Digital ID Throwdown: Good Idea Or Cock Up Waiting To Happen?

00:00 Digital IDs, the whole of the UK has gone nuts because apparently we're going to get a digital ID. What I'm impressed with is the fact that two and half million people can get behind something they don't agree with my esteemed friend Glen Ocsko thinks otherwise and that is why we are gonna have a throwdown today. Digital IDs good or bad? Roll theme! Welcome to The Jonnie Jensen Show, where modern dads discover how to create the true riches relationships and results they deserve. Get your High Value Man blueprint and join our community at highvaluemanproject.com Let's go!

00:43 This is The Jonnie Jensen Show. I am the head coach and founder at The High Value Man Project, and we'd like to do this podcast at least...I say at least a little gap last week whilst was building out the school group but at least once a week sometimes twice a week with guests episodes solo episodes from me the wrap-up from Glen and I and today's episode is a little sort of It was a message, WhatsApp poke in the eye almost actually from Glen saying Digital IDs we have got to talk about this.

01:21 Well I saw you posting something, and I can't remember what it was because you're on all the socials. What socials are you on again Jonnie? Pretty much all of them yeah. Excellent! Well i saw it on one of the amazing socials that everyone should be following um and you were very unhappy with the fact that the government have introduced a new act to look at digital ID This is my world and this is something I have been desperate for the government to get some balls about, and actually do for about 20 years. So we should probably have a chat! Starmer, you can stick your digital ID up your arse. I think that was my actual word! Which i think is echoed by many people in Parliament so yeah I'm sure you're not alone in thinking that but hopefully we can have a chat today and hear some of the things that got your goat about it share some other things and see if we can come up with a happy medium

02:21 The good thing about this conversation, right? There's loads of mad shit going on in the world right now. Which I think that this kind of dialogue is getting squeezed out you know like all the other week when it was the Whatever, was it Trust Britain or Proud of Britain or whatever the Tommy Robinson marches and stuff. But it was just really interesting to me that there was a shitload of people right? There's no way all of those people considered themselves far-right racist right? There are some sort of 200 000 people in London I've got just over a hundred, but yeah. Right so no good. No good you are the...I'll be the fake news and you will be the...well anyway where are getting your news from? Did you go and count them? Someone actually did some crowd fluid dynamics and actually measured this crowd space and density and said it's about 110. Did you see that AI photo which was the Mao with the Sean's Alize at

03:25 So for our international listeners, the bit of road in front of Buckingham Palace. Charles's gaff, previously Lizzie's gaff On public occasions, you get a good old bunch of British people either happily or angrily up there waving flags. So there was an AI photo loads of people crammed in Union Jacks all over the place and then I guess they did it on purpose at the end instead of the what's it called? Arches Gate or Soldiers' gate has got something. Yeah, Watchtower Square. Admiralty Arch. Yes, Admiralty Arch. There you go.

04:06 Someone goes, they haven't even noticed it's the Shaunzelize rather than the thing. So to me when you look at the picture it didn't look quite right but everyone was like, oh look all the people! And the reason I'm sharing this is that the world has gone mad there's literally made up stuff everywhere in particular coming out of America's presidents mouth And I guess no one knows quite what to believe. So it's really interesting here that I could be this sort of like, Digital ID? No way am i trusting our government Conservative Labour Libs and anybody to implement a system as...

04:46 As embedded into our lives, why would I possibly put that in the hands of civil servants and politicians who could right from the outset balls it up? And even if they managed to get past the actual delivering it. Who's to say they wouldn't then go oh you know we said it was for this well now we're going to make it for this, this and this as well! Then somewhere else down And I'm glad you're here.

05:27 Um, or I'll tell you the movie that came to mind right? Demolition Man. You know, that's a great movie! It's one of those ones where nobody gives it the appreciation it deserves. Demolition Man absolutely brilliant. Right. Is this where... Oh no, I've got get this right first of all, where Sylvester Sloane gets ...like cryogenically frozen and wakes up like... Because he killed too many people. Yeah, he wakes up decades later and every time he swears this ticket comes out and finds him and stuff but in that world everyone's controlled by the fact that everyone knows where everyone is moving around and going and stuff. That's because someone should just explain the three seashells to him if you haven't watched this movie you need to watch the movie! And if someone can explain three seashells to me I'm all ears

06:15 That's a good movie. It's got to be a top 10 for us, top 10 movies that no one puts in their Top Ten. Oh as an aside Jonnie this isn't for now this is for the wrap-up but I do want to talk Movie Club with you because i'm convinced that Movie Club is going to be far more fun than Book Club Well yeah no doubt As much as I love listening to books, because as we know I listen more than read. Yeah who doesn't love a good movie? By the way book i'm finishing up at the moment Alchemy Rory Sutherland bloody brilliant I like Rory Sutherland. He's all about behaviour change and i'm hoping that the government can get him on board and try and change people's behaviours when it comes to digital ID and attitudes because the man is a genius! Okay, truly he is actually if anyone could come up with a random reason why we would all flip-flop onto uh...the idea that this is a great idea right? Let's go for it so here we are now for everybody listening you know what we have not set out rules of engagement here right? We're not going

07:18 I've just run through some of the sort of like my headline concerns. I actually asked ChatGPC to give me some, as we know AI will give you what you ask it right? So I told it I was concerned and I was aware that there'd been a number of global incidents where digital IDs have absolutely fallen flat on their face and we should all be terribly scared about it And so that's kind of where I'm coming from along the other points. And then Glen here, just explain to people Glen you said this is my wheelhouse or whatever? Just explain to people because I feel a little bit like David and Goliath here Rowdy Roddy Piper versus Andre the Giant, okay? Because this is your world. For all my doubts about delivering public sector digital infrastructure this is actually your world right? It's literally what I do and just as an aside never think about David & Goliath in the same way because actually David was the favourite Goliath big hulking target David was a slingshotter who trained to be able to shoot birds from the sky with a stone

08:20 And he was basically, it's like putting a sniper up against just the big fat man. So yeah David was the absolute advantage in that one and... You're telling me the Bible abused that story for its own benefit? I can't but i'm just setting out simple facts! That's all i'm doing you can do your own thinking your own research and hopefully that's what i'm going to help people to do today so yeah the reason this is this interests me and it is what i'd say is my wheelhouse I have spent the last 20 odd years either working inside government or alongside it delivering digital projects. So this whole world of digital enablement, digital transformation and kind of legacy transformation that's what I do for my day job that's how i've built a career so i've got a long long history not just from the kind of digital oh we should just do this because it's cool but from the government side of it or actually what's the problem we're trying to solve and how can we do that in a way which doesn't impact on civil liberties

09:19 Yeah, this is something I've been deeply mentally embedded in for 20 years now and i've got lots of opinions but hopefully... ...I'll be able to share some just some basic facts. I'm never going to be hyperbole! I'm never going to be saying this is the answer to everything but what I'm hoping to do Jonnie is hear some of your concerns and then just talk through the counterpoint to that that might get you to change your mind Okay, good. So this is Digital ID Throwdown Pub Banter okay so we're you know and actually who's to say there's not been more facts in this than some of the Tosh people are getting from online? You said when we were chatting before we came on

10:01 I think it is getting up towards 2.5 million people now, isn't it cool that 2.5 billion people can get behind an idea this quickly? And we can't seem to agree on anything else and then you were like no no! That's quite alarming. Why is that quite alarming to you? Because it's wonderful when you have a lot of people who are able to be mobilized I love active citizenry. For a lot of the time, when I was in public sector my whole world was community engagement so getting people together and caring about things that are going to affect their lives The world is run by people who turn up And some of this is about getting people to turn up when it comes to shaping decisions. This is going to shape the way that politicians think because frankly most politicians, regardless of what colour rosette they wear, they care about getting elected their job is to represent our views and so the more they know about what those views are the better! The trouble is

10:55 When those views are shaped by lies and misinformation, and just misunderstanding that's when the problem hits. Because if you've got a bunch of people saying we don't want it because of these reasons... And I'm sitting here saying yep that's irrelevant that's not what they're trying to do That becomes a problem because then the facts get totally walked over by opinion and you can't change opinions with facts. So we've got to get into a world where people are able to look at information a bit more rationally, and so come to their own points of view on that not just well this is something that they fucked up 20 years ago and so they're never gonna get it right now no that shouldn't be the way is.

11:39 I think there's a whole concern for me about the tech implementation side and getting it wrong, and cost and being abused. Let's break that down what do you mean by... Well I want to come from a different point first of all right? Where has he plucked this idea from? From what I've, I did not read the Labour election manifesto. From what I've read and it would be led to believe there was no mention in there of we're going to look to introduce a digital ID in our first So why have they plucked this out of the air and it not be something that was part of what could or could not have got them elected in the first place? This is one of the frustrating parts for me about this current government. And I want to be clear, I'm not a Conservative, I'm not a Labour fan...I'd criticise whichever side or compliment whichever side but

12:36 They are really good at policy and really shit at politics. What they've done here is they've taken something that actually has been worked on for, like I say 25-30 years lots of thinking's been going into this international research so many good things have been done in terms of understanding whether this is a good or bad idea And then they've decided, we need something that we can say that's gonna shut the right wing up. It's going to shut Nigel Farage up so let's pluck a policy out and pretend this is about immigration it might have a little bit of impact on immigration but not much but they've taken really good policy and attached it to really shit-bad

13:16 politics and they're using this to kind of change the conversation because the public are getting all riled up because a few homeless people and refugees are trying to find a better life for themselves. So, they're not saying why don't you next in we're a better country than that? They're saying we need to be scared of them and this is where we can control it. Yeah I mean that's what got my goat about politics right now is no one's fighting I mean, blimey. And that's the problem if people were to say...

13:53 This is what we're doing and this is why we're doing it. And by the way, a lot of you are wrong and here's why you're wrong... Did you know that actually the sum total of people in hotels or the cost of bringing them out to sort out their boats is this much? Which is like this big size of a flipping grape versus this expense over here which let's call it benefit fraud which is the size of a flipping grapefruit Which multi-billion pound issue shall we look at? So there is a problem there and I agree that's what gets my goat about politics right now. There really is, and the trouble is... And I don't want to get into or do want to get into a side debate about immigration but that's not what we're talking about today Today we're talking about purely digital ID so they've said one of the challenges

14:43 At the moment, you need ID. You cannot do an official job unless you've got ID. You need some sort of passport or driving license, or documentation to say this is who I am bits of paper or whatever...you need something to say this is who I am that's how you get your national insurance number That's how if you wanted one you could apply for a passport, you could apply for a bank account, you can apply for all these things and that's how you're on PAYE or you know you pay your taxes if yourself employed

15:28 So we already have ID processes and systems spread across dozens of different platforms. You know, the right to work you've got all the benefits that can be claimed all of that it runs off of ID if your I didn't have ID We're not allowed to work. We're not allowed to claim benefits were not allowed to do anything That's just the way it currently runs The only difference here is they're introducing something which is... All of that But digitally. So all the things you already have or already do, they're not replacing it. They want a digital equivalent so you can have a digital version of your identity that's owned by you that stored by you on your phone is not stored in... I'll talk about decentralized data systems in a minute but it's not held in some big government vault and one big data center this is just you on your phone saying this is who I am and this is how I can prove

16:26 I am a real person and if i've got this, I'm allowed to work. If I haven't got this, I can use my passport or my ID." That's the argument that they're fumbling on this is just... This is just a digital version of stuff we've already got in place. Yeah and that data for the stuff that it's already in place Multiple locations in disparate systems that are completely out of date and not fit for purpose. And so, yeah... This is a massive problem we run off legacy monolith system. So a monolithic system is basically like your passport control border control. Border control is a monolithic system

17:08 It's got one big database and that holds all your passport information, when you go in and out of the country. Every bit of information that's on your passport is held at the moment on one system so if that system has a problem or it goes down... The whole thing fucks up! That it all goes wrong Now that's useless, and that's commonplace. Back in the early 2000s late 90s that was what was built because they thought let's build big systems that we can store and control everything in one system so we don't have to think about it... Everything should be in one place which is like putting all of your gold all your worldly possessions as a country into one castle but if someone breaks into their castle they can nick the lot

17:55 They get everything. That's the problem, that's what the old legislation... there was a bit of legislation in 2006 where they started doing this and they just wanted to build one massive monolithic system that's never ever ever gonna work! The new one is all about micro services and interactions between disparate datacents. Marcus has some other points that people have been making So they've been arguing against digital ID from the perspective of the old system, which you've just said is not what they're talking about. They definitely don't want to be building one big system because that's massively expensive really complicated and pretty much from the second that gets built it's out-of-date and hard to upgrade hard to change as technology evolves is next to impossible to evolve because if you make one tiny change to one bit you don't know

18:45 Imagine the best way of doing it is what you don't want to do is build one big thing. You want to build things out of Lego, lots of little Lego kits that all fit together and they can all slot together in different ways so if you need to upgrade one, you take it off, throw away and replace with a new one. Like the Borg? Yeah! It doesn't affect anything else. Sorry, it does interact but it doesn't control or influence by all the stuff that's still in place That's the microservices approach in a kind of basic sense. And what they're talking about doing here is essentially building loads and loads of roads, loads of connectors building better data sets and introducing these digital versions of what you've already got your ID

19:28 And allowing you to control that and then over time, potentially if legislation change because at the moment it doesn't change but if legislation changed and it worked being able to link that to other systems. To be able to link that to other things cause I don't know about you but I get sick and tired of having to remember dozens of different logins and details and different processes to go through to get access If you're looking for a podcast that's not just about the content, it's also about the people.

20:05 Yeah. Every time now I say every time if I'm sat with an NHS nurse or doctor, right? And it's an emergency and it generally isn't right because those people are bloody good at what they do in the end and jobs of valuable and all that sort of stuff but any part of booking a call accessing data getting the information back that I want having any faith there's not someone's not going to lose it or break it or get it nicked or leave it on a bus I mean, I did see someone make a point the other day like they can't even get a laptop back to the office without losing it. How do you expect them to get this right? So it's kind of funny but that sort of sensational kind of comment is going to get Vera and Flippin and Alf Garnett like right off their rocker like yeah another thing! It really is and that's why this is as far safer thing

20:58 You don't have to worry about laptops. You don't have to worry about equipment getting nicked or lost, or left on trains. You also don't have to worry about a fire destroying a load of paperwork. Why? This will be in the cloud. This will be replicated and backed up secure probably cloud sovereign data centers that means they're in the UK as well. That's got... okay that's a good point because it has got to be Yes, exactly. When they sell our nuclear power stations to Chinese firms or they ask the Wi-Fi network to be built on Chinese tech... I'm not just anti-Chinese right? But like half the trains running through our country are either French owned or Italian owned or some other random country owned so how do we know they're not going to do that but even that point i challenge myself with because why do

21:50 Other countries, like my sort of utopian kind of Star Trek kinda version is that we are the you know the star fleet and everybody knows who everybody is and we get beamed up so our whole body's in the computer. So if I go down a Star Trek route then Of course they've got digital ID, no one talked about it like that but they're all logged and everyone knows where everyone's going. I can kind of argue it that way... Yeah, It would be lovely to live in a utopia like that sadly we don't! We still have national borders and boundaries but just to make the point that actually you're thinking about this wrong there is no other country that's gonna buy our ID system because our ID system isn't a thing

22:35 It's the way we connect lots of different data and it's how you can prove things using different datasets. So, using your ID... Say I want to prove that I am over 18 for whatever reason clearly they won't just be able to look at my face because i've got a boyish charm but I need some sort of id to say i'm over 18 now What people seem to think is happening is we'll build up this big database and now I'll have loads of things. It will have my birth certificate, it will have my passport, all these things that prove who I am and it will be able to present all of that in one go actually no! That information is already stored inside

23:11 in different systems. Passport control, border control already have my passport information. DVLA already have my driver's license. My bank already has my bank details and so on all these different bits of data are out there and all I'm going to be able to do is say right well using my ID thing just prove don't tell them anything else it's all pseudonymized. Pseudonymised? I can't remember whether it's pseudonymous or pseudo anonymize but basically take away my name and bits Anything else I'm in control. The only bit of information I'm going to be able to share with, or I'm willing to share with you is Am I over 18? It will go off, it will check those systems that are already in place. That have already got that and already secure and it will say is this person over 18 yes it is there's the proof or if it'll be saying do I live in Kent it will check a different database maybe and it won't do it yet because local government is way behind the shift line on this

24:08 But it'll be able to check my council tax or HMRC will have my tax details. It will say, does this person live in Kent? It won't say what's his address, it won't say how old is he, it won't say what's his inside leg measurement, it would say does this person live in Kent? Yes she does! There you go I can prove that All these bits of data are already out there in loads of different ways. All we're doing is building a tool that is able to link those securely and use minimum viable tech to get the right information when it's needed. App Store, Apple app store saying to app developers if you want to build an app in our market for an iPhone it needs to comply with these sort of rules and then you can plug it into the system and have access to the system. So so it's not one system completely controlled by everybody, its one like

25:07 And that you can plug something else into if you've been given permission to build something that plugs into it. Yeah, there'll be a few different things now. There's a team in government called GDS the Government Digital Service they are not blowing smoke they are widely regarded as the best digital government team in the world Yes, other countries have done different things and done superb. They're a civil service or they are? They are civil servants yeah okay right so they they take in some of the best and their job is to build tools like this into work with the private sector sometimes to built these sometimes to build them internally and basically shape and support the way government does digital and they've set out a whole bunch of standards about how these services need to work

25:48 And they're also working with European kind of equivalents as well to look at what they're doing in terms of digital identity and other partners around the world, to say who's doing it best? How can we learn from those and create these standards that then have to be built. They are then using that to build certain tools so they've already built something called OneLogin now one thing I hate is having to remember tons Tons of login details to different government systems. It's a nightmare and the more you remember, the more you have to remember, the more likely it is that you're going to forget them. You'll give them all the same password anyway. You'll probably have to write the password down somewhere. You'll constantly reset and it's a nightmare. They've built a tool called OneLogin which essentially is a set of protocols which allow any system to use their log in system, their log-in tool, to log into certain government

26:40 The Jonnie Jensen Show, Jonnie Jensen, Digital ID, No to Digital ID But when you use that, it logs you in. It does all from your perspective it's easy. I login using one username and one detail That's it! And you can use your biometrics so on your phone or fingerprints or face Or something like that...or tap stuff in and it does all the hard work. It then pings out to verify your identity and do these things and brings the right data for you. So from your perspective its a piece of piss

27:24 Okay, so that's all sounding quite sensible in that respect. Do you think that some people's concerns the fact that we can be watched and the fact that we... I mean to a degree there's like well what if I'm 17 and I want to go to the pub right now? Now i'm really screwed! What if I want to dig my mate's garden and he wants to give me 50 quid like now hang on a minute why does it I'm a flipping taxman and everything, get to meddle in my every move in my life. I can't even have a crap without it getting analysed and sent off for some analysis you know like... Firstly that is really nice bit of tech and genuinely exists where they can analyse your pee as you're going through. You put little sensor on the toilet, it analyses the contents and chemical make up your pee and tell you look you're at risk diabetes! You need to do something about this so I love that but

28:16 I'm so done with GP services, right? I want to just walk up to something. Even if I could just do it on my phone, I want to walk up to it stick my finger in it like pricks it So is now bleeding and he goes, Oh thank you for that little drop of blood. I can tell you that you are all these things. Yeah. So I had a blood test last week they said...so the first of all the doctor didn't send me anything they just sent me one message said couldn't understand it. He said One of your blood tests needs to be redone in three months time. Not which one, not why none of the other information right? So then I go into my NHS account which miraculously i did get into and miraculously also it's there because a couple years ago there was nothing there and then it just they're just like reams of stuff like just jargon just weird

29:01 Nothing. You'd have to be the blood specialist to actually realise what that was there, so I had take a picture of it all and throw it in the chat GBT to get some sense out of it. That's what I was going to say yeah, as an entirely separate thing large language models are superb for that sort of thing. Clearly with all the caveats they can make mistakes but just in terms of being able to translate those sorts of technical things whether its medical or financial, how many of us have struggled with tax stuff? But yeah, for me I'm a high trust person. I like the idea of being able to use different data sets to tell you something you don't know and so i would be quite happy to give consent to absolutely everything and say yeah you know everything about me keep knowing everything about me and tell me new stuff like predict what I need and tell me oh you can get this new benefit or did you know about this tax thing great I don't mind that however not everyone's

29:59 And so this is firstly, if you want to be going off and doing cash in hand work. This isn't gonna stop that! You were doing that illegally anyway you'll continue to do it illegally also this isn't mandatory This isn't saying in work it will be, but it is anyway for ID. But outside of that, in terms of other potential uses for digital ID, it's all voluntary. The law says we will not force you and we cannot force you and if we want to do that, we have to go through the full normal legal process of changing laws at which point then yes people can mobilise and say what they want and put pressure on their

30:40 politicians to represent their views. However, there is no statement that said we are making this mandatory for all things. All they're doing is putting a digital version of what's already in place and so your life won't be affected and if you haven't got a digital ID for whether you want to log into your GP or whatever fine go and do it as you do now! It won't stop you from anything But what about if they then take that and start to abuse it? You know, what if there was the example in Canada where they froze lorry drivers bank accounts. This is the one I've seen and I've got a list of them here as well but that's not even a chapter because he hasn't put it on the list but I saw this one Canadian lorry drivers who refused to have the COVID jab during lockdown had their bank accounts frozen

31:33 And that was an example of government control in overdrive. Is that even connected to the topic of digital ID? Not at this stage. Firstly, I feel like that was an extreme example and it was a world-changing moment with lots of panic about what was going on. Global pandemics feel like a very edge case however i get that proves a theory and could in extreme situations be used that way But they did that without national ID cards, digital ID cards. They did that anyway. So how is this different? This won't make it any easier or any like more common to do. It's exactly the same way they do these things already and there is fear that like, Is this the thin end of the wedge and are we going to become a surveillance state and all that but when they introduce seatbelts

32:31 There were people who said we shouldn't introduce seatbelts, because next thing you know they'll be telling us that we need to wear helmets and safety equipment. Do you remember the advert when the kids like the crash test dummy was like through the car? I used to love sitting there with my arms on the seat fighting my brother to see who could stand in the back And rest his arms on the two front seats and talk to your dad whilst he was doing 80 Pissed. But with all these things, there's always going to be a fear from some members of society of oh no we don't want government to do anything. We don't want them to control anything this is what in the US it's not democratic and conservative if there's a third libertarianism of no one should tell me how to do anything sure that's fine that's how they believe and they're the sort of people who are well no I shouldn't let...the government shouldn't allow me to see

33:25 The Jonnie Jensen Show, Jonnie Jensen, Digital ID, No to Digital ID Why are we holding it back just out of fear that something at some point that we can't prove might or might not happen in the next 50 years? We'd never get anywhere if that were true. True, Rory Sutherland was talking about in that book Alchemy almost any example of new technology at the point it's introduced doesn't altogether make sense and he's like, The early cars were not as good as a horse

34:12 The early plane was not a sensible means of transportation. It's a bloody good book, Alchemy! I mean those kind of reasons do lead me to think you know people say oh you already give this information to Apple or Google Bizarrely, I almost trust those companies more than I do a government because in my mind at least I can choose to be with that company or not be with that company. I could have a mobile phone and not have a mobile phone but i guess you've just argued this is opt-in opt out? I don't really see an option of opting out because you're going to be almost like a second class citizen if you opt out! Well they have to make... there's a big thing about UCD user centered design

35:00 This isn't ever going to create that two-tier system of the haves and have nots. So as far as they've said, and as far any projections have been done we're not gonna go to a world where we get rid off everything that isn't digital. Where we get to a world where if you haven't got a smartphone, you're screwed Well, firstly we don't want to do that because there are some people who won't. I'd argue personally that there's no one who can't or very few people who can't but there's a lot of people who won't for whatever reason they should and will still be able to use all their paper ID to go and... They're the sort of people who won't pay by direct debit. They'll go to a post office to post a check or something like that or even that it's just like getting ridiculous isn't it? It's like someone refusing to use a pen

35:48 It's a bit ridiculous. Those people are out there, so but the thing is they'll still be able to do that if they don't want to give their digital create a digital ID um they'll still be able to use all the stuff that's already in place If, for whatever reason they haven't got a smartphone. I think something like 2 million people in the UK haven't got smartphones well firstly that's a much smaller number than it used to be and will probably continue to get smaller however they can also they will be able to get a digital card which is just like your driver's license And that will hold the same sorts of information. Now how they do that will be slightly different because you can't see a screen and log in and so on, but it'll allow you still to access your digital identity and to prove that. If you're on a terminal for example when it says we want to prove who you are say who you are? You can use that as a Digital ID just like in your passport you've got little RFID chip which is just a little scanny thing which scans your passport without even having

36:50 Pings, it's the same technology used in Oyster cards and contactless payments. This will just be a card which says this card belongs to that person and proves who they are who they say they are. And then for the rest of us we will have that digital version which will live on our phones or our devices locked down biometrically locked down fully and all voluntary so we've chosen to do it and also it'll be really um oh wow I'm trying to remember what But it'll be basically, we decide federated access. So we decide yes I'll give access to that no one won't give access to that um... Yes iIll do these on this one occasion. Like the notification setting in your flipping iPhone yeah? Exactly! How do we know how do we know that is not going to be turned into something else later down the line who like where's the backstop

37:46 Where's the flipping, like I don't know some evil dictator takes over and wants to...I guess a bit like Demolition Man. Like really? Who's to say we're not going or some kind of weird Hunger Games type situation where they can just pick and choose put you lot over there put you lot over there So firstly, it will change and evolve because that's technology. That's society and things move on and I want it to because at the moment Estonia have got their X-road they call it which is how they move data around which means that even if you're say from Finland your visit in Estonia you forget your medication you walk into any pharmacy with your digital ID you can get your prescription

38:29 Instantly, you don't have to wait for your doctor to send it and do all these things. If you're in India and you want to open a bank account, you can use their tooling to prove who you are so it will evolve and there will be more use cases bolted onto it. So the mistakes that...so Estonia 2017 national ID cards hacked 750 000 cards at risk India, leaks expose millions of citizens data sold online for as little as $7. Exclusion issues for poor and elderly. I've got to be honest, I'm not bothered about the exclusion issues right? It's kind of literally you know with

39:08 We wear clothes, we use cutlery. We've got a watch like...we get on a bus like this! Yeah come on Luke! So with those again this is that difference between the monolith system where it's all in one and lots of broken down bits and pieces so at the way they were built and certainly the way that we proposed to build this 20 years ago was everything would be in that one room so you broke in your lock you'd nick everything you'd be Imagine it more like all of your data is a town, an entire town and every house whether it's bigger some houses are bigger some smaller. A criminal would have to break into everyone of those houses one after another and piece together

39:51 An entire town's worth of data and bearing in mind as soon as the first one gets broken into everyone else knows that. All the alarms go off and everyone pulls up their drawbridge, double locks their door, the shutters come down and you're able to say we're putting the guard dogs out because we know that there is burglars out there at the moment That's what the system they are talking about and planning on will be like where lots of federated bits of data here, there and everywhere which are all secure as possible can be at the moment So even if they manage to somehow break into one house and steal a bunch of data, that data probably won't really get them anywhere. Right? So this is some intense level of scaremongering based on old news. It's like you're flipping granny saying don't trust the Germans because she lived in the war. Yes exactly like that!

40:47 Pretty sure the German people are okay, do you know what I mean? Like pretty sure we can go to holiday in Germany now. Come on! But it's that is sadly and again i'm trying not to get into the kind of um...I won't say which political parties may or may not be more like this but there are a group of political partners with parties which have been rising over the past 10-15 years they live off of fear they live off of saying this government whichever government it is not doing good enough, they're going to ruin you. Be scared of everything they do we'll sort it out! We'll stop everything now that's easy to do because it's easy to say this is bad this is bad this is bad and not have any evidence to back that up people fear sales paper that's why you know you read papers when there's scary stuff and you don't read it if it says oh that project everything went great

41:37 That's not interesting. No media is going to pick that up, but them saying they're selling your data to the Chinese... They're gonna make it so you have to flash your papers before you're allowed to leave the house! There's no way of government... How many times I say that's bullshit? How do you change opinions with facts?! Well, yeah. And I think...I do think back to the earlier part of this conversation there is some responsibility to be had there because off the back of a load of car crash situations by Labour and you know obviously he's in charge Rachel Reeves and stuff He then goes, I've had an idea! Digital IDs it's going to solve the immigration thing Me as a pretty educated person goes

42:20 You're some sort of lying bastard because you've just plucked a subject out of the air, which to me looks like you're just trying to deflect from a whole load of other things. So exactly the point that you were saying at the beginning it's been... It's a good idea with bad politics around it but they should have said then and again this is more of a public expression basically Rolling it out in a friendly way where people feel like they've been considered and they, and they feel informed. And then they feel oh well that would help the NHS wouldn't it? Oh okay that's good. It massively would. Schools will be more efficient wouldn't it? I was saying more money for schools okay. They flipping sold us Brexit! I definitely did not vote for Brexit right but bunch of people bloody voted before off the back of a load of lies which were pretty much immigration, NHS so

43:18 Here he is pretty much justifying digital ID on the same nonsense that those muppets were justifying Brexit. See, the frustrating thing in politics you probably know the phrase it's called a dead cat if the conversation isn't going as you like it the easiest thing to do Throw a dead cat into the middle of the table. People stop talking about whatever you were talking about and I say, what the fuck are you doing? Why is there a dead cat on the table? Is it Monty... Surely it's a Monty Python thing! I don't know where that phrase came from but it's similar one. Similar one. Jumped the shark. Do you ever heard jumped the shark? Yeah, yeah. That comes from a late

43:55 Happy Days episode where Fonzie jumps the shark. That was series five and it still went on for another bunch of series but yeah, sorry. Just for people who haven't seen it, Fonzie who is a childhood hero of mine I've still got a lot of love for Henry Winkler especially after his little Tottenham skip last year Yeah, in an episode he's water skiing behind a boat and somehow he jumps a shark. So if you ever hear the expression jump the shark that's where that comes from We're going to use that a lot in Movie Club for sure but okay but in terms of dead cat thing this is something

44:36 The recent couple of incarnations of the Conservative government were superb at, whenever they were getting criticised for one thing Boris Johnson would just say something batshit mental and change the subject. And all a sudden everyone will start talking about something new Trump is super but if people start digging into any other things that he's got going wrong He'll just say something mental about Tylenol and all of a sudden The conversation shifts and they stop talking about... Yeah, well exactly. I mean who to me all the tariff stuff It was just a massive deflection exercise for something else that he's up to in the background, which clearly most of us have got no idea what that actually is. But I've got yeah so again these are kind of...I don't want to... No i know we'll do that in another episode okay but with this yeah this is basically Keir Starmer and this government have said we need to change your conversation try and take control back

45:32 We've always wanted to do ID cards, not just this government. Successive governments have known actually this is a ultimately, if done properly not like they tried to do it before. I saw online in fact just today and yesterday they were bringing up that Tony Blair put this forward in his time and then they were going on about some sort of quasi-communist thing because Labour...I'm definitely not a Labour voter but there's Yeah, there's all these sorts of... again how do you debate? How do you say no that's bullshit without sounding like your part of the cover-up. But yeah Tony Blair and I think it was David Blunkett who was a Home Secretary at the time back in mid 2000s they put together this plan they started launching a digital ID scheme They rolled out 15,000 digital ID cards or ID cards more than digital and

46:30 But it was really badly done and like I say, it's this massive central system which was taking too long. Badly built and it was never going to work so when Cameron came in with the coalition government they scrapped it all but the civil servants behind? And I mean that's huge, but also they've saved 2% of GDP in terms of fraud prevention. Two percent of UK GDP? That would be £44 billion pounds! That would pay for a couple of hospitals and those sides of the population... Yeah well or ten flipping Exocet drone zapping missiles or whatever now you know everyone wants to start. Everyone loves a toy yeah okay oh Glen so

47:33 I still, yeah. Maybe at the end maybe i've converted. Well just think about it like its just your wallet youve got do you use apple or google? No no but I agree totally everything when I kind of made this point in the beginning yeah like I know that everything I pay for I know that Google Maps tracks me where I go because I use it to do my expenses for work um and everything I shop Um, goes through there. All the stuff that I buy online... well Apple's tracking all the websites I go to so it literally knows everything even that I look at let alone whether I've gone and bought it!

48:10 What movies and TV I watch because it's all going through my fire stick. This won't do any of that, see? No, no, I get that but in terms of the data I'm giving away other than what time I have a crap, I don't think there is much that goes on in my life that isn't being trapped Yeah we already give all that away and willingly as well to make our lives better All this is, is a way that's going to give away hardly anything. It's going to allow you to just access a few more services more easily and allow you to just not have to worry about where's my ID for this? Where's my login details? How do I access this? It just it's minimum viable technology to really solve some really big issues that are just gonna change people's lives. So where does this end right getting towards like wrapping this up where does this

49:05 Ding dong end. It's difficult to say two and a half million people are stupid, and they're just... You didn't say that right? I know you're more careful with your words than I am but two and a half million people have jumped on a bandwagon and gone oh no digital ID! And actually probably my reasons for saying no are I think they're well informed but It's a dickhead who is saying it should be done and I don't trust him because he has balled up so many other things. From what I can see, most politicians who are in charge say stupid things and balls it up right? But there you go like... Who do they give this

49:52 Wouldn't it be great, right? If... slight tangent here but wouldn't it be great if Britain came out and said you know what we are the absolute nuts in digital ID. We're the absolute nuts in renewable energy with the absolute nuts at Flipping cell regeneration, you know, pharmaceutical stuff. Like if a particular government doubled down and said instead of being this country that's falling apart and we can't even build a railway these days we're going to become the center of excellence for so many of these things that are going to change the world in the future is there a part of the UK digital tech industry which is that

50:40 And if it is, then why is Dahmer or someone else like him not heroing the UK tech industry and saying if anyone can build this in the world its us and here's the really good reasons to do it. Instead he says we're gonna do this because it's going to crush immigration which is some sort of backslap to Farage the nut job? Yeah now that the trouble is there are those strategies there was a whole new transformation strategy for government Industrial Strategy, DSIT did a brilliant strategy at the start of the year. There's AI strategies there are stuff around pharma and research. There's so many of these things that have been kicked off over the past 18 months that are saying we are bloody good and we're going to continue to be some of if not the best in the world

51:32 But that doesn't sell newspapers. They can say it till they're blue in the face, but fear sells hope doesn't we went through a period 15 years ago when we were on that pride march and not pride as in LGBT issues but we were proudest marching forward as a country really pushing and being bigger and better and then that got hijacked by fear Okay, so

52:25 Glen started a petition called Yes to the Digital ID Card. There's 10 people who've signed it so far, none of them are AI! They've all got same surname. Yeah, it's so much easier and I did a review in my last workplace there were 14 people who could say no to something and not a single person who could say yes it's so much easier to say no let's stop doing this you know what the world is run...not run the world is shaped and progressed by those couple of people

53:06 Well, yeah. That's definitely that it's having the bollocks to... well not just the bollocks that's what the world is missing is charismatic leaders who are passionate and grounded and have got the bollocks to say shut up to people that are talking nonsense but it's the minority groups that have got the loudest voices and spread the most fear so where does this end? Does the digital ID happen I hope so. Um, I really hope so what a fear is it will be watered down and watered down because the right wing push push push and before you know it will just be aside project however over the past few years there's been a whole bunch of things that have sprung up there's been GovVerify um that cost about 200 million pound but it saved nearly 500 million pounds since it was launched as GovWallet which allows you to basically build

53:59 There's one login. There are lots of different tools at GDS, this government digital service have been over time building civil servants rather than politicians have been trying to push this and try to make things happen. Now clearly they work for the government so if the government says no they have to stop but actually there are some of the best governmental digital minds in the world and that is not me blowing smoke – they are superb And Trying to build these tools, they are pushing forward to make these things happen. So hopefully this government will continue to push forward and politically say yep we're gonna do it like they have with AI there's lots of opposition to AI from various people this government has said you know what? We know there's challenges and risks but where we're going for it! We're gonna make it happen I want them to do that with this as well because this could be

55:03 That's going to change people's lives. Make them able to access services that they would never have been able to access before faster, access support, access health care all these things down the line if we want to get to that point we have to start now so yeah hopefully it will go through and all this rhetorical die-down and the right wing will throw a different dead cat on the table when they can go off talking about I hope the dead cat will actually be like Mr. Farage, Wallop Rigor Mortis on the table! Oh that looks like Mr. Farage... Actually it is Mr. Farage! And close the book on that chapter yeah okay um okay so in conclusion i'm much happier about a digital ID

55:59 If we end up with three shells in the bathroom and, um, and swear boxes every time I say, oh, tit. What's that? Pee-poe willy bum drawers as a... Don't say fuck all bollocks! Oh Digital ID been fined. Yeah okay. Can I buy a bottle of Thunderbirds if I'm 16 still? Uh, if you can pay it with cash absolutely or if you know a guy, if not just speak to your older brother. Okay good Well, I think if people listen to Glen and they want to have some of his expertise in their organization then you should definitely get in touch with him. You're on LinkedIn aren't you Glen? Yeah! I am indeed. I'm the one with the weird surname so but if you search for me on the internet...you've got my details on screen. You can't not find me. Top man knows his stuff

56:52 And the wrap-up, we'll be back. But before we press record Glen and I were having an absolute laugh about his recent trip to LA stuff going on with our kids food fitness all the usual TV movies booze Uh, women. Yeah. Football all the wrap up stuff so watch this space we'll be back with a wrap up it's been bloody good to see you if anyone is listening and is interested in all the work we do here at The High Value Man Project then get yourself over to our new community where all the programs are happening now at highvaluemanproject.com forward slash group We have got your back let's go! Thanks for tuning into The Jonnie Jensen Show Be sure to subscribe leave a review and share it with fellow dads

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