Digital IDs Coming Despite Previous Disasters

Today, everything from obtaining a bank account to getting a job will require these checks. But the history of where digital IDs were introduced is dark. Because it is not only governments that can then act with extensive repression against individuals. A black market for hacking people’s personal data has been established, which has already had tragic consequences.

“A key rule is that if you get my data, the data should be used to help me and not manipulate me. Another key rule is that whenever you increase surveillance of individuals, you should also monitor corporations and governments and people at the top. And the third principle is to never allow data to be concentrated in one place. That is the recipe for dictatorship.”

The reasoning comes from Yuval Noah Harari, professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and author of several books about a future where humans gradually but inevitably become absorbed into robotic technology and artificial intelligence.

Total integration. A graphic from the World Economic Forum shows how they envision the future of digital IDs. It is clear that all people should be integrated, along with devices, governments, institutions and private corporations. In 2018, the same year that the digital ID disaster hit a billion Indians, the message from the WEF was: “This digital identity determines which products, services and information we can access – or, conversely, what is closed to us.” (from the WEF document “Identity in a Digital World: A new chapter in the social contract”). Image: WEF

According to CBS News, where the interview was published in 2021 on the program 60 Minutes, it is a warning to humanity. But like tech mogul Elon Musk, Harari mixes visible concerns with cold statements that development is inevitable. Decision-makers just need to listen to good advice, and it will probably be fine.

The globalist club World Economic Forum, which Harari has spoken at several times, is the organization that has most visibly and persistently advocated for the introduction of digital IDs. Another global organization that the Israeli professor has appeared at is the UN, which also has high-flying plans for digital IDs. And development has so far been one-way. Several of the world’s countries have already established digital identity registers of their citizens – for example, Estonia, Singapore, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Nigeria. The UK can now follow suit, and in Switzerland a narrow majority has voted in favor. But what is rarely highlighted is the historical experience of the matter in the near future. Digital IDs have already been tried – and hacked by criminals.

Motivated by Britain’s Migrant Crisis

Progressive control. On Friday, September 26, the international left-wing conference Global Progressive Action was held in London, where Prime Minister Keir Starmer declared that digital IDs will be mandatory to obtain a permit to work in the country. Also participating as a speaker was the leader of the Social Democrats in Sweden, Magdalena Andersson. Among other guests was John Podesta, a former White House adviser who was involved in a high-profile email scandal in 2016. In 2024, WikiLeaks published a series of hacked emails from his personal server related to Hillary Clinton’s election campaign. Podesta was also a leader in false claims about Russian interference in the 2016 US election. Still image: YouTube/ITV News

For a long time, the UK has been struggling with high immigration, and specifically the problem has revolved around migrants reaching the country from the coast of France using rubber dinghies. According to the BBC, more than 50,000 have arrived in the UK in this way since Labour leader Keir Starmer took office as Prime Minister on July 5, 2024. So the message came on the government’s website on September 26: digital IDs will solve everything.

The new ID documents are intended to stop illegal workers and otherwise bring “incalculable benefits” to citizens, according to Prime Minister Starmer in a speech at the Global Progressive Action Conference in London. The speech, delivered to a number of invited world leaders, at times echoed something resembling nationalist rhetoric: “The simple fact is that every nation needs to have control over its borders. We need to know who is in our country.”

Popular and political protests. On September 28, people gathered outside the Labour party conference in Liverpool to demonstrate against plans to introduce mandatory digital IDs in the UK. Opposition has also been shown in parliament, where Reform UK, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats have opposed Starmer’s plans. However, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), which funded its own opinion poll, reportedly showed that 62 percent of Britons were in favor, while “only” 19 percent opposed. Still image: YouTube/Forbes

Critics have pointed out that the government itself created the migrant problem by not stopping the boats and that it is just a pretext to control Britons. Reform UK, which has joined the critics, has quickly become significantly larger than Labour’s old main opponent the Tories. Even the Tory leader Kemi Baden has now suddenly opposed her own party’s previous policy. She says she is doubtful that the plan can stop the influx of migrant boats and pointed to the risk of collecting all the information in a single database.

A petition among Britons against the digital identity card has at the time of writing collected almost 2.8 million signatures. The vote was held on the British Parliament website, and the rules state that all petitions there that exceed 100,000 signatures must be considered for debate in Parliament. “We believe this would be a step towards mass surveillance and digital control, and that no one should be forced to register through a state-controlled ID system,” is the message from the initiators.

Starmer Backed by Tony Blair

A stubborn propagandist. Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister, has repeatedly advocated for the introduction of digital ID. Crises in the UK and the world, whether it be terrorism, alleged pandemics or migration problems, are occasions that he has chosen for his often alarmist statements. Now he comes out and supports his party colleague Starmer’s announcement about mandatory digital IDs. On Sky News in 2020 he spoke about the danger of Covid-19 and the importance of introducing functioning population control systems, at the time linked to health. Wikipedia

This is not the first time that digital IDs have been introduced in the UK. The pretexts have changed, but often the campaigns have been linked to crises where public opinion has been in a state of upheaval. The politician who has fought hardest for digital IDs is former Labour leader and Prime Minister Tony Blair. During his time in power, 1997–2007, it was terrorism that was to be stopped with digital IDs. However, those plans were shelved after Labour was voted out.

Then, during the corona when the then Tory leader Boris Johnson was in power, it was the lives and health of the British people that Blair wanted to guarantee through digital identification. On the BBC’s Newscast podcast in 2020, he stated that it was “common sense” that demanded the measure. “You will want to have a register with the government of who has been vaccinated – this will be important, again, to restore trust,” claimed the former politician, who nevertheless exercised a great deal of power from behind the scenes.

But trust in the government was severely damaged when it was discovered a year later that government officials and Prime Minister Johnson himself had been partying at the government office during the ongoing pandemic. Those in power had ignored the strict restrictions imposed on the population under the supervision of the security forces. The debacle was named “Partygate” in the media, and had lasted from May 2020 to April 2021.

In 2025, the idea of a digital ID is once again being floated, this time to “solve” the migrant crisis. At the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, Blair wrote that it was “one of the most important steps this or any government has taken to make the everyday lives of Britons easier.” However, the protests are strong and it is doubtful whether Starmer’s government would survive if this control measure was imposed on the population.

Hacked and Banned from Society

On social media, Britons are recalling what happened when a similar system was introduced in India in 2018. At the time, the media, including British ones, reported on the news from India, but few parallels are drawn to what is happening today. In The Guardian we find an article from 2018 with the headline “Personal data of a billion Indians sold online for £6”.

Iris scans, fingerprints and facial images of over a billion Indians have already been registered under the Aadhaar system. Today, Aadhaar is required for all government services and for access to many essential social functions. Photo: Biswarup Ganguly

The background was that staff from the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the government agency that manages the Aadhaar system, India’s equivalent of a national identity number, had been working to create digital IDs for Indian citizens. For four years, they had traveled across the vast country, collecting facial photos, fingerprints and iris scans of over a billion people. The aim was to bring citizens into the “digital economy.”

Several previous e-ID disasters. India, which has the world’s largest biometric ID system, has been hacked several times. One billion accounts were first affected in 2018. The second time, in 2023, the number of victims was over 80 million. In the first instance, personal data was sold on the Darkweb and led to people being excluded from society. Still image: YouTube/ABC News

However, a WhatsApp account soon appeared claiming to be selling this data. The price was around the equivalent of 60 kronor. UIDAI claimed that the biometric information had not been leaked, only the name, facial photo and contact details, but a newspaper, Tribune, claimed to have managed to buy a code that gave access to the database, including a program to print its own Aadhaar cards.

However, it wasn’t just hackers who leaked data, according to The Guardian, over 200 government websites had accidentally posted personal data such as Aadhaar numbers along with names, addresses and bank branches on public pages. UIDAI said these were mistakes that had been quickly corrected.

In India, it is a criminal offence to have too many SIM cards. Between 6 and 9 are allowed depending on the state. When Aadhaar is linked to the SIM card systems, such “abuse” will be detected automatically. Image: Anuraag Singh

After this, identity theft skyrocketed, with the result that the holders of the identity documents were excluded from important social functions.

Other problems also emerged: at least two people were reported to have died after being unable to receive their food rations under the welfare program, which now required Aadhaar.

Skeptical experts and indifferent hackers. After Starmer’s decision, British tech expert Graeme Stewart noted that all it takes is a successful breach of a digital ID database for social chaos to ensue. IT journalist Andrew Orlowski, in the tech publication Datamation, argued that a hostile state could take an entire country hostage by hacking a database of digital IDs. But hackers remain indifferent. “I can’t know what the buyer does with the data,” hacker Rabbin De Bois (pictured) explained to Deutsche Welle’s ‘Hackers, malware and the darknet – The fatal consequences of cyberattacks.’ ‘It’s not my fault that people aren’t more digitally aware to know better,’ he stated. Still image: YouTube/DW

In 2023, News 18 and Hindustan Times reported another data leak. A hacker had obtained the data of 81.5 million people from Covid tests that the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had submitted to Aadhaar. The hacker then went on X and boasted about what he had obtained. After analysis, it was discovered that everything came from Aadhaar’s digital ID.

The idea that what happened in India was an exception is now being denied by British IT experts. Graeme Stewart, head of Check Point Software Technologies, described Starmer’s digital ID in the Daily Express on September 26 this year as a “honeypot” for cybercriminals. Stewart said that it is the size and comprehensibility, i.e. the detailed content, that makes the information highly attractive for criminals to exploit. It can be sold, used in fraud and used for identity fraud.

“The nightmare scenario would be a single breach that exposed the entire population, undermining trust in banks, government services, and digital infrastructure,” Stewart told the Daily Express.

‘Prove Your identity While Protecting Your Privacy’

Facial recognition in the EU? It is still unclear how the EU’s digital wallet will work in the different countries, but this image is presented by the company Nect, which works with digital IDs linked to EUDI Wallet. Image: Nect

A single successful hack would therefore be enough to put a society at risk of collapsing. At least if experts are to be believed. But documented cybercrime or government abuse of power does not seem to be slowing down the plans. As we reported in the last issue, all EU member states will offer the EU digital ID as early as next year. However, this EUDI will not be mandatory – yet. This is happening completely without any referendum and in the shadow of the media.

Rolled Out Globally

Globally, people are also to be linked to digital IDs. And as always, it is urgent. In 2024, 193 of the UN member states signed a non-binding resolution to roll out digital IDs within a framework called Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI).

Next step: Global digital control. During the 2024 ‘Summit for the Future’, 193 UN member states signed a non-binding agreement to roll out digital IDs as part of a larger digital social program called Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). DPI is also part of the UN Global Digital Compact, which in turn is linked to the UN’s ‘Sustainability Goals’. The draft GDC makes it clear that control and censorship are prioritized through the digitalization of identities: “We commit to working with governments and relevant stakeholders to gather evidence through UN departments on the impact of misinformation and disinformation on the implementation of the (global) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 17)”. Image: un.org

According to the tech magazine The Sociable, DPI consists of three components: Digital identity, fast payment solutions (apps for banks, stablecoins and central bank digital currencies – so-called CBDCs), and a comprehensive exchange of information between government and private actors.

Fayda, Ethiopia’s digital ID system, is described on this official page, which also shows how name, address and phone number are linked to facial photo, fingerprints and iris scanning. Image: id.gov.et

Critics say that digital identities constitute a monumental mapping apparatus for the state and a gold mine for criminals. So far, no infallible digital system has been established throughout history. And for the state, we always have the slippery slope, where measures that are first presented with promises that they are only for certain very important issues, such as stopping terrorists, protecting our health or preventing gang murders, are quickly expanded to be used against all of us in our everyday lives.