Tech firms are in talks with ministers about creating health passports to help Britons return safely to work using coronavirus testing and facial recognition.
Facial biometrics could be used to help provide a digital certificate – sometimes known as an immunity passport – proving which workers have had Covid-19, as a possible way of easing the impact on the economy and businesses from ongoing physical distancing even after current lockdown measures are eased.
The UK-based firm Onfido, which specialises in verifying people’s identities using facial biometrics, has delivered detailed plans to the government and is involved in a number of conversations about what could be rolled out across the country, it is understood.
In 2001/02 David Blunkett came up with a similar idea, backed with an internal passport – the excuse then was the recent terrorist attack in New York. The proposal was the infamous identity card underpinned by an invasive, intrusive database on every British subject. It was a vile, Orwellian idea that has lurked in the home office since ID cards were abandoned in the fifties. It’s an idea that just won’t die – much like the monster in some horror film, that has been vanquished, yet rises as if from the dead for another go.
Some of us fought hard against this hideous scheme for a number of years, finally breathing a sigh of relief at the 2010 election results when the two parties that formed the coalition were both opposed to the idea and promptly repealed the legislation.
And now, a decade on, what do we get? Fuck me, internal passports.
The despots who ran places like the Soviet Union would have had wet dreams over this. And you know what? The people of Britain will welcome this.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
HL Mencken
Okay, I know that this virus is not imaginary, however, Mencken is broadly right here. This is something that could have been weathered with sensible precautions to manage ICU capacity while still keeping the country operating. But here we have it being used to shoehorn in some of the most draconian, totalitarian ideologies imaginable. These measures are far, far worse than any ravages of the disease, for that will pass. We will have to live with this distopia for a long time after that.
Only the truly evil would create a system that incentivises people to catch the Dreaded Lurgy.
Get tested and prove you’ve had the virus on your ID card: allowed to work again.
Stay healthy, avoid the virus: no health passport, no income.
Even the argument that it only kills the ‘useless oldies’ is starting to break: it now looks as if it presents differently, and in a nastier way, in children.
The rage against the PPC will be huge. Tectonic plates are shifting. Its ghard to see how this can end without military grief also.
There are those who while exposed, just don’t catch it. I’ve had seasonal flu about three or four times in my life, yet must have been exposed to it more than that.
Same here. The really serious type flu where it is a massive effort just to get out of bed for a pee, maybe three or four times.
Diabetes supposedly compromises my immune system but, during the seven years since diagnosis, I have rarely had any colds or other illnesses.
@LR
I’ve ever suffered from Flu and have been exposed many times. Dec 2018 was my first SARS in over 10 years. No idea what it was (common cold, flu…), felt sh1t, lost voice, mucus from eyes, nose & lungs, not bedridden, lasted two weeks
Hi.
V interesting
What is meant by PPC in this comment please?
Thanks Tim the Coder. I just wondered what is meant by PPC
I’m new to this website
Thanks for your help.
JM
I Think it’s a mistype for PRC People’s Republic of China.
Yes indeed. Apologies for the fat-fingered typing.
Smokers shafted again, we’ll just have to inject ourselves with Covid to get work/travel permits.
Actually, the wearing of masks, whether voluntarily or otherwise, is giving people the perfect excuse to (metaphorically) stick two fingers up to omnipresent surveillance/security cameras. The Polis can hardly threaten us with obstruction now, can they?
Had occured to me. Thinking of bringing Stadium Achillies Helmet with Face Mask or WWII Gas Mask down from loft if face-masks mandated
The obvious flaw in this plan is that it incentivises people to infect themselves with the virus. If we are going to do that we might just as well cancel the lockdown and let us all get exposed to it naturally.
Just spotted that Tim already said that. I would put it down to stupidity rather than evil though.
For a politician to suggest it, then yes, they are certainly that stupid.
But to insist on continuing with the idea, when the obvious flaw has been pointed out by any passing brain cell…
As it happens, it seems that many people who have had the virus do not end up with enough antibodies to detect positive in such a test, so any such test-driven ‘ausweiss’ is likely to be unicorn farming. It also means subsequent immunity is far from sure, and a vaccine may also be beyond reach.
Mrs. Stonyground has been feeling a little rough and has been for a test. We are still awaiting the result. If it does show positive, I can’t see how it is possible that I haven’t been exposed to it as well. If I don’t become ill do I qualify for a Get out of House Arrest Free Card or not?
The test came back negative. She is now on the mend from whatever is was and is back at work.
I imagine that is a relief.
Partly, but it wasn’t too serious so if we both got it and recovered it would be out of the way then.
Like flies round a pile of shite!
And how much will this cost? (And it will all up and running in a month of course)
So facecrime is finally here.
On my final sentence, seems others are also thinking ththis way:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/chinese-report-warns-potential-war-us-over-coronavirus-backlash
To clarify. I am not advocating any such backlash, but the backlash will be there, will occur, and western politicians will find themselves helpless to stop it. All they can do is focus it against the PRC instead of letting anything – and anyone – of Chinese origin take the brunt of the rage.
They won’t choose to do this of course, they will drift into it by inaction, stupidity and self promotion. Meantime, as the URL I added, the ruling Communist Party elite in the PRC is similarly in a bind, and will seek to blame the west for its own misfortune.
Reminiscent of Masey’s “Dreadnought”: unstoppable forces on collision course. Buy your Taiwanese gizmos while they dont glow in the dark !
Ended 1952 and like driving licence not compulsory to carry (HORT1): “produced on demand or presented to a police station within 48 hours”
No Mr Gov, we do not need these, let us be free and take the minimal consequences same as before Flu, Cervical Cancer etc vaccines invented
One unintended consequence: Wuhan Virus ‘parties’ to become infected, recover and be released from imprisonment
If only Gov had been robust and ignored doomsters as Sweden did – their R number never reached 1/2 of what Ferguson’s model predicted and is now <1 like UK, but without the huge economic losses
Wuhan Virus is a Scamdemic
At last:
– Absurd, Dystopian, Tyrannical’ Lockdown Must End Soon – Says Tory MP Steve Baker
imo Must End This Week and should never have been done
– The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) of the United Kingdom will begin reviewing every charge, conviction, and sentence that has been brought under emergency laws following reports that overzealous police have wrongfully charged people during the pandemic.
In the US there seems to be a much more belligerent attitude to government lockdown rules. Someone has been citing the constitution which says:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble.”
That is pretty straightforward and leaves the government and the police without a leg to stand on as far as I can see.