Thread by @shellenberger

And after the government combines your personal, banking, and voting data under a single digital ID, it will add social media and vaccine information. Same with Real ID in the US. The Censorship Industrial Complex was dress rehearsal for digital ID.

Stop your creepy totalitarianism @sundarpichai @Google

@sundarpichai @Google UK opposition vs support of digital IDs is 45 to 42.

Opponents should be able to drive that opposition number up significantly.

It is absolutely essential that the UK kill two-tier @Keir_Starmer plan for digital IDs before they metastasize across the West.

@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer If you are UK citizen please sign the petition. They are closing to getting 2 million signatures 🔥🔥🔥

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/7301…

@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer Who is pulling the strings of Tony Blair and WEF?

@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer That politicians are willing to torch their careers and reputations for digital IDs is telling

@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer Who is behind Tony Blair

@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer Tony Blair Institute did a survey supposedly finding high support for digital IDs. How? By priming people to think about how inconvenienced they've felt without a digital ID. This is the first question. Totally manipulative and grosss

yonderconsulting.com/wp-content/upl…

@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer Second question: "Some are suggesting the government should introduce a new app, allowing instant access to a range of public services."

A new app!!! Wow. So they already knew the words "digital ID" were contaminated. Amazing

@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer Third question: " Do you think there is digital technology that could help tackle these issues... Processing asylum seekers and managing the UK's borders"

They knew migration was the key since it scrambles Left and Right. So clever!

Fourth question: "Advocates of a Digital ID argue it would enable you to prove your identity, store key facts about yourself in a way that is convenient and secure, and help you more easily access a broad range of public and private digital services."

Good lord. It was basically a push poll:

@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer Well, this is all very good news for digital ID opponents. The public already hates the words "digital ID." More people oppose it than support it. And the more the public hears about it the less they will like about it. This could help bring down @Keir_Starmer government.

Oracle's Larry Ellison is funding Tony Blair Institute. Oracle is in the business of digital IDs. This is bad.

"Ellison invested $130 million in the TBI between 2021 and 2023, with a further $218 million pledged since then. The scale of funding took the TBI from a headcount of 200 to approaching 1,000. Blair himself takes no salary from TBI but over this time the institute has been able to recruit from bluechip firms like McKinsey and Silicon Valley giants Meta. In 2018 before the Oracle founder’s funding surge, TBI’s best-paid director earned $400,000. In 2023, the last year where accounts are available, the top earner took home $1.26 million."

@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer I interviewed a British researcher about digital IDs and the person literally told me he thought that Tony Blair was genuinely just interested in making government more efficient 😂

This is truly bonkers:

"Less than two months after Starmer’s win, the TBI health policy director Charlotte Refsum was invited into the Department of Health to meet its digital policy chief, Felix Greaves, documents obtained under FoI show. Greaves asked for her help in designing a giant public consultation on GP data and digital health ID. He was briefed to tell Refsum his department needed to “learn lessons” from previous health data scandals which had hardened public opinion against data-sharing with private firms."

"The investigative newsrooms Lighthouse Reports and Democracy for Sale interviewed 29 current and former TBI staff, most on condition of anonymity. Supported by public documents and those obtained under freedom of information (FoI) laws, the testimony describes an organisation unusually close to the British government, able to lobby ministers directly, and which holds joint retreats with Oracle and is willing to engage in “tech sales” with governments in the rest of the world. While there is no suggestion of illegality, there are growing concerns about the extent to which the interests of a US tech billionaire are being represented by the former prime minister.

“When it comes to tech policy,” said one former senior adviser at TBI, “Oracle and TBI are inseparable.”

"The TBI, however, was welcomed by Keir Starmer’s Downing Street operation, which includes many figures with close connections to the former prime minister. Peter Kyle, an adviser in Blair’s second term, was appointed technology secretary and called on governments to show “a sense of humility” towards Big Tech companies."

"TBI had been laying the groundwork before Labour won power. Institute staff advised the party in opposition. In May 2024, TBI wrote a report that called for “two radical actions” to fix Britain’s “data-access problem”: create a “single front door” providing “seamless access” to NHS data; and host all of this data outside the NHS, while retaining government control of the programme."

"In a later paper, TBI recommended linking up data from the NHS, the Department for Work and Pensions, and HMRC. All three bodies are Oracle clients."

"Elsewhere, TBI staff were brought directly into government, while still on the institute’s payroll. Tom Westgarth was part of the Department for Science, Technology and Innovation, joining the small team working on the government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan. His salary was paid by TBI."

"Oracle and TBI’s connections are not just rhetorical. By 2023, they were holding joint retreats. At the institute’s headquarters at One Bartholomew Close in central London, the teams would convene with executives from Oracle, Blair’s key adviser Macon-Cooney and Awo Ablo – who came to sit on the board of both TBI and Oracle – sometimes present. Senior TBI employees have been hosted at Oracle’s headquarters in Austin, Texas, coordinated by a TBI employee whose role is “scaling and managing” the partnership with Oracle. Former staff recall that there were other earlier “hush-hush” joint retreats at Ellison properties in the US."

newstatesman.com/politics/2025/…

@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer This is disinformation. TBI never asked about digital IDs! They asked about an "app" LOL

@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer Larry Ellison is not only the person behind digital IDs in the UK, which his company Oracle would manage, he is also the owner of CBS News, Paramount, CNN, and likely TikTok. That's way, way too much power.

@realDonaldTrump @SecScottBessent @AGPamBondi

@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer @realDonaldTrump @SecScottBessent @AGPamBondi This is insane: