PortabelloBelle

Back when I was young, and so was The United Federation of Planets, I thought it would be a very good thing if there was a central computer that knew everything, and could, at the tap of a badge, know who I was, and answer my questions.

It was a belief that would persist for several decades. Cloud Computing brought my dream a step closer, and Alexa et al provided another step towards a Star Fleet future.

During all this time, though, there were shady characters misusing the interconnectedness of things to their own ends.

These people have killed my dream.

The UK government has proposed a Digital ID that every citizen will be issued with, and regardless of their assurances, I’m certain it will be two things they say it won’t,

a) I don’t think it will be secure,

b) Sooner or later it will become mandatory to carry it.

Now, as you may know I’m a truck driver, and as such I have to carry three, yes 3 cards; a driver’s license, a CPC card, and a digital tachograph card, each of these is the same size, has a “chip” like your bank card, some printed information, and a photograph. You’d think that these cards could be merged into a single unit, but no, there is no plan to make my working life any easier (or cheaper.)

So the idea of a Digital ID Card is not one that fills me with any joy, it just means I’m going to need a bigger RFID protection wallet.

The 2 things, a Star Fleet type future, and the UKID card, seem at first to be unrelated, but they are linked, and that link is bad actors, who have undone it all, before it even got off the ground (so to speak.)

And things will likely get worse before they get better. So, in the immortal (misquoted,) words of Capt. J. T. Kirk “Beam me up, Scotty.”