Tag: united kingdom

UK Government Dismisses Public Outcry, Pushes Ahead with Controversial Digital ID Plan

A UK government plan to introduce a nationwide digital identification system is moving ahead, despite a public backlash that saw more than 2.7 million people sign a petition urging its cancellation.

The proposal, first announced by Labour in September, would provide a digital ID to every UK citizen and legal resident aged 16 and above.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer claimed the new system would help strengthen border enforcement and reduce illegal employment, describing the ID, dubbed the “Brit Card,” as a tool to “make it tougher to work illegally in this country, making our borders more secure.”

The public response was overwhelmingly opposed. Warnings about centralized data collection, privacy intrusions, and increased state surveillance flooded public discourse.

Descriptions of the proposal ranged from a “dystopian nightmare” to fears of a gateway to “digital control.”

Not long after Labour’s announcement, a petition was created on the official UK Government and Petitions website.

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UK Expands Live Facial Recognition as First Legal Challenge Targets Met Police Misidentification

Police forces across England are preparing to expand their use of live facial recognition (LFR) surveillance as the government moves forward with a national policy to guide deployments.

Policing minister Sarah Jones confirmed during the Labour Party conference that formal guidance is in development to instruct officers on when and where the technology should be used.

Funding from the Home Office has already been allocated to support LFR operations in seven additional regions: Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Bedfordshire, Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley, and Hampshire.

Government officials have pointed to early deployments in London and Cardiff as successful, citing arrests.

Reflecting on those results, Jones stated:

“What we’ve seen in Croydon is that it has worked. We just need to make sure it’s clear what the technology is going to be useful for going forward. If we are going to use it more, if we do want to roll it out across the country, what are the parameters? Live facial recognition is a really good tool that has led to arrests that wouldn’t have come otherwise, and it’s very, very valuable.”

The software links live camera feeds to a watchlist of people wanted by police. When someone passes a camera, facial measurements are analyzed and compared against the database. If a match is found, officers are alerted to intervene.

However, the use of LFR has expanded sharply. In London, the number of people included on watchlists has more than doubled between 2020 and 2025.

The volume of facial scans during deployments has also grown, with single-day scans now reaching into the tens of thousands.

The Metropolitan Police insists it has safeguards in place and maintains that data from individuals not on a watchlist is deleted immediately.

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Scientists make embryos from human skin DNA for first time

US scientists have, for the first time, made early-stage human embryos by manipulating DNA taken from people’s skin cells and then fertilising it with sperm.

The technique could overcome infertility due to old age or disease, by using almost any cell in the body as the starting point for life.

It could even allow same-sex couples to have a genetically related child.

The method requires significant refinement – which could take a decade – before a fertility clinic could even consider using it.

Experts said it was an impressive breakthrough, but there needed to be an open discussion with the public about what science was making possible.

Reproduction used to be a simple story of man’s sperm meets woman’s egg. They fuse to make an embryo, and nine months later a baby is born.

Now scientists are changing the rules. This latest experiment starts with human skin.

The Oregon Health and Science University research team’s technique takes the nucleus – which houses a copy of the entire genetic code needed to build the body – out of a skin cell.

This is then placed inside a donor egg that has been stripped of its genetic instructions.

So far, the technique is like the one used to create Dolly the Sheep – the world’s first cloned mammal – born back in 1996.

However, this egg is not ready to be fertilised by sperm as it already contains a full suite of chromosomes.

You inherit 23 of these bundles of DNA from each of your parents for a total of 46, which the egg already has.

So the next stage is to persuade the egg to discard half of its chromosomes in a process the researchers have termed “mitomeiosis” (the word is a fusion of mitosis and meiosis, the two ways cells divide).

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Armed police who shot synagogue terror victims, killing one and injuring another, could face criminal charges

Armed police involved in the fatal shooting of Manchester synagogue terrorist Jihad Al-Shamie may face criminal charges.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) admitted one of the victims of Thursday’s attack died after apparently being injured by a police gunshot. His family tonight described him as a hero.

Another person was also injured as police sought to contain the terror threat.

It is believed both victims were standing behind a door at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Crumpsall when they were hit.

Al-Shamie, 35, was shot dead at the scene wearing what appeared to be a suicide vest. The device was later discovered not to be viable.

But police do not believe Al-Shamie was armed, meaning the two gunshot injuries were likely from police firearms.

In a statement, Emily Barry, director of engagement at the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), said the watchdog would now investigate.

She said: ‘Our thoughts remain with the victims and their families, as well as all those affected by yesterday’s horrific events.

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Police bullet may have killed one of two synagogue attack victims in Manchester

One of the two men killed in a car and knife attack on a synagogue in the city of Manchester may have been killed by a bullet fired by a police officer, the force said on Friday.

Greater Manchester Police chief Stephen Watson said a forensic examination has provisionally determined that the victim had “a wound consistent with a gunshot injury.” He said the attacker did not have a gun and that the only shots fired were by police.

“This injury may sadly have been sustained as a tragic and unforeseen consequence of the urgently required action taken by my officers to bring this vicious attack to an end,” Watson said.

Police said local residents Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66, died in the attack Thursday on the Heaton Park Congregation Synagogue in the Manchester suburb of Crumpsall. Three other people are hospitalized in serious condition.

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Rogan Rages At Media Silence On UK’s “Orwellian Nightmare” Free Speech Crackdown

Podcaster Joe Rogan has blasted the media and leftists for ignoring a massive crackdown on free speech and a move toward total dystopian surveillance in the UK, while focusing instead on Jimmy Kimmel being suspended for a few days.

“The fact that our mainstream media is relatively silent on this is insane,” Rogan stated during a recent episode of his show.

“This is an Orwell nightmare coming to life right in front of our face,” he further warned.

“You’re seeing a complete, total attack on one of the most fundamental principles of the Western world, which is your ability to express yourself,” Rogan continued, adding “And your ability to call out that you think that the policies that are being implemented in your country are destructive.”

Referring to people who have been arrested and even imprisoned for social media posts, Rogan noted “These people are not calling for violence. They’re not. They’re being arrested for wild things. People are being arrested for liking posts. Some people were investigated for viewing posts.”

He further cautioned that “12,000 people arrested by the police in the UK, the same place that just implemented digital ID.”

“No one’s flinching, no one in America is freaking out about what’s happening in the UK at all,” Rogan urged.

“I mean, you get people online that are kind of freaked out by it, but they’re way more freaked out by nonsensical things like whether or not what Jimmy Kimmel said in his monologue was offensive. They’ll go to the ends of the earth to fight that,” he asserted.

As we have highlighted, Prime Minister Kier Starmer recently announced Chinese communist-style digital tracking is coming to the UK with a new mandatory “right to work” scheme in the form of a universal ID called the “Brit Card”.

It’s all predicated on the back of out of control mass illegal immigration, with the leftists using the crisis created by the previous Conservative government and amplified by Starmer’s cabal in an attempt to rollout Orwellian style surveillance and control.

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Ex-UK defense minister calls for Crimea to be made ‘uninhabitable’

Kiev’s Western backers must help make Crimea “not inhabitable,” former UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace has said.

Speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum on Tuesday, Wallace argued that Russia views the Black Sea peninsula as a “Holy Mount,” and that Ukraine should strike where it can inflict the greatest damage.

“We have to help Ukraine have the long-range capabilities to make Crimea unviable. We need to choke the life out of Crimea,” Wallace said.

“If it is not inhabitable or not possible for it to function… I think, if we do that, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will suddenly realize he’s got something to lose.” 

He suggested that Kiev should prioritize attacks on the Kerch Strait Bridge, which connects Crimea with Russia’s Krasnodar Region. Ukrainian forces struck the bridge in October 2022 and July 2023, temporarily halting traffic.

Wallace, who served as defense secretary from 2019 to 2023, previously urged Ukraine to mobilize more of its population to fight Russia.

Crimea voted to secede from Ukraine and join Russia shortly after the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev. Since then, Ukraine has imposed an economic blockade, cutting electricity and water supplies to the region. Home to around 2.5 million people, the peninsula also hosts Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

The Kremlin has described the UK as “one of the leaders of this pro-war camp” due to its military aid to Kiev and calls for tighter sanctions on Russia.

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Britain’s policing minister punts facial recog nationwide

The government is to encourage police forces across England and Wales to adopt live facial recognition (LFR) technology, with a minister praising its use by the London’s Metropolitan Police in a suburb in the south of the city.

Policing minister Sarah Jones confirmed the UK government is consulting on guidance on where, when, and how police forces can use LFR with publication due later this year. “What we’ve seen in Croydon is that it has worked,” she told a fringe event at the Labour party conference on September 29, referring to the Met’s installation of permanent LFR cameras in the town.

“We just need to make sure it’s clear what the technology is going to be useful for going forward. If we are going to use it more, if we do want to roll it out across the country, what are the parameters?” she added. “Live facial recognition is a really good tool that has led to arrests that wouldn’t have come otherwise and it’s very, very valuable.”

In August, the Home Office said that seven more police forces will start using ten new vans kitted out with LFR technology, in addition to existing use by the Metropolitan Police in London and South Wales Police. At the time it said the two forces have used LFR to make 580 arrests over the previous 12 months.

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UK Pub Transformed Into 1984 Theme Park In Protest Of Starmer’s Digital ID Dystopia

A landlord in the UK has renamed his pub ‘The George Orwell’ and made it entirely 1984 themed, complete with projections of the dystopian novel’s most memorable themes and phrases along with images of Prime Minister Kier Starmer as the evil Big Brother.

As we have highlighted, Starmer recently announced Chinese communist-style digital tracking is coming to the UK with a new mandatory “right to work” scheme in the form of a universal ID called the “Brit Card”.

It’s all predicated on the back of out of control mass illegal immigration, with the leftists using the crisis created by the previous Conservative government and amplified by Starmer’s cabal in an attempt to rollout Orwellian style surveillance and control.

While they claim the scheme will help to stop “illegal” immigrants from crossing the channel by denying them access to work, the possibilities for control via biometric tracking are endless.

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First the U.K., Next the U.S.? Britain’s Digital ID Plan Should Scare Americans.

The U.K. may be about to get even more dystopian. Prime Minister Keir Starmer proposed a plan last week that would require every adult in the United Kingdom to have a digital ID in order to work in the country, with these IDs becoming mandatory by 2029. Employers would be required to consult an app-based system containing a person’s name, photo, birth date, nationality, and residency status, rather than check physical IDs or National Insurance numbers (the U.K.’s version of a Social Security number) before hiring.

“The proposals are the government’s latest bid to tackle illegal immigration, with the new ID being a form of proof of a citizen’s right to live and work in the UK,” reports Sky News. “The so-called ‘Brit card’ will be subject to a consultation and would require legislation to be passed, before being rolled out.”

In the U.K. and the U.S., authorities already employ an array of government-issued identification mechanisms—passports, physical driver’s licenses, Social Security or National Insurance numbers. So how different could a digital ID be?

Very different, say civil libertarians, privacy experts, and cybersecurity gurus.

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