Digital Identification Protocol

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for highlighting another opportunity for digital ID. The Government are committed to realising the benefits of these technologies, albeit without creating ID cards. My honourable friend the Minister for Digital Infrastructure and the Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office are working closely together, as both the trust framework and the single sign-on system for government are needed, so that users can control their data in line with the principles that we published in our response to the 2019 call for evidence.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, anonymity online has encouraged people to say things that are rude, hurtful, untrue and, sometimes, murderous. This does huge damage to society and individuals, so could the Minister undertake that any move towards a distributed digital identity protocol would include an examination of how it might be used to prevent people hiding behind pseudonyms on social media?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness will know that issues around anonymity on social media are extremely complex. She rightly raises instances where anonymity is abused, but we also know that some people use anonymity and pseudonyms for their own protection. I will take her remarks back to the department.