Digital ID sparks backlash

Frontline News last week reported that countries across the planet have begun implementing mass surveillance systems in the form of digital ID applications.  These systems require citizens to download digital identification applications to their smartphones.  In addition to identification, these apps will be used to make digital payments and to store personal data such as medical history, credit history, vaccine history and more.  

Vaccine passports have conditioned many to show their mobile phone to gain entry everywhere, even to a supermarket.  Arguably, vaccine passports were not an end in themselves.  They were a way of getting to global digital ID.  In fact, way back in 2019, before anyone had heard of COVID, the ID2020 Alliance launched a digital ID program in collaboration with the Government of Bangladesh and GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations) among others. According to Biometric Update, the program is meant “. . . to leverage immunization as an opportunity to establish digital identity . . .”  

With a person’s entire life bound into a digital ID app, required to gain access to medical records, bank accounts, to make phone calls, essentially everything one would need to participate in modern society, how difficult would it be for that data and access to become corrupted, switched off or stolen?

Apparently, it is not very difficult at all.

According to data privacy firm Abine CEO Rob Shavell, “Time and time again governments say that they are providing a data service to their citizens and claim that it will be protected, but what we see is this information ending up in data profiles available on Google searches.

“The systems we have are too complicated and once that data gets digitised and out there and replicated in the country’s database that you are travelling to, with its own set of privacy protocols, you are looking at an expanding universe” of data that cannot be kept secure, the Abine CEO explained.

Private information ending up in the hands of bad actors may be the least of the potential problems with digital IDs.  If digital ID is required for everything and the digital ID database is controlled by government agencies, what prevents said agencies from using the access granted by the digital ID app as leverage to coerce citizens into following government edicts?  Government can simply flip a switch denying you access to your bank account, the ability to make phone calls, internet access, among other things.  

This is not theory.  It is already being done.  

China was the first to implement a social credit system. The Chinese Communist government coerces its citizens into following its policies by assigning a social credit score based upon behavior.  “Proper” behavior will get you a high score whereas “improper” behavior will get you a low score.  There are Chinese citizens who have been denied access to airplane flights, for example, because their score was too low.

Bologna, Italy is another example.  Bologna “is deploying a “Smart Citizen Wallet” which will be the primary method for citizens to collect digital coins in exchange for behavioral changes.

“Citizens who display good [climate change] behavior such as correctly recycling or using public transportation will be rewarded.”  Bologna is deploying a social credit system by another name.

In addition to holding a person’s entire life in one central database, countries are beginning to deploy digital currencies called CBDCs (central bank digital currency).  These, too, will work through the digital ID app.  

Dr. Pippa Malmgren, an economist, author and advisor to former US President George W. Bush spoke at the World Government Summit 2022 in Dubai.  As reported by Frontline News, she was very upfront about the agenda of governments around the world to make the entire financial system digital, which would allow more tracking and control of citizens. 

She said that the new system of currency will be based on , “. . . what we call ‘blockchain’. . . . it means having an almost perfect record of every single transaction that happens in the economy, which will give us far greater clarity over what’s going on.” 

According to the Financial Times, “CBDC’s will likely be tied to personal accounts that include personal data, credit history and other forms of relevant information.”

Digital ID and digital currencies are in line with the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) agenda. Digital identity is central to that agenda.  According to the WEF, “Digital ID, digital payments, and data governance are each important individually. Together, they add up to a powerful public good.”

In a highly controversial ad published by the WEF in 2020, the organization promised that by 2030, “you will own nothing and you’ll be happy,” because everything and everyone will be digitized. 

The backlash has not been long in coming.  Here are three examples.

Frontline News reported last month that “Members of European Parliament (MEP) began sounding the alarm . . . over the European Union’s plan to roll out a digital ID wallet, which it hopes to do by September 2023.”  The plan is to use the digital ID for everything, “from paying your taxes to renting a bicycle.”  It will even be used to access social media accounts such as Google and Facebook. 

MEP Rob Rooken said that by using the digital ID for access to nearly everything, Europeans are putting themselves at the mercy of the government who can cut off their access at its discretion. 

“...it also means you can be cut off from these services,” Rooken said. “I find this to be a very scary development. We are following this closely and we will do everything we can to prevent this from coming into existence.” 

Two days after French President Macron won reelection, his government created a “Digital Identity Guarantee Service”.  It will allow French people to have a digital ID in compliance with the EU Commission’s European Digital Identity package. Macron is a disciple of WEF founder Klaus Schwab and a WEF agenda contributor.

Express reported, “The move sparked the fury of Les Patriotes leader Florian Philippot who called on French voters to fight against the new legislation.  He said: ‘Just after the election, the government announces the launch of 'a digital identity application'!  The goal: to implement social credit in the Chinese way. Control and surveillance!  Let's totally reject this application and fight by any means!’”

The Ontario government is preparing to launch a digital ID program this year.  

Ontarians are particularly sensitive to giving the government more opportunities to control its citizens given the draconian measures the Canadian federal government instituted to quell the Freedom Convoy’s protests this past winter.  Those measures included holding protesters without bail, seizing property and freezing bank accounts in retaliation for having supported the protests against government mandates and policies.  

It is widely believed that PM Trudeau revoked these measures rather quickly at the behest of the WEF.  It was understood that to implement digital ID, citizens would need to have more trust in government, not less.

In response to the government's plan, the Ontario Party is circulating a petition to ban its implementation.  

The petition demands, “. . . ZERO TOLERANCE for the implementation of any Digital ID program in Ontario, and that any government endeavour seeking to establish a system akin to the “social credit” system of communist China be condemned, halted and banned.”

“If you’re a persona non grata, (the government) could easily, in the future, have a situation where they just literally turn the switch, and you’re out of the system,” party leader Derek Sloan said.