Rachael Maskell
Main Page: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)Department Debates - View all Rachael Maskell's debates with the Cabinet Office
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Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I have scanned the Labour manifesto, in which ID cards do not feature, and I have sought the evidence that ID cards prohibit illegal working, but there is none. Yet we are told that digital ID is the way forward.
I understand the argument about the data in the pocket, the convenience, everything in one place, and data checks for work and rental accommodation. However, this project is not about holding information about ourselves on our phones for our own convenience. It is about data—big, augmented data from different places and different sources, intersecting someone’s health records with their records in the Department for Work and Pensions, or Home Office records with HMRC or local government, about where we live, where we work and where we are. Mix them together with facial recognition technology, run the algorithms and see what we get.
Of course, this Government would not dream of doing such a thing, but a future one might—indeed, a future one would. Following the passing of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, academics have shown that aggressive actors will have access to this data and therefore we have to be warned about data theft and identity theft, which are not uncommon today.
Rachael Maskell
I will just press on.
If DWP data and NHS data are in the wrong hands, social security will become insecurity; if Home Office data contains someone’s location, then the ICE teams will find them. This could be our future. Behind our screens, the datasets that researchers use for good will be used by others for ill.
Of course there is interest in digital ID. We see the revolving door of those from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and people from his former office; there is Larry Ellison of Oracle; after all, he already has 185 contracts with the Government. He recognises the power, the money and the opportunity, which is why we cannot afford to go there.
We have already heard about the scale of the money. However, I must say that the interest in this project will only expose us all to the risks of future Governments and what they might do with our data. It will not then be just about each one of us individually, but about that knowledge being used to determine each one of our futures, including our mortgages, our social security, our health and our economics. Let us not forget that the insurance companies are also eager to lay their hands on this data.
Technology may be agnostic, but it will have behind it people who most certainly are not and will be using its power, augmented for their own gain and opportunity. This House cannot go into this space. Parliament needs to wake up to the reality that it is not about what is on our phone, but about the data behind that and how it will be misused in future. I beg the Government to stop. The fact that this was not in the manifesto is enough to tell us all that it does not have public consent and therefore should not proceed.