Tag: digital id

The UK’s Digital ID Era Starts This Summer

A sweeping transformation of the UK’s identity systems is underway, with the government poised to launch a digital identity wallet this summer. Beginning with a digital version of the Veteran card and expanding to include driving licenses later this year, the initiative is designed to eventually consolidate all government-issued credentials into a single, centralized app by 2027.

While pitched as a modernization effort, this dramatic shift toward a digital-first ID system has sparked serious concerns about surveillance, data security, and individual autonomy in an increasingly watchful society.

To enroll in the system, users will be expected to provide personal documentation.

The Gov.uk Wallet, as it is known, represents a fundamental redesign of the relationship between the state and its citizens.

This overhaul comes at a time when nearly 50 million people across the UK could be affected by the new digital infrastructure. While specific instructions on how to apply for or access the wallet have yet to be detailed, the direction is clear: the UK is moving toward a society where physical IDs may soon be relics of the past.

The government frames the change as part of its larger digitization strategy, yet the scale and permanence of eventual biometric data collection call into question the long-term implications for individual freedoms.

The introduction of digital driving licenses has also been tied to broader regulatory reforms, including newly proposed rules for e-scooter purchases. Buyers will need to provide license details as a form of identity verification, reinforcing the idea that access to everyday services will increasingly hinge on digital ID systems. This entrenchment of digital identity into daily life carries substantial consequences: it embeds surveillance mechanisms into transportation, access to benefits, and public services in ways that may be difficult to reverse.

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Third World Countries Continue Rolling Out Digital Biometric IDs as ID4AFRICA Agenda is Underway

Numerous third world countries are continuing the global push of implementing biometric identification systems for their citizens and incorporate these systems into digital ID smartphone apps for increased tracking abilities. Behind this push are globalist organizations such as the World Bank and the World Economic Forum. Notably, a digital ID app could be theoretically shut off if the user fails to meet specific requirements, such as vaccination update schedules, although this has not happened, yet.

The ID4AFRICA event going on between May 20-23 in Ethiopia “unites the global identity community to advance the ID4D agenda, and to explore how digital identity and aligned services can support Africa’s socio-economic development and individual empowerment.”

Language on the site says that ‘stakeholders’ are able to attend the event – the word ‘stakeholder’ likely referencing the new globalist economy of ‘stakeholder capitalism‘ that the World Economic Forum promotes.

“The ID4Africa AGM welcomes participation from all stakeholder groups,” the ID4AFRICA about page said.

The ID4D agenda is an operation by the World Bank to roll out digital identification systems globally to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are part of the United Nation’s Agenda 2030 plans for a world government.

“According to the ID4D Dataset, approximately 850 million people lack official ID, and 3.3 billion do not have access to digital ID for official transactions online. The ID4D Initiative works with countries towards reducing this staggering number, and ensure that identification systems are accessible, protect people’s rights and data, and capable of facilitating transactions in the digital age,” the organization said.

In addition to Ghana, Venezuela, Ivory Coast, Edo State, Nigeria and Iraq which take biometrics of voters, a number of other third world countries are now implementing systems which are wider reaching in both scope and use case.

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KOSA Reintroduced: Child “Safety” Bill Raises Alarms Over Internet Surveillance, Digital ID, and Free Speech Risks

Senators have once again put forward the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), reviving a bill that, if enacted, would radically reshape how Americans experience the internet.

Promoted as a measure to protect children, this latest version now carries the backing of Apple, a tech giant that has publicly endorsed the legislation as a meaningful step toward improving online safety.

But behind the bipartisan sales pitch and industry support lies a framework that risks expanding government control over online content and eroding user privacy through mandated age verification and surveillance infrastructure.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

KOSA is often described as a child protection bill, requiring platforms to limit exposure to content that could contribute to mental health issues such as depression or disordered eating.

What is less emphasized by its sponsors is how the bill empowers the Federal Trade Commission to investigate and sue platforms over speech that’s deemed “harmful” to minors.

Though lawmakers insist the bill does not authorize the censorship of content, it effectively places government pressure on websites to sanitize what users see, or face liability. Such chilling effects rarely need explicit censorship orders to shape outcomes.

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California Expands Digital ID Programs for Public Services, Despite Privacy Concerns

California is accelerating its push into digital identity, with officials launching new pilot programs designed to streamline how residents access public services. But while the state promotes the convenience and efficiency of these efforts, the broader implications for privacy and data control remain a growing concern among advocates for digital rights.

Jonathan Porat, California’s chief technology officer, said the state’s Department of Technology is moving ahead with new collaborations following initial efforts that included the mobile driver’s license launched last fall and a single sign-on pilot through Login.gov tied to transportation benefits.

That project, run through the Cal-ITP platform, lets eligible residents access transit discounts using a contactless payment system linked to their identity. Seniors, veterans, and others were able to verify eligibility for reduced fares without presenting physical documentation. According to Porat, the project’s success in Monterey County and Santa Barbara led the state to explore expanding the system to more than a dozen other local transit agencies.

But while the state touts these pilots as progress toward modernizing access to benefits, the increasing reliance on digital credentials has sparked important questions about surveillance, data sharing, and long-term risks.

California’s approach differs from other states that have focused on digital IDs primarily for age or identity verification. Porat explained that the state wants to use these tools to confirm eligibility across a range of public services. “We’re proud as a state to have [a mobile driver’s license] as well, but we’re really thinking about, how can we digitize the way that we validate residents’ identities and eligibility for different programs,” he said.

That vision includes broader partnerships, including with federal agencies like the VA and CMS. “What we’re doing now is trying to expand the breadth of those different benefits programs,” Porat said. “So we started by looking at a couple of simple things, like age-related discounts, and now we’re going so far as to have agreements with the federal VA and CMS, the group that manages Medicare and Medicaid, so that if you receive disability, if you are above a certain age, if you have a certain status, you can get those discounts automatically, just by paying with your wireless payment.”

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Digital ID is a danger to us all

Few things stir the imagination of conspiracy theorists like the prospect of a government-backed digital-identity scheme. The obsessive advocacy of digital ID by Tony Blair of all people is just more grist to their mill. But there are perfectly rational reasons to be wary of the British state’s digital-ID scheme. For one thing, it will make us less safe.

As I recently reported in the Telegraph, I was contacted by a senior civil servant working on One Login, the UK’s digital-identity project. Announced in 2021 and developed by the Government Digital Service (GDS), One Login has absorbed over £300million in public funds so far. It is ultimately designed to help citizens access hundreds of government services and, in the shape of the gov.uk wallet, retain digital documents including an individual’s driving licence. It currently processes the sensitive personal and biometric data for three million citizens, but that number is expected to rise as the service expands.

What the senior civil servant told me was disturbing. He arrived on the project in 2022 to set up an information-assurance team, which performs a function similar to that of an auditor, assessing risk. At One Login, he found a chaotic and insecure work culture. The system was being accessed by users with ‘do anything’ system-administrator privileges thousands of times a month. Many of these users did not have the recommended security-clearance level required to work with the sensitive personal data of millions of citizens. Moreover, the GDS did not mandate locked-down workstations for staff working from home, or for the hundreds of contractors developing the system – a legacy of the GDS’s ‘geeks in jeans’ culture once eulogised by commentators. The civil servant also discovered that part of the system was being developed in Romania, a nation named by Oxford University researchers as one of the world’s ‘key cyber-crime hotspots’.

It would only take one developer with the right administrator privileges to create havoc on the system, perhaps developing ‘back doors’ into One Login that no one would even be aware of.

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WEF Launches Connected Future Initiative to Promote Global Digital Public Infrastructure with Backing from UN, EU, and Bill Gates

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has announced the launch of the Connected Future Initiative, the latest among its efforts to promote what is known as Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI).

The global scheme, aiming to introduce digital IDs, digital payments, and data exchange platforms by 2030, counts the UN, the EU, and Bill Gates among its major supporters.

The WEF presents its new initiative as a way to establish the parameters for public-private cooperation, and “unlock the full potential of globally scaled, interoperable and future-ready digital public infrastructure.”

Those behind the initiative suggest their goal is to essentially strengthen DPI by incorporating technologies like extended reality (XR) and quantum computing, in addition to AI and biometrics, while pushing for global standards and DPI interoperability.

WEF also promises that the new initiative is supposed to secure “ethical and responsible” innovation, and lumps in issues like governance, data privacy concerns (as the second on the list), and equitable access while deploying “next-gen DPI.”

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“Stop The Digital Control Grid…”

Catherine Austin Fitts (CAF), publisher of “The Solari Report,” is back to update us about the “Fast-Approaching Digital Control Grid.”  (CAF) told us last time here on USAW, “There is no bigger ongoing battle for lovers of freedom than the battle taking place over the freedom killing idea of digital ID.”  

But it’s more that just ID, it’s an entire control grid that is being quietly built that is like a frog being put into pot and the water being brought to a boil.  

CAF explains, “You know our goal at Solari is each person has a free and inspired life.  So, we have been working for several years to stop financial transaction control.“

”  If you get the ability to track each person and control their transactions, so if they don’t do what you say, they can turn off your money.  That is game over for the Constitution and for human liberty.  If you look at how the control grid is coming together, there are many different pieces.  There is digital ID, all digital currency or transaction system to a social credit system to the management to certain kinds of data and back-up energy.  There are many different pieces.  We look at the pieces, and we look at them as one-off things such as, oh, I don’t mind having a ‘Real ID’ because I can see why they might want a federal ID, or a passport or whatever.  Each one of these things looks nonthreatening and even convenient, but when they snap together, they are in a control grid, and it’s completely something else.  When Trump was elected, I was shocked to see, almost immediately, the President announce the Stargate AI initiative with the mRNA vaccines, which to me is the internet of bodies.”

CAF put together a long list of Trump Administration actions that are speeding up what looks like a control grid.  It’s called “The Fast-Approaching Digital Control Grid.”  It lists things such as crypto friendly currency actions, private Central Bank Digital Currency, shrinking banking sector, DOGE, undisclosed Epstein files and many more red flag items that could be used to allow crime to continue and build a digital prison for “We the People.”  While the Trump Administration brings change at a record pace, not a single thing has been done to find out about the “$21 Trillion Missing Money” that has been well documented by CAF and Michigan State Professor Dr. Mark Skidmore.  The money has been stolen from America, and the silence about this is deafening.  CAF says,

“We know there has been tremendous fraud in the financials of the US government.  We know that has happened.  If you look at all the things that you or I would do to figure out what had happened, where the money went and how do we get it back, that’s not what they are doing. . . . If you look at how we would do a successful operation to reengineer government and identify the real fraud and stop it, I don’t see any indication that they are doing that.  I do see some selected efforts that are probably sincere. . . . They are shutting things down lots of us would like to see shut down. . . . We know how to stop the death and disabilities that come from the Covid 19 vax injection, but you go the CDC website, and they are still recommending the Covid injections.”

The massive crime going on with government accounting makes it necessary for the control grid.  CAF explains, “What happened in the last Trump Administration is they adopted FASAB 56.  FASAB 56 basically said they could take the books of the US government dark.“

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2 weeks before Real ID deadline, 28 Kentucky lawmakers ask for another delay

The federal Real ID deadline is just two weeks away, and with less than 40% of Kentuckians eligible for driver’s license compliant, 28 state senators are asking the federal government to again delay the move.

Currently, just 36.3% of Kentuckians eligible for a driver’s license have a Real ID, the state says.

Sen. Jimmy Higdon, R-Lebanon, chair of the Kentucky Senate Transportation Committee, joined 27 other state senators this week calling for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to delay the May 7 deadline. The letter, dated April 17, says Kentucky “isn’t fully prepared” for the change.

“If the REAL ID requirement moves forward as scheduled, it will further strain already overburdened regional offices and create unnecessary hardship, particularly for seniors, rural residents, and working families who struggle to access the necessary documents or transportation,” the letter says. “Some measures were passed in the last legislative session, but these will not be implemented before May 7.

The state senators asked Noem for “another reasonable extension” to ensure a smooth rollout.

In Louisville, lines are growing as people rush to get their Real IDs. A quick search Wednesday of upcoming appointments at local branches showed no openings.

John Woodford was at the branch at Broadway and 29th Street in west Louisville on Wednesday. He said he’d been in line for more than 30 minutes.

It’s hard for time slots, it’s too long, (and) there’s not a big enough place for us,” Woodford said. “… Everybody wants to get here early, so it’s going to be a line when you get here early.”

With just two weeks left before the deadline, many people wish the branches could do more to accommodate the people waiting like extending hours or offering more places or space to service people who need the Real ID.

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Real ID: Phony Security, Real Authoritarianism

Those who hoped the second Trump Administration would reject big spending, war, and restrictions on liberty continue to be disappointed. A new disappointment came when Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced her department would in May begin enforcing the REAL ID law.

Passed in 2005, the REAL ID Act created federal standards for driver’s licenses. The law requires everyone applying for a driver’s license to provide the DMV with his social security number, proof of legal residence, and two proofs of his home address. The REAL ID Act allows the Homeland Security Department to mandate, as it sees fit, the including of addition items in the related government database, including “biometric” identifiers. Biometric identifiers include personal data such as retina scans, fingerprints, and DNA.

People who doubt that this database will be used to violate the rights of US citizens should ask what a present-day J. Edgar Hoover — a former FBI director who was notorious for collecting private information on politicians and other prominent individuals — would do with a database containing personal and even biometric information on American citizens. They should also consider the IRS’s history of targeting presidents’ political opponents. Americans also have the threat of violations of their rights by hackers. The government has a poor track record of protecting data of US citizens.

REAL ID’s supporters deny the law turns state driver’s licenses into national ID cards because states have no mandate to implement REAL ID. However, citizens of any state that refuses to adopt REAL ID will be unable to use their state-issued IDs for boarding an airplane or riding on a train.

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Digital ID Dangers: Whistleblower Alleges Massive Security Failures in UK’s GOV.UK One Login Digital ID System

UK’s digital ID scheme, GOV.UK One Login, allegedly contains a host of serious vulnerabilities affecting security and data protection, that are “built in” and present in the system since its launch.

These claims come from a whistleblower, a security expert who worked for the Government Digital Service (GDS, a part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology). The most grave consequences stemming from the flaws – that the whistleblower first pointed out through proper channels in 2022, only to be ignored – would include data breaches.

Another threat from more than half a million system vulnerabilities that they said were identified is identity theft. At this time, some three million people in the UK use the system to access 50 government services.

The security expert, whose identity has not been revealed in reports about the brewing scandal, asserted that thousands of vulnerabilities identified were rated as either critical or high.

The whistleblower’s account of the events suggests the authorities went for a slapdash approach to setting up the digital ID infrastructure, not only from the technical but also from the policy point of view.

“Basic” governance and risk management were not in place, according to the source, while the £330 ($436.70) million in funding arrived thanks to the business case that featured “misleading claims” regarding the quality of the scheme’s security.

And when the decision was made to outsource development to Romania, it came without GDS CEO’s approval, and without consultation with the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC).

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