about the scale of the existing problem, then present some research into exactly how much fraud, quantitively, will be reduced.
I'm not actually against things that would actually tackle fraud/visa overstaying etc – I just want solid evidence ethat multi-billion pound schemes that will reduce privacy will address a specific, known problem.
By the way, plenty of country have more digital systems and still have fraud and illegal workers. That completely destroys any such weak justification.
The UK would be far from the first country in the world to have an ID system; we don’t need to deal in hypotheticals. I am extremely sympathetic to the idea that the UK government might abuse the system, but I need to be very fucking clear right now: just because its difficult to tell you how much easier its made my life does not diminish it.
Given you likely wouldnt be able to live in Sweden since Brexit; you’re unfortunately going to have to take my word for it. But it absolutely does help tackle illegal workers.
Without a personnummer you cannot get access to social services; people try to get around it but it is very difficult.
Here is the UK talking about it, and how it works: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/146988/pdf/
Here is a study into how people attempt (and fail) to bypass a centralised system. https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/handle/2077/28504/gupea_207...