David Davis told John Pienaar yesterday what he thought of the government’s plans for digital IDs: “I think it’s bonkers”. He reminded us that the Tories were first re-elected on the basis of opposition to ID cards:

“That’s one of the reasons, by the way, that this Tory government, that was elected in 2010, the first thing it did was cancel the Identity Card scheme. And they weren’t cancelling it because of the piece of plastic. They were cancelling it because of the huge databases that it applied would exist, within government. The sort of database that would have made the Stasi happy.”

Digital IDs are useful in efficiency terms. Centralised databases may make it easier to implement state control over law abiding citizens. Do we want the government to know even more about us? Won’t the temptation for bureaucrats be too much? The government is spinning that it will help with digital signatures and suchlike. China has social credit scores which are used as a tool of authoritarian social control, coupled with facial recognition you can be penalised by automated AI software bots for crossing the road before the light changes green. Imagine a woke government monitoring citizens for anti-social behaviour of which they disapprove. An efficient state can be a danger to an open and free society…