🔴LIVE COVERAGE | Starmer’s Checkpoint Britain: How digital ID threatens our rights

The Government wants to introduce a national mandatory digital ID scheme that would make us all reliant on a digital pass to go about our daily lives.

Since the announcement, politicians from every single party elected in Parliament have spoken out against these plans.

Even the former ID cards minister, now Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, has rejected digital ID, saying, “not now”.

Today, we're in Manchester hosting a vital discussion during #CPC25 on the serious risks posed by digital ID to our rights and freedoms

Follow for updates🧵 👁️"With digital ID, we risk sleepwalking into a system of constant surveillance of data

I've just come back from Estonia [where there is digital ID] and there's an ongoing joke...that if you run out of toilet paper, you don't need to call room service; they'll just hear you

There's a different culture of surveillance there."

Our legal and policy officer, Jasleen Chaggar, opens the discussion explaining why British policymakers should be wary of international digital ID comparisons.

👁️The Government is planning to CRACK DOWN even more on free speech in Britain by seeking to restrict repeat protests

"The freedom to protest has never been a right only to be exercised where and when it’s convenient to those in power, but precisely the opposite.

It’s one of the most essential tools the public has hold power to account.

Repeated demonstrations have long been tools for change in our country, from women’s rights to workers’ rights.

For the government to mount this new attack on protest at a time when many thousands of people on the right and left of politics are exercising their freedom to assemble appears like a cynical attempt to suppress dissent.

We urge parliamentarians to protect Britain’s ancient tradition of free speech and reject this chilling, cumulative attack on our right to protest.”

- Silkie Carlo [@silkiecarlo] We've long defended the right to protest in Britain

We defeated draconian plans to ankle-tag campaigners that would have attacked and extreme police powers during the pandemic

Find out what actions you can take in our fight for a free future⤵️
bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/subscribe

🔴LIVE COVERAGE | Labour’s Checkpoint Britain: How Digital ID threatens our rights

Since the 1950s, every government attempt to introduce mandatory ID cards has been resolutely rejected by the British public.

We're now on the brink of a multi-billion-pound, national mandatory digital ID scheme that would make us all reliant on a digital pass to go about our daily lives.

We must reject this too - that is why we've convened a panel of experts today at our event during #Lab25

Follow for updates🧵 🪪"Digital ID was NOT in Labour's manifesto, and ministers promised there were no plans to introduce a digital ID. The landscape has now shifted dramatically.

There is no guarantee that the government would not make digital ID a requirement to access a range of public and private services...including the NHS and even online voting"

Our legal and policy officer, Jasleen Chaggar, opens the discussion.

🚨BREAKING🚨

We've just published...'Checkpoint Britain: the dangers of digital ID and why privacy must be protected'

No one voted for digital ID, and the Government has no clear mandate to implement one.

Yet we're now on the brink of having every adult in the UK forced onto one, inserting the state into our everyday lives.

Today we can reveal the major risks of barcoding Britain.

Download & read our report⬇️
bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/campaigns/no2d… Independent @YouGov polling commissioned by us reveals...

🔸63% of the British public DO NOT trust the government to keep their digital ID data safe

🔸Cyber attacks and privacy erosion are the top concerns associated with mandatory digital ID

Our research also reveals...

🔸There is little evidence to prove that a digital ID system would deter illegal immigration or employment fraud

🔸The government is already considering proposals that would require digital ID for employment and rent checks

🔸It could be used to track everyday interactions like voting online, paying bills, and shopping.

🚨BREAKING: The Met Police's use of live facial recognition is UNLAWFUL - the UK's human rights regulator believes

Today we can reveal to you that the EHRC will intervene in a landmark legal challenge to #StopFacialRecognition brought by our director @silkiecarlo & Shaun Thompson, a Londoner who was falsely flagged as a criminal by this tech.

"The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s intervention in this landmark legal challenge is hugely welcome, necessary, and incredibly timely.

The rapid proliferation of invasive live facial recognition technology without any legislation governing its use is one of the most pressing human rights concerns in the UK today...

Given this crucial ongoing legal action, the Home Office and police’s investment in this dangerous and discriminatory technology is wholly inappropriate and must stop.”

– Rebecca Vincent, Interim Director [@rebecca_vincent] No other democracy in the world spies on its population with live facial recognition in such a cavalier and chilling way.

Help us urgently #StopFacialRecognition - our fundamental rights are at stake.

Your support makes the difference. Donate today⤵️
crowdfunder.co.uk/p/stop-facial-…

🚨YOUR passport photo has secretly been turned into a facial recognition police mugshot - putting everyone's privacy at risk.

📢 We can announce today that we're set to pursue legal action against the Home Office & Met Police alongside @privacyint.

READ | telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/… 💥NEW: We’ve obtained fresh documents that reveal the number of facial recognition searches of the passport database SURGED from just 2 in 2020 to 417 in 2023.

This means that the Government is allowing police to search over 58 million photographs.

Nobody signed up for this.

🚨 BREAKING 🚨

Iceland's rollout of facial recognition is chilling ❄️

Thousands of people will have their privacy rights violated just to buy basic necessities, and Iceland will turn its shoppers into suspects, making them submit to a biometric identity check as part of their daily lives.

Just last week we saw @Facewatch embroiled in a scandal when its dystopian tech was used to falsely accuse a woman of shoplifting, and throw her out of the store.

@icelandrichard should abandon this rollout and put its customers' privacy first, and the government must act to rein in the uncheck expansion of this intrusive technology.

#StopIcelandSpying The technology is provided by @Facewatch, a company whose system was linked to the wrongful accusation and ejection of a mum from a Home Bargains store earlier this month

theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/j…

🔴LIVE from Parliament: We're now launching our pioneering report, Big Bank is Watching You: Preserving Privacy Amid the Rise of #CBDCs

Follow for updates ⤵️ "A #CBDC would mark a profound shift in our relationship to the state because they have the potential for the Government to insert into every transaction we make"

Jasleen Chaggar, our legal and policy officer and a co-author of this report, opens the discussion

🚨LIVE: Powers to spy on ALL of our bank accounts buried in the the Government’s Fraud, Error & Recovery Bill are being debated in Parliament now

These powers aimed at Britain's poorest will impact all of us, taking away our financial privacy & freedom

🧵FOLLOW BELOW 🧵 “The #Horizon scandal is a very recent reminder of how computer systems don’t always get it right”

@Helen_Whately brings up the Horizon scandal & questions how much the plans will cost banks. However, she says Conservative Party is broadly in favour of the intrusive powers as a continuation of their own policies.

🔴11 years ago, @‌Snowden blew the whistle on mass surveillance.

UK intelligence agency GCHQ had spied on millions of Britons - with aid from the US National Security Agency

What surveillance operations did Snowden expose & where do we stand today? 🧵 👁️ Snowden blew the whistle on GCHQ's operation OPTIC NERVE

Britain's intelligence headquarters intercepted & stored webcam images from Yahoo chats of millions of users to trial automated searches using facial recognition.

🚨BREAKING: Today, we're launching groundbreaking legal action against the use of facial recognition technology in the UK.

We’re supporting two members of the public, an anti-knife crime community worker and a teenager to bring legal challenges after the technology wrongly flagged them as criminals – and they sought our help.

And we're doing this for YOU - to stop the government's alarming push to expand live facial recognition technology, turning us all into walking ID cards.

With your support we can:
🔸Take groundbreaking legal action against police and shops' use of facial recognition
🔸Demand politicians roll back live facial recognition
🔸Give legal advice & support to people affected by live facial recognition
🔸Work with groups around the world fighting live facial recognition surveillance

Support our legal action - DONATE to our crowdfunder today ⤵️
crowdfunder.co.uk/p/stop-facial-… 🔔The time to act is NOW

This legal action to #StopFacialRecognition is the culmination of seven years of relentless campaigning, marked by countless highs and lows and immense hard work.

Donate today⤵️
crowdfunder.co.uk/p/stop-facial-…

🚨🧵 Newly obtained documents expose British military operatives's bizarre social media surveillance during the pandemic.

Were they REALLY countering dangerous disinformation?

Or conducting Government reputation management?

YOU be the judge... Internal documents that we have also obtained reveal British soldiers factored in the “potential risk” of “spying” or “conducting PSYOPs on the UK” in their “counter disinformation” work...

but carried on anyway

🧵How can @UKLabour protect civil liberties in an age of enormous technological change?

@silkiecarlo kicks off our event during #Lab23 describing the dangers of emerging technologies that "reverse the presumption of innocence" Last week 65 parliamentarians & 32 rights groups called for an immediate stop to live facial recognition surveillance.

Baroness Chakrabarti explains why this intervention is needed now more than ever.

🚨 We're officially launching our report, #MinistryOfTruth - The secretive government units spying on your speech

🔴 FOLLOW for live updates ⤵️ ⚡David Davis asks if George Orwell was alive today, would he have invented the units in our #MinistryOfTruth report?

➡️ Find out more about them at minitruth.co.uk

🗣️“The fact that experts were treated as threats shows that the genesis of this is profoundly anti-democratic"

@silkiecarlo tells @JuliaHB1 about the CHILLING overreach of secretive Gov't units censoring speech online.

✊SHUT DOWN the #MinistryOfTruth:

bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/campaigns/mini… 📲“The Counter Disinformation Unit has a HOTLINE to Big Tech…they can pressure them and ask for things to be taken down.”

@JHurfurt slams DCMS and the Cabinet Office for suppressing dissent under the guise of misinformation. #MinistryOfTruth

🚨BREAKING🚨

Today we can expose... the #MinistryOfTruth

Secretive government units & the British Army have been spying on the public, academics, journalists, human rights campaigners & MPs in the UK...

under the guise of combatting ‘misinformation’.

➡️minitruth.co.uk These secretive truth units don't just monitor disinformation - we've found they monitor, record and suppress criticism of government policies.

⚠️The #MinistryOfTruth must be shut down immediately - please sign & share our petition NOW!⤵️

change.org/p/shut-down-th…

Deliberate arrests of 3 journalists this week - under new anti-protest laws - is evidence the powers are a danger to democracy, as we warned.

We’ve written to @SuellaBraverman to urge a review of “public nuisance” powers & to pause the Public Order Bill.
independent.co.uk/news/uk/suella… The Public Order Bill would empower police to fit innocent people with GPS ankle tags to monitor their every move 24/7; to spy on & restrict their internet use; & to ban them from demonstrations.

They’re some of the most disturbing anti-democratic powers proposed in decades.

🚨NEWS🚨

We made dummy Facebook accounts to test MPs' controversial statements against Facebook's extensive content rules.

Statements by @BorisJohnson @NadineDorries & @AngelaRayner breached content rules & were removed.

The Online Safety Bill gives state backing to such bans. A comment made in 2013 by @NadineDorries - now the minister leading the Online Safety Bill - was removed by Facebook for breaching its “Community Standards on violence and incitement”.

She recently defended her comment, telling the @OnlineSafetyCom it was “totally appropriate”.

🚨BREAKING🚨

We've joined 40+ parliamentarians, 15 rights NGOs & human rights lawyers to urge @DominicRaab to launch a review of ALL Covid fines + prosecutions - now!

@DavidDavisMP @SteveBakerHW @HackneyAbbott @RLong_Bailey @amcarmichaelMP @AdamWagner1

bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/2022/02/covid-… ❌We estimate 25,000 of covid fines may have been unlawfully issued

❌100% of charges reviewed under the Coronavirus Act found unlawful so far - an historic failure rate - but many more have evaded review

❌Our analysis indicates thousands of further unlawful prosecutions

🚨The House of Lords is now debating the draconian #PolicingBill at Report stage.

Rushed amendments to this Bill seek to STOP some citizens from taking part in protests altogether.

❌These unprecedented measures need to be quashed. 👮‍♂️Lord Coaker (@Vernon_Coaker) addresses one of the most dangerous provisions in the Bill; allowing police to limit protests based on the criteria of noise.

🗣️The internet & social media platforms are the public squares of the modern-day. They've allowed us to communicate, organise, expose corruption & build new communities.

⚠️But our online public spheres are at risk.

🎥Join our live discussion ⤵️
"Why would we want to give more power to Big Tech to decide what is misinformation and what's not?"

- @Fox_Claire

🔴 Watch live ⤵️