Congratulations! It’s a boy. Or a girl. Or maybe it’s a biometric data point waiting to happen, ready for tagging and cataloging before it’s even burped.
That’s right, folks: the UK Government is now toying with the idea of slapping digital IDs on babies at birth. Not metaphorically. Literally.
This is the UK, where your child’s first toy might be a state-linked QR code.
Ministers, we are told, have been whispering about extending Keir Starmer’s beloved digital identity scheme to include every single British infant.
But yes, this is real. Cabinet Office minister Josh Simons, who seems to be suffering from a severe case of “government by Black Mirror,” has been conducting private meetings on the topic.
The sort of meetings where you’re told to leave your phone at the door and pretend nothing happened. According to people present, jaws were dropping. Probably because the conversation had leapt from employment verification to baby barcoding faster than you can say “authoritarian drift.”
But don’t worry, Starmer says this is all about simplifying bureaucracy.
Let’s not forget how this all started: the Government insisted, hand on heart, pinky swear, that the digital ID scheme was only about immigration. Stop illegal working. Crack down on dodgy landlords. Check the papers. You know the script.
But now, somehow, without so much as a public debate or even a badly photoshopped leaflet, we’ve leapt from immigration controls to putting every British citizen on a digital leash from cradle to grave.
One source said: “You could see jaws dropping around the room,” The Times reported.
Former Conservative minister Sir David Davis was less diplomatic, describing the scheme as “creeping state surveillance,” and the ministers behind it as “stupid” and dazzled by their own gadgets.
Hellbound and Down 