Latest / UK Column Radio / Jerm Warfare - Digital ID Is The Hill To Die On

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Jerm Warfare - Digital ID Is The Hill To Die On · UK Column Radio

0:38
The pleasure's all mine. We were just chatting a moment
0:40
ago before I pressed record. But why?
0:43
I do like living in Africa and, you know, the, the chaos and the
0:47
decentralization that comes with being on the African continent.
0:51
And I invited you to come and stay with me.
0:54
And then you said you can't leave the UK.
0:58
Why? Why is that?
0:59
Well, I mean, in order for me to leave the UK, I'd have to renew
1:03
my passport and that means that I'd have to get a digitally
1:08
biometric digital ID compliant passport.
1:13
And that's not something that I'm prepared to do.
1:15
So unfortunately that means that I can't leave the UK because,
1:22
and I think this is an important point to, to discuss as well
1:25
that, you know, there's been obviously the UK government has
1:29
recently purportedly said it wants to bring out bring in Auk
1:36
digital ID called the brick card.
1:39
And that's caused, you know, a lot of political upheaval and,
1:44
and there's a lot of opposition against it amongst the public.
1:48
And people are saying that they're not going to comply,
1:51
They're not going to, to, to go along with the, the roll out,
1:56
the proposed or supposed roll out of this brick card.
2:00
But unfortunately the system that is in place already is
2:06
through something called the Digital Trust Framework, which
2:09
is sets a set of technical standards for what are called
2:13
interoperable digital ID products.
2:17
So one of those products is undoubtedly the British issued
2:22
passport, which is biometric digital ID.
2:25
And the whole point of digital ID contrary to the impression
2:31
that's been given by Keir Starmer and his government with
2:34
the with the proposed roll out of the brick card is that it's
2:38
not reliant upon one single app or one single card.
2:44
It is the whole system that they've been developing for at
2:48
this point more than a decade is reliant upon interoperable
2:54
digital ID, what they call vendor agnostic products.
2:58
So these are things like your driving license, your, your
3:01
passport, your bank cards, your store cards, your utility bill,
3:07
payment cards, everything that you use.
3:10
The, the, the point of interoperability is to make the
3:15
data from those individual disparate products available in
3:21
a machine readable, exchangeable format that fits within this
3:26
thing called the digital trust framework, the digital assets
3:30
and trust framework. And that is how Digital ID has
3:36
long, long been intended to operate not only in the UK but
3:42
globally. This is a global system and the
3:46
brick card in my view is a distraction because it, it
3:52
focuses people's attention on what, on what the, the, the
3:58
promoted image of digital ID is, is.
4:03
But certainly that's what the the UK government want people to
4:06
think digital ID is. And that is not what digital ID
4:12
is. It's not how digital ID is
4:14
designed to operate. And really the brick card, well,
4:17
it doesn't exist actually the brick card, it's not gone out
4:20
for market consultation. It's not gone out for public
4:22
consultation. It's not part of the approved
4:27
digital assets, digital ID assets that the government have
4:30
got Brick cards are not on it. So brick brick card doesn't
4:34
exist. It it doesn't exist so that that
4:36
so it is a pure PR stunt and the only question really is why?
4:43
Why are they doing this? Well, before we talk about why,
4:49
let's talk about what when we talk about digital ID and what
4:52
are we talking about? We're talking about the linchpin
4:56
for a global system of behavioral control.
4:59
It stems from Sustainable Development Goal 16.9 and that
5:06
says that the objective is to provide legal identity to
5:10
everybody on Earth. It doesn't say anything about
5:12
digital ID, it just says legal identity.
5:15
But prior to SDG 16.9 being launched in 2016, ID 2020, which
5:24
brings together groups like Ademia and Accenture and
5:27
Microsoft and groups like that had already started looking at
5:34
fulfilling that particular SDG. They were tasked as the kind of
5:40
UN approved global body, if you like to oversee the roll out of
5:44
global digital identity. And they were they they firmly
5:48
and openly state that that the SDG 16.9 compliant and identity
5:56
is did means digital identity. That's what it means.
5:59
Digital ID. So digital ID is designed to be
6:05
biometric, IE has some sort of facial recognition, like an
6:13
image of your face, some sort of biological identifier.
6:16
It could be iris scans or fingerprints or your face.
6:20
Commonly it's your face. So in the UK nearly all of us
6:25
have got biometric digital ID driving licenses, though that is
6:29
those driving licenses have got our face on it that faces a
6:33
machine readable digital, you know, that could be turned into
6:37
machine readable data and you know, that's our biometric
6:43
identifier. In the case of that particular
6:46
driving license, it also has what it's calls assets attached
6:52
to it. So a digital ID asset is a piece
6:56
of information. So your home address is an
6:59
asset. Your, your, you know, the amount
7:03
of welfare benefits you may have received because formed as
7:06
another asset. You know, your name is an asset,
7:10
your age, you know, all of these, all of these sorry, I'm
7:14
saying asset, I should be saying attributes.
7:16
They're all attributes that that all of these attributes come
7:23
together to form your digital ID and that's then the system that
7:28
is designed to do that to create your Eid or your electronic or
7:33
your digital ID is an interoperable system.
7:37
So you might have your, for example, your name, your driving
7:42
license number and your address on your driving license, but you
7:48
don't, but, but you don't have that on your bank card.
7:52
Your bank card doesn't have your name and address on it.
7:54
It's just got your bank details, which is in a chip on the bank
7:58
card. Well, currently the driving
8:01
license system, which is run by the DVLA in the UK and the, and
8:06
the bank card, which is run by your card provider or your bank,
8:11
your private bank, they're separate systems.
8:14
They're not linked, you know, the data the, the, the data from
8:18
your driving license, even though you might have used your
8:20
driving license to open the bank account, it's not linked to
8:24
your, your purchases with your card.
8:28
I mean, it's easy enough to put the two together.
8:30
And that's obviously what the police, when they're
8:32
investigating something or the intelligence agencies or
8:35
wherever who's looking at this can do that.
8:37
But currently those are two separate systems that they need
8:41
to interrogate individually and bring the data together.
8:45
The whole point of interoperable interoperability and the
8:51
linchpin that brings all that together is digital ID, is to
8:55
make the data from the card and from the driving license
9:00
exchangeable in a in a in a unified standardized machine
9:05
readable format. So then the data from everything
9:09
you do, so you know, if you're caught on a, on a, an MPR
9:14
camera, an MPR camera driving along the motorway, that can be
9:19
linked directly to your driving license, which can then be
9:22
linked to the anything that you've spent in the service
9:25
station on the way up the motorway instantly.
9:28
That is the point of digital ID, to bring all these systems
9:32
together into one what you know, the Bank for International
9:36
Settlements call a unified database.
9:39
So a unified Ledger, which will probably be some sort of
9:45
distributed Ledger technology, probably blockchain, but but
9:50
that's, that's the idea. So you bring data from every
9:54
source that everything that is connected to your life can be
10:00
made interoperable on the back end by these systems that
10:04
they've already erected. And in the UK, that's called the
10:07
Digital Trust Asset Framework. I mean, I was late to the party,
10:13
but I, I remember talking about this in late 2020, early 2021,
10:18
and people laughed it off and were very quickly, very quickly
10:21
dismissed the whole thing as a conspiracy theory.
10:24
Well, obviously it isn't. And it's now suddenly being
10:30
proposed everywhere. Yeah, no, it's absolutely a
10:35
global policy initiative. I mean, one of the things that
10:38
I've I've I've written recently written a piece on my sub stack
10:43
where I stress that point. You know, this is not a, this is
10:46
not wherever you live, whether you live in South Africa, the
10:50
UK, in the US, Brazil, wherever China, wherever the the drive
10:57
towards universal Digital ID is a global governance policy
11:04
initiative. It's got nothing to do with your
11:08
government. I mean the government, obviously
11:11
the governments are involved in the development and the roll out
11:17
of those policy initiatives, you know, but.
11:20
There's this middle management. They are middle management.
11:22
Yeah, yeah, they're not. They're not leading it.
11:24
I mean, and if you look also, I mean, if, if, if you look at the
11:28
history of, for example, the United Nations, which is where
11:31
all the sustainable development gold stuff comes from, you know,
11:36
it's very much was an oligarch LED project.
11:39
The, the, the Rockefeller Foundation, pretty much.
11:42
And the Rockefeller Foundation and their partners, people like
11:46
the Carnegies put the UN together.
11:49
It's, it's their baby. They, they put it together and,
11:53
and ever since then in 1998, we had Kofi Annan just say that
12:00
there had been a quiet revolution at the heart of the
12:03
United Nations. And it was no longer considered
12:07
itself an intergovernmental organization, but rather an
12:13
organization that's, that's existence was to promote
12:18
policies that were beneficial for business and that worked
12:23
with, you know, policy initiatives for the benefit of
12:26
the business community, you know, and there, and therefore,
12:31
it's not surprising that despite the fact that when UN, the UN
12:36
announced SDG 16.9, it made no official announcement about
12:44
digital ID. It just called it legal
12:46
identity. Now we got to the stage where in
12:49
2023 the UN is openly stating that it means digital idea and
12:54
it wants to link that to all financial activity.
12:57
So the UN is quite open about that now.
13:01
The whole thing's a bait and switch though, isn't it?
13:02
Because I mean the, what's his name?
13:04
Stalmer? He he said that it's about
13:06
immigration, which is obviously absurd.
13:10
Yeah, no, I mean, it's, it's absolutely preposterous to to
13:12
make that argument. It's a redundant argument.
13:15
And it is almost impossible to imagine that, you know, the the
13:18
government is stupid enough to make it and you know, the
13:23
immigration, illegal immigration to the UK is not going to be
13:27
deterred one iota by digital ID because the people that come to
13:32
the UK illegally know that they're coming to the UK
13:36
illegally. Now one of the that they star
13:40
most kind of hook for or PR selling points supposedly for
13:45
pushing the brick card is that you won't be able to work in the
13:48
UK with without one, but you can't.
13:52
Yeah, I mean, he literally said that.
13:53
Yeah, yeah. He's literally said that it's a
13:57
precondition of employment in the UK now.
14:00
Now, the National Insurance number that every British
14:04
citizen has once they're 16, that is also a precondition of
14:11
employment in the UK. You cannot get paid legally in
14:15
the UK unless you've got a National Insurance number, and
14:18
every employer is required by law to ensure that they get your
14:23
National Insurance number. So the idea that digital ID will
14:27
make any difference to that system is ridiculous because the
14:32
people that exploit slave labour in the UK don't ask the people
14:40
that they're they're slave labourers if they have National
14:44
Insurance numbers because they they know full well that they
14:47
won't have them. Just as they won't ask them if
14:50
they've got a brick card because they won't have that either.
14:54
So it doesn't make any difference to to illegal slave
14:59
labor and exploitation, economic exploitation in the UK, it makes
15:03
absolutely no difference whatsoever.
15:05
Nor does it make any difference to the traffickers because the
15:09
traffickers is a multibillion dollar global industry.
15:14
The traffickers know that they are.
15:17
The people that they are smuggling into the country are
15:21
by definition illegally being trafficked because if it wasn't
15:25
illegal, they wouldn't have a market.
15:28
Their whole market is based upon the concept of it being illegal.
15:33
So they don't care about laws. By by definition, an illegal
15:38
trafficker doesn't care about laws supposed to deter them.
15:44
Yes, he's not going to suddenly go, OK, let me let me get a let
15:47
me get a digital ID so I can enter legally.
15:50
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, the only thing
15:52
about the the digital ID that you know, that that traffickers
15:57
might think about, you know, could be beneficial for them is
16:02
that if it, you know, potentially if, if, I mean, it's
16:05
the whole thing is just preposterous.
16:08
So potentially if you know, the currently, I think 2.8 million
16:13
people have supposedly signed a petition opposing which is which
16:18
is enormous for a petition in the UK.
16:21
I mean, they, they normally the government website that runs
16:24
these, these petitions, normally they, they're lucky if they get
16:27
a couple of 100,000 people put signing the petition.
16:34
Supposedly this one's got now nearly more than 2.8 million.
16:38
It got something like 22 million in the first day.
16:42
So clearly. That doesn't sound organic.
16:46
No, I am highly suspicious of that.
16:49
I'm highly suspicious of the whole thing, to be honest.
16:52
I don't. I don't.
16:52
I don't think it's legitimate. For a start, as I just said
16:56
earlier, the brick card doesn't exist.
16:59
There's no such thing as a brick card.
17:01
It doesn't exist. Ian, I'm, I'm wondering now if
17:06
we are falling into that category of being a Luddite.
17:10
I remember in the 90s when the Internet came about and cell
17:14
phones came about and people were pushing back and saying,
17:16
you know, this is the mark of the beast, etcetera.
17:18
We got to we got to resist, resist.
17:20
And obviously we yeah, we are now.
17:25
This does seem inevitable. And I'm just wondering, just as
17:30
a thought experiment, if, if this were our future, is there a
17:35
way in which we can exist with it that perhaps is better?
17:43
In other words, I don't know if, if, if digital ideas perhaps
17:46
privatized or or or in a, in a, in a, in a perhaps more
17:53
decentralized, but again, it can't be decentralized because
17:56
the very nature of it is centralized.
17:58
But I think you kind of get what I'm asking.
18:00
Is there a way to exist with it that's maybe better than what
18:05
you're talking about? Well, ironically, we don't need
18:10
digital ID by virtue of the fact of the technology that already
18:14
exists, you know, distributed Ledger technology, if it
18:19
operates on what it's called a permissionless basis.
18:22
I you don't need permission to access the network.
18:25
So if that's let's use the example of blockchain.
18:28
So Bitcoin, for example, is based upon a permissionless
18:34
blockchain. So you and I, you live in South
18:38
Africa or I live in the UKI could buy, you know, one of your
18:42
books or AT shirt or a video or something like that from you in
18:46
the UK. You don't need to know who I am
18:49
and I don't need to know who you are.
18:52
We could conduct, we could conduct A transaction and the
18:55
system itself, because it's a permissionless blockchain Ledger
18:59
with cryptographic encryption at either end of that transaction
19:03
would guarantee the safety of that transaction.
19:06
So you and I could buy from each other with confidence.
19:09
So there, you know, there are things like delivery versus
19:13
payment, smart contracts that you could put on that where the
19:15
money's not released until I get the product.
19:19
But we don't need to identify each other ourselves.
19:22
The system itself guarantees the potential viability of the
19:28
transaction. Now, when are we going down that
19:34
route with that potential use of distributed Ledger technology as
19:38
in it being what you've just said, a decentralized
19:42
permissionless access system, then sure, there's loads of
19:46
stuff that we could do. We don't, you know, you know, I
19:48
mean, for example, driving licenses, for example, you could
19:52
have, you could have, you wouldn't necessarily need one.
19:57
You could have an app that just proves that you've got a driving
20:00
license token on the blockchain and you wouldn't have to divulge
20:04
your personal information about about your name, your address,
20:08
your you know, you wouldn't need to do that because you would
20:10
just need to apply for it and then and then get the the the
20:14
authorized token, which could be anonymous proving that you've
20:17
got a driving license, so. There are lots the the problem
20:22
we have with technology and the reason that people like you and
20:25
I that question it, I think get called Luddites.
20:28
It's because by opposing the centralized control of
20:33
technology, you're, you know, a lot of people say, oh, you're
20:36
arguing against the inevitability of the use of the
20:39
technology. No, it's not about it's not
20:42
about how now, it's not about the, the, the potential benefits
20:47
or, or pitfalls of technology itself.
20:51
It's about the way that technology is intended to be
20:54
used by those that control it and those that control it, who,
20:59
who, for example, control the investment in, at the moment,
21:03
let's say Bitcoin, which is, you know, increasingly coming under
21:08
the financial control of groups like BlackRock.
21:12
Their, their objectives are control.
21:15
They want to erect a controlled a, a behavioural control system.
21:21
But that very same technology doesn't have to be used in that
21:26
way. So, yeah, I mean, there's every,
21:30
there's every reason to hope that we could enjoy the benefits
21:34
of, you know, the quote UN quote, technological
21:37
transformation or technological revolution without all the
21:41
accompanying behavioral controls that come with it.
21:46
And I think that's, that's the key point.
21:51
It's a system. What they're, they're trying to
21:53
use technology for is to erect a system of behavioral control.
21:57
And we we don't, we don't have to have that.
22:01
And, and ironically the technology itself, the base, the
22:05
basis of the technology itself, DLT technology and Fintech to a
22:10
great, a great financial technology to a great extent
22:16
means that we don't need any of that.
22:18
We don't you know the control layer is added on top
22:24
unnecessarily. Without getting into a
22:28
discussion about Elon or we can, but he made an interesting
22:32
comment a couple of years ago, which I haven't forgotten and it
22:35
was about AI and he said, well, AI is inevitable.
22:39
So the way to stop a monopolization of AI is
22:45
basically to enter the market and create competition.
22:48
I think that's maybe a variation of what I was perhaps asking if
22:52
if digital ID and all this technological progress is
22:56
unstoppable, then perhaps creating a market of competition
23:01
might be one way to to, I don't know, lower the stakes.
23:07
Yeah. I mean, I don't think digital ID
23:09
and AI, and I would question what Elon Musk says about AI in
23:15
terms of its capability, in terms of its capability.
23:21
I mean, Elon Musk is part of a group of technocrats that are
23:24
very close to the Trump administration who insist that
23:30
AI is inevitably going to be sentient, that it's going to be
23:35
some sort of, you know, like omnipresent God, you know, and,
23:42
and it will, you know, revolutionize, revolutionize
23:46
human history. And we'll have to meld with
23:48
technology to be to be able to cope with the singularity, the
23:52
moment when technology outstrips our ability to keep up with it,
23:56
you know, and it becomes self perpetuating.
23:58
So all of that is is highly speculative and at the current
24:04
moment. It's fear porn.
24:05
Yeah, it's fear. Porn and at the moment looking
24:07
at development of AI we are some way off from super intelligent
24:11
AI. You know, we, we are, we are
24:14
haven't yet developed theory of mind AI, which would be the the
24:19
next step. And even that looks extremely
24:22
hypothetical. There are, I mean, one of the, I
24:26
mean, what one of the great ironies is that there are people
24:29
like Musk going around insisting that AI can be conscious when we
24:36
as yet as a species haven't grasped and don't understand
24:40
what consciousness is. So, so so quite how you manage
24:44
to program a machine with something you haven't got a clue
24:50
what what your objective is. Is is is is remarkable and and.
24:57
How do you engineer something? Yeah.
24:58
How do you engineer something that you don't know what it is?
25:01
Yeah, You don't know what it is. So I mean, it's just silly.
25:04
All of this stuff is very silly, but but it is, you know that
25:10
going back to the Luddite thing, is AI useful?
25:14
Yeah, of course it's useful. There's there's loads of stuff
25:17
you could do with AI for for example, if you look at the I
25:23
can't, I think it's called the national federal data set or I
25:27
can't remember, sorry, it escapes me, but it's the
25:30
Palantirs NHS data set that it's got for the National Health
25:34
Service in the UK. So it's trying to bring
25:38
together, you know, the NHS is huge in the UK.
25:41
So it's trying to bring together all its systems into one
25:44
manageable unified Ledger where where all data can be
25:48
manipulated and extracted and managed in one place.
25:52
Now, if the purpose of that was genuinely to improve, you know,
26:01
patient patient outcomes and to, you know, free up doctors and
26:09
nurses from having to spend so much time on administrative
26:13
work. If that if that was the
26:15
objective and it and AI could do that, which it which it could AI
26:21
could greatly assist with that, then sure that would be
26:24
beneficial to the NHS and to patients.
26:28
So AI is not the problem. I would suggest you know these,
26:32
you know, large language module and the sort of large generative
26:37
AI and data models are not the problem.
26:41
It is the application of it by people with very specific
26:47
agendas such as Peter Teal, Elon Musk, people like that.
26:52
When you know that there's. Starmer.
26:55
And Starmer, yeah. And Starmer.
26:58
So, you know, that's the problem.
27:01
It's, it's not necessarily that in questioning this stuff that
27:05
you would be rejecting, rejecting the technology.
27:08
It's that the technology is being applied in a, you know,
27:13
detrimental fashion. So then obviously the question
27:20
is how do you push back? Well, I mean, this is, you know,
27:24
I wrote this piece the other day and then we had a bit, I've had
27:26
a bit of A to and fro in the, in the comments section.
27:31
And I, my concern is, and I think another reason why they
27:35
brought brick card in is because it frames the Overton window of
27:40
the debate about digital ID. You know, you can, if you, if
27:43
you accept the brick card, you've accepted digital ID.
27:47
If you reject the brick card, you've rejected digital ID.
27:50
But the brick card is not for a start, the brick card is not
27:55
representative of what digital ID is.
27:58
So just because you've rejected the brick card, that doesn't
28:02
mean you've rejected the digital ID system because as you were
28:06
just saying, you know, because of the political situation,
28:10
socio economic situation, the roll out of that is currently
28:15
looking inevitable. So in order to resist that, you
28:19
would have to do things like, you know, we were talking about
28:22
earlier, like not have a digital ID passport.
28:25
Now I, I, it's not entirely possible to avoid all that.
28:30
So for example, I have to have a driving license, I have to have
28:34
one that is not something that I can avoid and there'll be
28:37
millions of people in similar situations with certain digital
28:41
IDs that they have to have. But if we are aware of how the
28:45
system operates, we can minimize that.
28:47
We could not comply with the things we don't need.
28:50
We can ensure that our data is protected.
28:53
But that does mean unfortunately non compliance or fortunately,
28:59
depending on how you look at it now, that inevitably means that
29:04
not having the benefits and the advantages and the conveniences
29:10
that will be offered to you in order to get you to adopt
29:14
digital ID. So one of the things that's
29:16
happened already apparently in the UK is that the sales of
29:21
brick phones have gone up, they've gone up through they've
29:25
they've, they've gone through the roof because obviously.
29:27
Nokia 30 what? 3310?
29:29
Yeah, well. Those kinds of phones, Yeah,
29:31
those kinds of phones, Yeah, good old phones.
29:34
They were. They were great.
29:35
Yeah, they had good phones. Yeah, they, well, another thing
29:39
about they they didn't have inbuilt obsolescence, did they?
29:42
They just, they still work. Now if you've got 1, you know
29:46
so. Yes, and you can drop it and you
29:48
can throw it and it still works. Yeah, yeah.
29:52
But the but the point is, yeah, well, that's this kind of thing
29:56
that people would have to do to resist.
29:57
So, so get rid of their smartphones potentially.
30:01
So you so I mean, given younger people's evident addiction
30:06
smartphones, that's going to be difficult for them.
30:09
But the but the only the only option is digital ID accepting
30:16
digital ID. So, so non compliance means a
30:20
little bit of inconvenience, potentially some hardship, but
30:25
what it what it really boils down to and something you know,
30:29
we were talking about earlier, why I like the kind of the
30:32
African African approach to things is maximizing your
30:37
independence. You, you have to be as as as
30:41
independent and self-sufficient as possible.
30:45
Now, that doesn't mean you'll be able to everyone be able to have
30:48
a small holding and live off the land.
30:51
It just means that you have to think about maximizing your
30:55
independence at every available opportunity.
30:58
So. So am I going to go into a
31:01
supermarket, buy goods, food from a large corporate retailer,
31:10
pay with a card and then ensure that I get my Club point Club
31:16
card points stamped like most people do so that they get the
31:20
benefits and the advantages and the ease and the function of
31:24
doing that? Well, what what non compliance
31:28
would mean is no, you're not. You are going to barter, you're
31:31
going to exchange, you're going to go to local food markets,
31:34
you're going to buy food from High Street grocers.
31:36
You're going to pay in cash. You're not going to get, which
31:39
means you'll have to pay a bit more probably for food, you
31:42
know. So these are the the decisions
31:45
that we would need to take in order to actually resist all
31:52
those kinds of decisions in order to actually resist the
31:56
roll out of this digital panopticon because it is
31:59
happening everywhere as you said.
32:03
Well, let's assume some good intentions just for the sake of,
32:09
you know, devil's advocate, a standard citizen who lives, you
32:15
know, a normal life, goes to work, all that sort of thing.
32:18
Should be fine, right? Well.
32:22
The the no, no, I mean it's fine as long as you are totally
32:28
compliant, as long as you do not ever.
32:32
I mean, I think for example, I mean a good, a good analogy is
32:37
the Canadian truckers protest. So the the Canadian truckers
32:43
protest was entirely lawful. They were exercising and and
32:47
interesting. We've just seen this now in the
32:49
UK where they're putting further restrictions on protest.
32:53
Now protest is an important part.
32:57
It's an important aspect of how a supposedly democratic society
33:02
is supposed to function. You need a vehicle through which
33:05
to express your displeasure to the to your public servants,
33:10
which is what the government is supposed to be.
33:12
So, you know, in Canada when a group of people or admittedly a
33:21
large group of people did a an obstructive protest, it was no
33:24
undoubtedly obstructive, but it was a lawful protest against and
33:31
and you would argue a legitimate protest against unfair
33:36
restrictions. Now the government then worked
33:42
with the private sector banks and the payment services service
33:48
providers and the private sector insurance companies to put those
33:55
lawfully, you know, peaceful law abiding citizens out of
34:00
business. Now that is the kind of thing
34:05
that in in a Now in order to do that, the the Canadian
34:09
government had to have special executive legislation.
34:13
They needed to approach the private, the private sector
34:17
companies, the banks and the insurance companies to go along
34:21
with with their idea, with their plans so that for the government
34:26
was, you know, relative actively complex in a digital ID based
34:32
and digital currency based system.
34:35
You won't, there won't be no need for any of that from the
34:39
state. The state will simply turn off
34:42
or switch off your ability to buy insurance.
34:46
Your insurance will be represented as a token on a
34:49
block on a blockchain. They'll cut you off from 'cause
34:54
they will have 'cause they the system they want to introduce is
34:58
a permissioned Ledger system. So a permissioned Ledger means
35:02
that access to the system is granted.
35:06
It's not egalitarian as a permissionless Ledger would be.
35:09
And a permissionless Ledger, anyone can access the system in
35:13
a permission Ledger, only those with the appropriate permissions
35:17
can access the Ledger. And of course you can centrally
35:20
control who has permission and who doesn't.
35:24
And, and it's a so in a, in that kind of situation for an
35:29
ordinary law abiding citizens who have nothing to fear or
35:34
nothing to worry about. You don't know in the future
35:40
what what might happen that you might choose to, or you might
35:44
find troublesome that you want to protest against or you want
35:48
to stand against or something that you don't want to do.
35:52
You have no way of knowing that even if you've been all your
35:55
life, you've been a law abiding good citizen.
35:58
You don't know what will happen in the future that you might
36:01
think, well, I don't want to participate in that.
36:03
I don't want to go along with that.
36:05
In a digital ID based digital gulag you you won't have a
36:11
choice because your things like cutting you off from finances
36:16
will be done by the system rather than by the state.
36:22
You keep talking about the state, but I want to throw your
36:25
own fantastic work back at you and suggest that it's not just
36:29
the state, it's the PPPs. Yeah, no, definitely.
36:32
I mean, when I say the state, I do mean a public private
36:36
partnership. I don't just mean the private
36:39
sector, I mean the private and the public sector working in
36:43
partnership together. That is, I mean that is the
36:47
original model obviously of you know, kind of 1930s Italian
36:51
fascism. That is what we've got.
36:55
That is what we've got in, in terms of it being a partnership
37:00
between the the private and the public sector, not in it, not in
37:03
terms of it being, you know, shooting people behind bike
37:07
sheds. I mean, that's.
37:09
I mean, that's what that's what makes the whole thing so
37:11
difficult because if it's if it's a, you know, a relationship
37:15
between the state and private companies, you know, you have
37:21
Facebook, which people love to say as a private company.
37:24
We all know that's nonsense in so many in so many ways works
37:29
hand in hand with the state. Yeah.
37:32
So now, I mean, now it looks as though you really, really don't
37:36
have too many options. No, Well, I mean things like
37:39
Facebook, you know, I mean, it was started by, it was, it was
37:42
formally a DARPA project called Lifelog, wasn't it?
37:45
So I mean it's. On the same day.
37:46
Yeah, same day. So I mean, it's, it's pretty
37:49
clear that it's Lifelog. It's it's a DARPA project.
37:54
Yeah. No, you're right.
37:55
Yeah, that's it is it is very difficult to to imagine life
38:00
living without these things. Although, you know, I mean, I
38:03
would also say to people, I mean, I remember because I'm
38:06
old. I'm old, you see.
38:07
So I, I remember there not being any Facebook, there not being
38:11
any mobile phones, there not being any.
38:13
And I don't remember my life being terrible because I didn't
38:16
have those things. So, you know, I mean, it's, I
38:20
think, I think people. Ian, are you saying that you
38:24
walked 30 kilometers in the snow barefoot and you lived inside a
38:27
cardboard box? Yeah, I I was lucky if I got a
38:31
bowl of grit in the morning. I.
38:34
Piece piece piece. Can I have some more?
38:38
Yeah, No, I mean, I, no, I mean, I was very fortunate.
38:40
I had a very nice childhood. I was, I was, I was lucky.
38:43
But I did. But we did.
38:44
But we didn't have those, that stuff and I didn't.
38:47
And as it came. The thing is, though, I'm trying
38:51
to, I'm trying to imagine 50 years from now and it does seem
38:56
like it's just inevitable and I'm not being complacent.
39:00
But I do wonder if we, you know, pushing back will ever win.
39:06
Well, another thing, another point, going back to having the
39:09
discussions with people in the chat box, I, you know, I'm
39:16
firmly of the view that it'll be generational if, if we're
39:19
serious about resisting this. I mean, the role, the roll out
39:24
of the digital infrastructure, the interoperable digital
39:27
infrastructure that is going to make this system, it, you know,
39:34
does look inevitable. It does, it does look
39:37
inevitable. It's happening everywhere.
39:39
It's happening everywhere in the world simultaneously.
39:43
I was talking to someone from New Zealand the other day,
39:46
exactly the same kind of push for digital ID and central bank
39:50
digital currency, which is 1 model of digital programmable
39:54
digital currency obviously in the US.
39:56
Stable coin. Yeah.
39:57
And obviously in the US, they've gone for stable coins, which is
40:00
just another model of programmable digital currency,
40:04
you know, so, So yeah, it's happening everywhere, all at the
40:09
same time. Because it is a global agenda,
40:13
which is something that I've, you know, I mean, there's no
40:16
doubt it's a global agenda. It's not possible that it would
40:20
be happening everywhere around the world at the same time if it
40:22
wasn't. It's just coincidence, yeah.
40:25
Yeah, it's just coincidence. But then it kind of horseshoes
40:29
to what you said early in the conversation that perhaps some
40:33
geographical locations might be better, you know, as a, as a
40:38
sort of a buffer zone. African countries, for example,
40:41
are very, very far behind. I think a lot of this this kind
40:44
of Rd. art. Yeah, Yeah.
40:46
No, certainly. I mean, I know, I know a lot of
40:48
people have moved to Central and South America to for that
40:51
reason, you know, that it's not as advanced, you know, and
40:55
certainly you could, you could, I mean, and also, I mean,
40:57
there's nothing to stop you forming communities, I suppose,
41:00
any way you like in the world which which chooses not to adopt
41:03
this stuff. But the the the problem is 1.
41:08
But, you know, you know, states want their taxes, governments
41:12
and their partners want their taxes.
41:14
They want they want the public investment, you know, so that
41:17
now they don't like it when you opt out of that kind of thing.
41:22
But there might be places in the world where it's easier to opt
41:25
out of that kind of thing. So I mean, yeah, that's the
41:28
choice. But I mean, for me, you know,
41:32
and I'm sure for millions of other billions of other people
41:34
around the world, you know, my family are here, my, my, you
41:38
know, kids, my grandkids, you know, all this, you know, this,
41:43
that's, that's I'm rooted in this country.
41:47
And and plus the fact I quite like it here, despite
41:51
everything, I quite like it here.
41:52
So, you know, why would I want to be pushed out of my own
41:56
country? I suppose is a way that I might
41:58
look at it all the place where I live.
42:01
What pushed out by by oppressive, oppressive despots.
42:06
I mean, no, I don't. I, I, I think at some point you
42:09
do have to say no. I am willing to kind of defend
42:15
my little corner of things, you know, and I and I, and I, if I
42:22
was younger and I, you know, but I mean, there again, I mean, if
42:26
you had kids, I mean, you would, you know, as, you know, as a new
42:29
parent yourself, I mean, as you know, the, the, the thought of
42:34
moving your children to an unknown and potentially unsafe
42:37
place is crazy. You're not going to do that.
42:39
You're not going to do it. So I mean, there's lots of
42:42
reasons why why we're not going to resist it.
42:46
That way, Ian, is, is this the hill to die on?
42:50
I mean, is this that point in history that's going to be, you
42:55
know, there's going to be a big a big Bunny ear fold on that
42:58
page, you know, in the in the in the book of history.
43:01
Yes, I think so. I I digital ID is the the key
43:10
that unlocks the door for everything else that follows.
43:15
But, but it's important to understand that the systems are
43:17
already in place to go operational as soon as that
43:22
door's opened. Digital ID enables the data from
43:29
nearly every everything you do, not nearly everything,
43:32
everything you do, all your activity, all transactions,
43:37
everywhere you go to be linked. So for, for example, take facial
43:42
recognition at the moment. So a facial recognition camera
43:48
might pick you up, you know, walking down the street.
43:52
And the police might be interested in knowing who you
43:54
are. If your face has not already
43:58
been added to the system. They, you know, they're not
44:01
going to find you. I know you know, I mean, I'm
44:02
not, I'm not trying to defend criminal activity here.
44:05
I'm just saying the way the system operates, and they might
44:09
have to add you in a digital ID world, Your, your, your face
44:16
will be your biometric identifier.
44:18
It will instantly connect to your digital ID, your Eid, and
44:23
that will instantly reveal everything about you.
44:28
Now, you might say, well, if I was a criminal, if I was a
44:32
burglar breaking into someone's house, that's a good thing
44:35
because the police will be able to find me very quickly.
44:37
Sure, that's a good thing. But what if it's an insurance
44:41
company that wants to know, you know, you, you told the
44:44
insurance company that you're married, but actually the
44:47
insurance company knows because it's access the data that you've
44:52
got a lover somewhere else and that you've, you've been playing
44:55
away from home and therefore you're a higher insurance risk.
45:00
That that's how these things will play out in our day-to-day
45:05
lives, whether you're a law or abiding citizen or not with
45:09
nothing to hide. The data can be and will be
45:12
used. It's already being used for
45:15
things like assessing insurance, the your viability for insurance
45:20
or the premiums you're going to have to pay.
45:23
I mean, we are looking at, we are looking at a very draconian
45:30
behavioural control system that is going to that is going to
45:33
control everything we do. And that's the true social
45:38
credit score. Yes, Yeah, No, that's that's
45:41
what social credit is all about. South.
45:43
Social credit is just the set of rules that you apply to a system
45:47
like this. So, so for example, you know,
45:52
we've got a problem in the UK with lots of people, you know,
45:55
being hounded and in some cases arrested and in some fewer cases
46:00
prosecuted and in fewer still go to prison for things that
46:04
they've said on social media. Now, the IMF has already
46:08
suggested that if we have digital ID log on to the
46:12
Internet, our Internet browser history should form part of our
46:15
social credit history. The IMF arguing for that, I
46:20
don't know, 10 years ago. So, so if you go online in the
46:26
UK and say, you know, I think, I think Keir Starmer should be
46:35
booted out of booted out of government or I, I think the
46:37
government should be, should be turned off.
46:42
If you, if you do something like that, that will be a, a black
46:45
mark in your social credit history.
46:47
Now, that won't necessarily affect you, you know, get going
46:52
to the doctor or something like that, but it could well affect
46:55
you if you go for a job interview, you know that you're
46:59
looking at looking. At and of course, and vaccine
47:02
passports, for example. Vaccine passports, another
47:04
thing. Yeah, I mean, Bill Gates has
47:06
openly said that he wants digital ID to be linked to your
47:11
vaccine status. So let's say, you know, you've
47:15
got your biometric digital ID passport and you're legally
47:19
entitled to fly. But when you present your
47:22
document at, you know, the airport or whatever it, it comes
47:27
up, you haven't got your vaccines, you're not up to date
47:30
with your vaccines and it's an entry requirement.
47:34
So you can't fly, you know. So these things at the moment,
47:39
none of these systems are quite joined up together.
47:43
They're not joined up and that that is the point.
47:46
That is the whole point. And I'm, I'm writing another
47:48
piece at the moment to stress this point.
47:51
That is the whole point of digital ID.
47:54
It is to bring all these systems together and that will be done
47:58
on the back end of these systems to bring bring them all together
48:03
so that all of your data is constantly available to anybody
48:08
with the permission to see it. And that could be anyone that
48:11
could be a bank, that could be an insurance broker, that could
48:14
be a the police, obviously, I mean that that could be school
48:20
teachers, anyone that has permission that is, that is an
48:24
approved, approved access. So basically it's going to be
48:28
multinational corporations, isn't it?
48:30
It's going to be Palantir, it's going to be Oracle, it's going
48:32
to be Accenture. They're going to have access to
48:36
it and they'll buy it and sell it and trade it and, and use it
48:40
as they wish. So that that is that is the
48:44
problem that we are facing, that we and I.
48:46
And is that the hill to die on? Yeah, I, I, I think it is
48:50
actually. Despite the dark nature of this
48:55
conversation, you have pointed out that British people have
49:00
rejected similar things like this post World War One, post
49:03
World War 22010, I think, yeah, there is I guess, a glimmer of
49:08
hope. What, what I mean, I, I
49:11
personally, I don't think the brick card will ever come to
49:14
fruition and it's not going to happen.
49:16
The, the opposition to it is overwhelming.
49:20
I mean, outside of the Parliamentary Labour Party and
49:22
Tony Blair and Larry Ellison, nobody, as far as I can see,
49:28
nobody wants it. I mean, when I, I, you know,
49:31
mentioned it, there's, there's obviously the petition, which I
49:34
I think is a bit dubious. Even even Boris Johnson, sorry,
49:37
even he said Nah. Well, it's not only that, I
49:40
mean, then you've got, obviously you've got the, the in the UK,
49:42
you've got the executive officer of Palantir UK, Lewis Mosley,
49:48
you know, has come out and said that Palantir oppose it.
49:51
Palantir opposes the Brick Card Right now the reason Palantir
49:56
opposes the Brick Card is because Palantir is instrumental
50:00
and heavily involved in setting up the interoperable system,
50:03
which is called the UK Digital Attributes Trust framework.
50:09
So Palantir is deeply involved in that project at it was a
50:15
committee for, I think it was the committee of the Digital
50:18
Media, Culture and Sport Committee.
50:21
Lewis Mosley said interoperability is our bread
50:26
and butter talking about Palantir.
50:29
So the brick card, it's not into, well, it doesn't exist.
50:36
That's the first one. But the concept of the brick
50:38
card is superfluous to everything they do that they're
50:42
doing. It's it doesn't fit with it.
50:45
So, so and it doesn't fit with anything that the government has
50:49
done up to this date. It's it's a totally anomalous,
50:54
weird concept which makes me think that it's not designed to
50:59
be introduced, it's just designed to frame the
51:03
conversation about digital ID in the UK and I.
51:07
Yeah, it's what you said. It's the Overton window.
51:09
Yeah, it's just, it's just designed to frame the
51:11
conversation about it so that people think that in rejecting
51:15
the brick card, they will have successfully defeated digital
51:20
ID. Meanwhile, this digital ID
51:23
infrastructure, this interoperable digital ID
51:26
infrastructure will be surrounding them and they will
51:30
actually be issued a digital ID, but they just won't know it
51:34
because they'll just think, oh, it's just my driving license or
51:36
it's just my bank card, but. It's the same thing, yeah.
51:39
It's the same thing with CBDC's in the states that go Trump.
51:42
Trump has rejected CBDC, meanwhile.
51:46
Yeah, no, it's exactly the same. Yeah.
51:48
Stable coins, I mean, in in lots of respects, stable coins are
51:51
worse. I mean the at least the federal,
51:56
you know, the the government well, certainly Congress has
51:59
some control over the Fed theoretically on paper, let's
52:05
put it this way. On paper it has some control
52:08
over the Fed. It doesn't in any practical
52:12
sense, but I mean it, it, it, it could have.
52:16
And if the Fed issue a central bank digital currency, that will
52:19
give Congress theoretical control of that.
52:24
And you know, supposedly Congress represents the people
52:28
if Palantir issue APYUSD stable coin.
52:34
Well, government's got no control over that at all.
52:38
I mean, and also the genius Act, which is supposedly set in the
52:43
framework for the stable coins in the US deliberately calls
52:48
them not money. So the only, the only
52:51
legislation where they are in the US where they are subject to
52:56
government oversight is for the banking standards legislation in
53:03
terms of and things which, which sets up things like know your
53:07
customer for on boarding and you know, regulations like that.
53:11
So they have to apply by all the digital ID requirements that
53:15
would be enabled that would enable you to on board to get
53:20
one of these coins, stable coins.
53:21
Oh yeah, you've got to disclose all your information, but
53:24
because it's not it, because it's not part of the things like
53:30
the securities, it's not a security.
53:32
So it's not subject to oversight by the Securities and Exchange
53:35
Commission. It's not, it's not subject to
53:39
information, you know, oversight by other, other government
53:43
departments. You the groups like Palantir and
53:47
Tether. And they, they've got far more
53:50
freedom to issue these dollar back stable coins that, and the
53:56
ironic thing is they are dollar banked.
53:58
The objective is to back them one to one with the US dollar.
54:02
They're called payment stable coins.
54:05
So that, so they are in, in every respect, apart from the
54:10
legal sense, the US dollar. You know that.
54:14
And I, and I think that's why we're seeing people like the EU,
54:17
we've seen recently Christine Lagarde rushing to get the euro
54:22
out and the, and the EU rushing to get, you know, to oppose the
54:27
widespread use of these dollar backed stable coins.
54:30
Because if people can trade globally in the dollar using
54:34
stable coins at the Press of a button, why do they need the
54:38
euro? Why do they need the pound?
54:42
Why do they need any other currency?
54:44
So it's certainly a a a clever attack on on the kind of global
54:51
monetary system and it could undermine CBDCI mean we've
54:55
already seen Augusten Carstens express his anger about about
55:01
stable coins because, you know, it could potentially threaten
55:03
that system. But again, that having said that
55:09
accustom, although Carstens said that the BIS itself has already
55:15
set up a system for what it calls a global stable coin, a
55:19
global stable coin system. So it's already prepared for
55:22
that eventuality as well. I.
55:28
Think it was Catherine Orsenfitz who said that the way to push
55:31
back basically is one person at a time.
55:34
Yeah, no, which is? Tedious and slow, but that's
55:37
probably it. Well, I mean, I think that the
55:40
important thing, and definitely I would agree with Catherine
55:43
about that is, is the important thing, is to understand that
55:46
resistance is your responsibility, you and you
55:49
alone. I mean, one of the other reasons
55:52
I think that the Brick Card has been brought out or the issue of
55:56
the Brick Card has been promoted in the UK is because it, it
56:00
means that people's perceive resistance as being a political
56:04
effort. You know, resistance is through
56:06
the ballot box. Resistance is through, you know,
56:11
putting political pressure on the government.
56:14
That's how you resist. Well, of course, that's how the
56:16
system wants you to resist. It wants you to resist on its
56:20
own terms. It wants you to resist by
56:23
putting all your time and effort into into supporting the next
56:28
political leader. It that's what it wants.
56:31
That's the the the whole system is designed to funnel you
56:35
towards that path of resistance because for it, it is the path
56:39
of least resistance. So, you know, if we are going to
56:45
resist it, it means making personal choices, maximizing
56:49
your independence, foregoing convenience, and probably
56:53
learning to endure a bit of hardship that you weren't
56:58
expecting to endure. And maybe not use starting.
57:03
Not use Starlink, Yeah. Not use.
57:07
Well, that's that that's becomes increasingly difficult as well.
57:11
I mean, you know, I mean, you and I are talking to each other
57:13
on the Internet. So we're using a, a, you know,
57:18
U.S. intelligence agency, DARPA developed system, you know,
57:23
being being transmitted around the world over interlink
57:26
satellite networks, Starlink included, you know, so, so we're
57:31
using the base system just to get, you know, just to do what
57:36
we do. So you can't completely shut
57:39
yourself off from the system. Now, I mean, I, I, I fully
57:42
appreciate that if you have to take your kids to school and
57:47
there's, you know, you need, they insist that you have
57:50
digital ID to take your kids to school, then you've got a very
57:54
hard choice to make. It's.
57:57
Tricky. I had a friend who I had a child
58:01
and he said, look, our kid is not going to get an ID number.
58:03
We're not going to register him on on the system.
58:07
And it's a very noble idea, but I don't think that kid is going
58:13
to have an easy life. Yeah, no, I mean, it depends,
58:17
doesn't it, what the, you know, I mean, if it, if, if you choose
58:21
to do something like that, then you have to commit your life to
58:24
giving your child the best possible opportunities and
58:27
education and, and you know, you have to home school them and,
58:30
and all of that kind of stuff, which is not necessarily a bad
58:34
thing. It could be a very good thing.
58:35
Yeah, but I mean they can't, they can't drive or anything.
58:37
They can hardly They can't open a bank account.
58:39
Yeah. No, I mean that that makes
58:41
things very difficult, you know, but going back to the
58:47
technology, the, the technology discussion that we were having
58:51
earlier, I mean, one of the reasons why undoubtedly why
58:55
they've seized control of financial technology and
58:59
decentralized, especially Defy decentralized finance is that
59:03
Defy threatens to overturn the entire banking and financial and
59:07
monetary system because we don't we won't basically, we won't
59:11
need it. So that, you know, that the, the
59:14
opportunities for us to use technology for our benefit,
59:21
absent any kind of third party oversight, using the technology
59:25
that is currently available, is there we, we could, we could,
59:31
you know, and I mean, but when you even got people like Vitaly
59:34
Boot, what's, I can't remember the guy's name, but the guy that
59:37
started the Ethereum blockchain, I mean the Etherium Ledger.
59:43
I mean, he started with the most, you know, amazing ideas
59:48
for, for the emancipation of humanity using the, the, the,
59:52
the defy that he was, that he was envisaged and was capable of
59:57
building and constructing. But I mean, that's just been
1:00:00
taken over completely by, you know, the corporate.
1:00:07
The corporate public private partnership that's that spreads
1:00:10
around the world. I'm just looking at the time,
1:00:14
Ian, so this whole conversation was largely centred around few
1:00:18
of your Substack articles, which I highly recommend others read.
1:00:22
How can they find those articles?
1:00:25
And of course, the rest of your work.
1:00:27
Yeah, go to Ian Davis and my name's Iain Davis,
1:00:32
alloneword.com, which is my website, or go to
1:00:36
iandavis.substack.com, which is my sub stack.
1:00:39
Or read my work Unlimited Hangout or, or also Geopolitics
1:00:45
and Empire, but also at the outlets like the Off Guardian.
1:00:50
And also, yeah, I'm delighted to say that I've got a new book
1:00:53
coming out that's called The Technocratic Dark State and
1:00:57
that's going to be published by Unlimited Hangouts new
1:01:01
publishing company. So it's all that be coming out
1:01:06
soon. I don't quite know when, but I
1:01:09
think it will be in the next month or so.
1:01:12
So yeah, so there's there's quite a bit of stuff out there
1:01:15
already and quite a bit more coming soon.
1:01:18
Iain, that's how I remember your your website because you have
1:01:24
such weird spinning, Iain. Yeah, well, that's quite not,
1:01:29
that's not that weird in the UK and that that's quite, that's
1:01:31
quite common because that's that's the kind of yeah, well, I
1:01:34
mean, that's the Galaxy. N would be IANIANI mean that
1:01:37
that makes sense, yeah. Where's that invisible extra I
1:01:41
coming from? Where it's English, isn't it?
1:01:43
We've got all sorts of weird, weird spelling thing.
1:01:46
I mean, I've never really. Yes, yes, you.
1:01:50
Sorry. Go on.
1:01:50
No, I'm just saying I've never really done a lot.
1:01:52
I mean, as far as I'm aware, I haven't got any kind of Scottish
1:01:55
or Irish or anything history, but but as I as I understand it,
1:02:01
that's, that's where it comes from.
1:02:05
English is a weird language. Have you, have you seen that
1:02:07
that Michael McIntyre sketch where he talked about the the
1:02:11
hidden letters and words and then they don't make any sense?
1:02:13
Yeah, there's that. There's that quite funny stuff
1:02:16
going about on on Twitter, isn't it about those two guys that are
1:02:20
trying to go through the spelling class or the English
1:02:23
learning English language, which is quite funny.
1:02:25
Yeah, because all the the same letters sounding completely
1:02:28
different. Yeah.
1:02:31
It's a weird language anyway. Ian Davis, thank you for joining
1:02:35
me in the trenches. It's been my pleasure, Jim.
1:02:37
Thanks very much for inviting me.