Big Brother in the pub

The government have announced that they are going to trial a scheme to allow people to use a form of digital ID held on smartphones for age verification in pubs.

Young people will be able to use government-backed digital ID cards to prove they are old enough to drink alcohol under legal changes to take effect next year. They will be able to sign up to digital ID companies that are certified against Government-set standards for security and reliability and then use the app on their smartphone to prove they are over 18 when visiting pubs, restaurants and shops.

It is part of a wider effort to move more state functions online so that people can prove their identity for everything from paying taxes to opening a bank account using the government-backed app. It will use a “single sign-on”, rather than the two-step identity verification currently needed online, for all government services including applying for benefits.

It will also allow older people to avoid the need for a member of staff to confirm their age when using self-service checkouts.

It is likely to be integrated into supermarkets’ and shops’ check-out scanning systems which will end the delays for customers when they have to call over the attendant to physically confirm they are old enough to buy alcohol – even if they are pensioners.

That sounds all well and good but, despite government denials, it is impossible to avoid the thought that it is being used as a stalking horse for the general introduction of Digital ID. Such a scheme would initially be sold to the population on the grounds that it would make their lives easier.

This has long been a pipe-dream of people of an authoritarian bent, such as Tony Blair. However, many commentators have expressed serious concerns on grounds of government overreach, loss of privacy and social exclusion. These concerns are summed up here by Big Brother Watch. Some may dismiss this as the argument of a tin-foil hatter, but the experience of the Covid Track and Trace app shows these fears to be entirely valid. This was, by definition, a system of government surveillance, and many businesses chose to use it as condition of entry even though that was not a legal requirement.

The period of lockdowns underlined that there was a significant subset of pub licensees who obviously missed their vocation as a prison guard, and were keen to gold-plate every regulation and add some more of their own. If they demanded that all customers check in with a digital ID, it would absolve them of any requirement to carry out age verification and thus make their life easier.

The government have said that use of these IDs would not be mandatory, but would that extend to ensuring that venues did not insist on them as a condition of entry? It seems highly likely that anyone who was either unable to have one due to not having a smartphone, or chose not to on privacy grounds, would end up being treated in various respects as a second-class citizen. Business and government departments prefer not to have to deal with awkward non-conformists.

A further consideration is what happens in the event of a power cut, which seems increasingly likely in the future due to Ed Miliband’s deranged energy policies. If it disabled digital IDs, it would bring society to a halt even more completely than it would at present.

So, while it may seem convenient to simply swipe your phone to get served in the pub or at the self-service checkout, it could be a further step down a very dangerous road. To say that “the innocent have nothing to fear” displays a touchingly naïve faith in the ultimate benevolence of government.