Digital ID: A Route to Serfdom.
Digital ID. What does it mean? What is the bigger picture, and who benefits?
Digital Identification (DI) has been sitting in the waiting room for some time. Probably longer than most of us now wait in a GP surgery, and it’s now looking ever more likely that the current fifth column Labour party is about to make DI mandatory. The selling points are still as weak as they ever were. The current implausible logic is to use DIs in tackling the issue of mass migration. In 2002, the then Home Secretary David Blunkett of the Blair government introduced the idea through a consultation paper listed as "Entitlement Cards and Identity Fraud." Note the word entitlement. This is an ambiguous word, hinting at the darker aspect of DI’s. This was an evolution of voluntary identity cards floated during the Major premiership of the 1990s. However, the 2002 proposal under the Blair premiership marked a significant move away from voluntary paper-based ID to a digital biometric-based system. After 9/11, given the hysteria that swept through the Western world, and among all the up-scaled security measures and laws that were created, the idea of identity cards gained traction, resulting in a new piece of legislation as the Identity Cards Act 2006. Later in 2011, the Act was repealed by the Conservative government, citing concerns about the substantial erosion of civil liberties under the Labour Government and to roll back state intrusion.
The initial overarching reasons for DI were to prevent fraud and identity theft, with the aim of disrupting organised crime and terrorist networks. Today, the selling point is to control who can enter the country and to identify those who should not be in the country. How then does that impact those who embark on a dinghy trip across the channel, one may ask. No coherent answer is provided. For those who arrive legally, passports have been the mainstay form of ID in the UK for almost 500 years. The Privy Council, which advises the monarch, granted passports from at least 1540, with the first photographic passport issued in 1915. And with most countries around the world issuing passports after the First World War. The latest version of UK biometric passports was issued in 2006. In their most recent interviews on the purpose of DIs, both Mike Tap and Shabana Mahmood of the Labour Party said it will help to stop those who do not have an ID from working. Missing the obvious flaws in their reasoning, in that no one can gain legitimate employment without a passport or a national insurance number. In the informal economy, it will make no difference, as it is mostly cash in hand. Adding to this is the fact that those who work illegally in the delivery driver/Uber Eats et al. sector are using legitimate vendor IDs rented to them for a commission. There is no need for DIs, as with all current forms of ID, for example, passports, drivers' licences, birth certificates, and national insurance numbers, most people can function in society without much difficulty. The only good reason for DIs is twofold: financial motivation for big tech and financial services corporations, and, as many commentators now suggest, to facilitate a full control surveillance state interlinked with Artificial intelligence. This essay will explore who benefits, the risks, and the dangers. Ultimately, the essay posits that digital identification is a step towards full-spectrum socio-economic and socio-political control that threatens to unravel the last strands of Western democratic governance.
Who benefits.
The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change(TBI) United Nations (UN) and the World Economic forum (WEF) combined are the driving force behind DIs, they have the most to benefit in terms of intersecting interests of financial profit and ideologically to serve as a control mechanism in a world-wide control grid acting as a neoliberal feeding ground for transnational corporations (TNCs). The UN, the TBI, and the WEF have each actively promoted digital identity systems as tools for enhancing governance, economic inclusion, and sustainable development (read full socio-economic and political control).
The United Nations
While there is little evidence of a single, formal tripartite initiative specifically focused on digital IDs, their combined efforts overlap through shared ideological alignments, for example, advancing the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), mutual endorsements of principles like those from the World Bank's Identification for Development (ID4D), and indirect collaborations via partnerships with entities like the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Gates Foundation. These organizations frame digital IDs as foundational to "digital public infrastructure" (DPI), which includes interoperable systems for identity verification, payments, and data exchange.
The 50-in-5 campaign sets the stage for the creation of an interlinked network of control attributes, including digital payments, ID, and data exchange systems, to aid the rapid progression of the UN’s sustainable development goals, for example, net zero/climate change/smart 15-minute cities. Tim Hinchcliffe, editor of the tech blog, The Sociable, suggests, DPI is a mechanism for surveillance and control linking digital ID, central bank digital currency (CBDC), vaccine passports, and carbon footprint tracking data, setting the stage for 15-minute smart cities, future lockdowns, and social credit systems.
What’s more, the UN has positioned digital IDs as essential for global inclusion and achieving the SDGs, particularly SDG 16.9 (legal identity for all by 2030). Through the UNDP, it launched the "50-in-5" initiative in November 2023, aiming to help 50 countries build safe, inclusive DPI, including digital IDs by 2028.
Forgive my scepticism. When I see the words essential, inclusion, and safe, it usually means I should take a closer look. Gerry Glazner a California based attorney captures my thoughts in this response to the 50-5 initiative he gave to The Defender, a children's health defence news publication in 2023“the 50-in-5 campaign is “a totalitarian nightmare” an “Orwellian” initiative aiming to predate on small countries harnessing them with the chains of digital ID, digital wallets, lawmaking and digital voting systems among other things.” “For political reasons, U.N. types like Gates cannot openly plan ‘one world government,’ so they use different phrases like ‘global partnership’ and ‘Agenda 2030.’”
These systems are all interconnected, providing access to personal data, ultimately to be employed in manipulating markets (control of food and other essentials), spending habits (what you can and can’t buy), social behaviours (what you can and can’t do), and potentially elections (who rules).In advocating for Digital ID systems, the UN states, we aim to provide convenient access to a wide range of financial services, including bank accounts, payments, and remittances, irrespective of location, while promoting participation in the global economy. You should ask yourself who gains convenient access to your data, financial capacity, spending behaviours, and bank accounts.
The Gates Foundation donated £200 million to expand global Digital Public Infrastructure to UNICEF in 2022, a precursor to a wider move towards a $1.27 billion investment plan for health and development in support of the SDG goals by 2030. If we are to take anything from the pseudo-pandemic of 2020, it must be that Bill Gates is a predatory philanthro-capitalist, considering his wealth grew by 31%, from $98 billion to $137 billion in twenty months, leaving chaos in its wake. His motives are less than pure, and his conscience is, well, he has none. Lesley McGoey, professor of sociology at the University of Essex, criticises Gates in the Current Affairs magazine of Politics and Culture, stating, it is outlandish to assume that Mr. Gates, chief monopolist, was somehow going to be a defender of the rights of the poor, and someone who could close the global inequality gaps. In reality, he was really at the forefront of helping to perpetuate inequality through his approach to labour contracts and through his approach to patent protections.
She goes on to say, “Gates is not the hero he claims to be when he would say things like, ‘We’re going to give our money voluntarily, and that’s going to make a difference.” In reality, he was really just calling for band-aid solutions. And even though he paid a lot of lip service to the idea that billionaires should pay higher taxes, whenever there’s been a concrete proposal on the table for trying to find a mechanism for doing so, he never comes out truly in favour of any real overhauling of a system that’s so geared to protecting the interests of someone like him and militating against the interests of workers. So, there’s a kind of amnesia or strategic ignorance on the part of leftists and even new critical actors like Anand Giridharadas.
The UK Climate Change Committee recommendations to the government are that meat consumption should be reduced by 25-30% before 2040. Dairy consumption should fall by 20% in the same period (by 2040). And the number of Cattle and Sheep should decrease by 27% to reduce emissions, aligning with UN development. Gates has major investment strategies interconnected with the above ideological positions relating to climate change and net zero. DIs will play a central role in achieving these goals.
The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change
The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) advocates for digital IDs as a cornerstone of modern governance, arguing they enable proactive public services, reduce administrative burdens, combat fraud, and support priorities like migration control and crime reduction. The TBI has published guides explaining digital IDs, for example, citing successes in Estonia, Sweden, and India. and advises governments on implementation, through its Trade Worldwide Information Network (TWIN) platform for digital trade in Africa. Blair personally promotes them in speeches and media, calling for widespread adoption to make governments "faster, cheaper, and more effective," with estimates of £2 billion in annual UK savings.
The TBI claims success in Sweden, India, and Estonia. However, what is the reality? Digital ID is linked with cashless transactions, and in due course, to be enmeshed with CBDCs. Currently, Sweden has adopted a particularly aggressive move towards the “cashless society.” A term coined in Edward Bellamy’s (1888) utopian novel Looking Backward: 2000–1887. Predictions estimate that Sweden may be completely cashless by 2030. CBDCs, s will evolve from the dust of cashless societies, but who controls transactions, access, and blockchains, and what are the safeguards that will encourage democratic governance? These are highly relevant questions with implications that threaten civil liberties, fundamental human rights, and ultimately democracy in the West. In terms of national security, Sweden is a basket case with bombings every week of the year, and with crime spiralling out of control, and as quickly as technological safeguards are put in place, criminals and terrorist groups develop new methods of circumventing these measures. Currently, Sweden is one of the most digitally interconnected societies in the world. Sweden has seen a 144% rise in ransomed cybercrime. A digitised world is nothing more than the proverbial can of worms. It presents more problems than it mitigates. Here is a document detailing the vast architecture of digital legislation in Sweden that has evolved and is chasing its tail as it attempts to contain security and digital integrity incidents. Security incidents are an act that causes actual negative influence on the accessibility, authenticity, and confidentiality of an electronic communications network or service, whereas an integrity incident is an incident that causes an unintentional or unlawful destruction of, disclosure of, or access to data. State actors are another story with deeper and more malign implications.
India has embraced DI with over a million users, but with modern systems come security threats, more so than older analogue systems. These threats circle concerns of cybersecurity threats, data breaches, and identity theft, among the many vulnerabilities mired in the new technologies of biometrics and Blockchain. The India Aadhar initiative is a unique identification number linking demographic, biometric, financial, and real-time behavioural information to a 12-digit number unique to individual citizens.
The Aadhaar digital ID scheme has faced significant criticism due to its inherent failures and real dangers to privacy and national security. It centralises sensitive biometric and demographic data, making it a prime target for mass surveillance and cyberattacks. There have been numerous documented leaks and breaches, exposing millions of Indians to identity theft and fraud. Critics argue that it facilitates state overreach, eroding individual freedoms and enabling authoritarian control. Furthermore, the system has failed to deliver its promised benefits efficiently, with exclusion errors denying essential services to vulnerable populations. The mandatory linking of Aadhaar with bank accounts, tax filings, and telecommunications further exacerbates these risks, creating a single point of failure that compromises both personal and financial security. References to these issues are extensively covered in reports by legal services India, Centre for Internet and Society, as well as analyses by privacy advocates like Usha Ramanathan and organizations like the Internet Freedom Foundation.
Risk mitigation is far more complex and wide-ranging than current analogue systems of ready cash, paper ID, and physical safeguards. While the old systems have their unique vulnerabilities, for example, counterfeit cash, fake/physical ID fraud, and stolen identities, the new tech has far more vulnerabilities, with the potential for broad scope criminal enterprises on a much larger scale. Digitization in India has impacted education and healthcare, with the adoption of e learning platforms, telemedicine, and digital health records. These advancements aim to make services more accessible and efficient. But are they more effective, efficient, and secure than old systems? I think not. This is all before we consider concerns of social organisation and control. In a fully loaded digital society, citizens will be held hostage with a gun aimed at their heads by central banks, the state, and malevolent governments. Financial independence will be a thing of the past, travel will become a privilege, not a right, and health and education will be at your master's behest. Who decides where and what you spend, who can travel and to where, and who lives or dies, and what indoctrination program is offered in the national curriculum? It is then not difficult to see why particular actors are so deeply invested in the new technologies, with greater reach and with more effective mechanisms to contain dissent to ideological positions. And in terms of a social credit system, it will place limitations via carbon credits on travel, nutrition, and heating via net-zero narratives. There will be substantial financial enrichment for predatory capitalists, like Bill Gates, for example, in lab-grown meat, insect food, and vaccines with control over the food supply and health system. India and Sweden is learning that with the new era of increased interconnectivity in the digital sphere, it doesn’t come without its problems, particularly concerning digital identity. It is not the success story the TBI suggests, and the early signs indicate an overarching system of population control. Bringing me to our third major player in the push towards full-spectrum DID, the WEF. Remember, you will own nothing and be happy.
World Economic Forum
Davos is where our predatory corporate capitalists congregate to make their plans against us. This is not hyperbole. Davos attendees are linked to state socialists. I know this view may appear to be conflating two odd bedfellows. However, this is the kind of cushy corporate socialism that Robert F Kennedy describes as the merger between state and corporate power. A partnership he suggests is turning the USA into a corporate kleptocracy, AKA a theivocracy. While this term differs from plutocracy, is nonetheless led by plutocrats (rule by a small elite). The kleptocrats serve this elite; these are governments and corrupt leaders (kleptocrats) misapplying political power to expropriate the wealth of the people and land they govern. Most often misappropriating state/ government funds at the expense of the wider population, see USAID DOGE. We see this in almost every Western country, and while the most obvious thefts are the backhanders from lobbyists and corporations, a more indirect but often interconnected example is the taxpayer funds gifted to the NGO industrial complex. At arm's length organisations that are often working toward the corporate goals of those who visit Davos, for example, Mark Irwin and Anthony Kirby, ex and current CEOs of SERCO, respectively. SERCO is the corporate entity profiting from the current mass migration in the UK across many sectors, a few examples include hotels, catering, clothing, and detention. Davos is where the Kleptocrats go to meet the plutocrats. Before I drift off on a tangent, I’ll reel myself back in to focus on the WEF and its promotion of DIs.
The WEF frames digital IDs as key to an "inclusive digital economy," publishing reports like "Reimagining Digital ID" (2023) and "A Blueprint for Digital Identity" (2016), which provide frameworks for decentralized, user-controlled systems to expand access and reduce costs. In 2023, the WEF released its report Reimagining Digital ID, advocating for a decentralised digital identification, claiming that efforts were already underway to create DIs at scale, offering technical, policy, governance, and implementation recommendations. The big selling points of the report are inclusivity, privacy, autonomy, improved access, control, enhanced efficiency, and effectiveness. Decentralized IDs (DIDs) are sold as digital identity systems that shift control of personal data from centralized authorities, like governments or corporations, directly to individuals. In the context described by the WEF report, DIDs enable users to manage their own identity credentials, for instance, proof of age, qualifications, or residence issued by trusted entities (issuers), without relying on a single intermediary. Users can selectively share these credentials with service providers, enhancing privacy and autonomy. This all sounds very philanthropic, egalitarian, and cost-effective, with an underlying will for secure and safe systems of identification, until you take a deeper look into the potential motivations and benefits for WEF partners (kleptocracy and plutocrats).
The risk of DIDs is extensive and will rely on emerging technologies like blockchain and cryptographic protocols, which have unknown vulnerabilities and scalable issues. Imagine an entire system is brought down by cyberattacks in conjunction with terrorist attacks on data hubs. In terms of individual liabilities, managing private keys presents issues of loss or theft that may result in irreversible identity compromise with no central authority to intervene. Additionally, these types of systems rely on issuers being legitimate and accurate. If malicious or incompetent issuers proliferate, the credibility of the entire ecosystem erodes, presenting a broad range of issues for everyone in the system. There are further issues relating to a standard/universal system. Meaning competing DID systems may fail to work together, limiting utility and adoption. Not to mention the many privacy issues where DIDs may be exploited by bad actors or governments for tracking, and if implementation is flawed or coerced, for example, mandatory biometric links. Bill Gates’s Microsoft system is already prompting users for biometric verification attributes. Currently, these are voluntary but via function creep will inevitably be coerced as mandatory for accessibility to programme applications, for example, Word, Excel, etc.
In terms of benefits, the WEF partners, particularly big tech and financial institutions, gain streamlined access to reliable consumer data without the liability of storing it centrally. DID systems can reduce fraud, although they open doors to digital fraud. Also, DID simplifies KYC (Know Your Customer) processes and enables hyper-personalized marketing, all while shifting data management burdens and risks onto users. Governments and global institutions can then use DID to create a standardized, interoperable digital identity framework. This allows for more efficient social governance (social credit system), taxation, regulation, and surveillance, masked as “convenience” and “security.” For example, linking health credentials, financial behaviour, and social activity through DID creates a comprehensive digital footprint accessible to authorities. The obvious motivation behind DIDs is their integration with a social credit-style system, where “good behaviour”, for example, carbon footprint compliance, where subscription to approved narratives is rewarded, and dissent is penalized through restricted access to services. DIDs are easily weaponised to exclude “undesirables” from financial systems, healthcare, travel, or even social platforms based on curated criteria, for instance, unvaccinated status, “wrongthink” online, or dissident affiliations. This is digital redlining with a friendly face. The Canadian trucker protest is an early signal of things to come, where protestors’ bank accounts were frozen and seized by authorities. Analytics, of advertising and sales, will be employed to aggregate data for sale to third parties, even in decentralised systems, meaning privacy claims supposedly part of the DID ethos are a red herring. Additionally. Though DID is touted as decentralised, most often it will rely on a small group of issuers and validators, for instance, governments and corporations, who ultimately will wield the power to revoke credentials or alter rules. Meaning a centralised control grid disguised as user autonomy.
The WEF’s push for decentralized ID is not about empowering individuals; it’s about constructing a scalable, efficient system of digital governance that benefits globalist elites while pacifying the public with illusions of choice and privacy. The risks of authoritarian misuse, corporate exploitation, and social engineering far outweigh the marketed benefits.
A story of two dangerous agents tweaking the world governance superstructure.
When players like Tony Blair and Bill Gates are advocating for any particular product or service, this should be a red flag, considering Blair started an illegal war in Iraq and Bill Gates is responsible for hundreds of thousands of vaccine deaths in multiple countries across the world. Both have one thing in common. They both rely on misinformation to serve their aims. One of Tony Blair’s favourite talking points on DIDs and digital infrastructure is to have data on who has been vaccinated and who has not. Indeed, he emphasised this at last year's WEF meeting at Davos, claiming we must have this type of infrastructure for health care purposes and also for future pandemics, where multiple shots will be required. He echoes Bill Gates, who just can’t help himself in his enthusiasm, describing getting that shot into babies' arms. In light of the high-pitched irrational reactions elicited around the hysteria during the COVID pseudo-pandemic over a fairly innocuous virus and the resulting turn away from democratic principles and features, and the following civil liberties violations, this must surely be a warning to everyone. One that suggests that DI’s will make it far easier for malevolent authorities to target people who do not wish to be vaccinated by experimental technologies and far easier to persecute anyone who may be sceptical as to the motivations, safety, and efficacy of said technologies and their advocates. New evidence on the covid 19 experimental tech tells a multifaceted story of failure. One of almost zero efficacy, heightened safety concerns, and potentially malign motivations of pharmaceutical companies (long term health liabilities) and political institutions of the state, (reduced pension liabilities) leading to mass murder, horrific injuries and continuing deaths that are the fall out of a toxic vaccine alongside the radioactive impact in terms of its socio-psychological effects on western populations, particularly children. Who knows how long the half-life of the radioactive measures during the COVID-19 era will radiate into the future?
Conclusion
In conclusion, the push for mandatory Digital ID systems represents far more than a simple upgrade to bureaucratic efficiency; it is the cornerstone of a sweeping globalist agenda aimed at erasing individual liberty and national sovereignty. This essay has demonstrated that the stated justifications for Digital ID, from controlling migration to preventing fraud, are transparently weak and logically flawed. The real architects of this system, including the Tony Blair Institute, the United Nations, and the World Economic Forum, are not motivated by public interest but by a desire to consolidate control and profit from data monetisation in lockstep towards a totalitarian vision of society.
Digital ID is the gateway to a fully integrated control grid: it paves the way for Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), social credit systems, carbon footprint tracking, and the eventual elimination of financial privacy and physical autonomy. The examples of Sweden and India, touted as success stories, indicate instead a rise in cyber vulnerabilities, crime, and state overreach, evidencing that these systems empower authorities rather than protect citizens.
Ultimately, Digital ID benefits globalist elites, predatory capitalists, and authoritarian governments, and not the ordinary person. It threatens to enslave populations under the guise of convenience, safety, and inclusion, enabling unprecedented surveillance, behaviour modification, and exclusion of dissenters. The COVID-19 era was a mere dress rehearsal; Digital ID would make these tyrannical measures permanent and inescapable.
True freedom depends on decentralised, tangible forms of identity and exchange in cash, passports, and personal autonomy, and not digitised chains disguised as progress. The fight against Digital ID is a fight for the soul of Western civilization itself. Think Hunger Games and commercial access zones, and London is already there. Think smart cities imagined by Orwell, where facial recognition surveys your every move. Think of the state’s boot on your neck and society anaesthetised by a brave new world, where no one is brave. Think of all these things and know that Digital identification is not a small step for man but a giant leap of mankind towards enslavement.
A final thought: When you hear of a bad idea, don’t be strategic about it, call it for what it is.
If progression looks like regression, label it as such. If it looks, sounds, feels, and smells harmful, it generally is.
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