Digital ID Cards and The Remaking of Brexit Britain

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Rann Vijay via Pexels

In my past life, I was a retail manager at a major supermarket chain.

Aside the business of making sure that the shelves were full of dairy and other refrigerated products, we were also expected to support the security team in arresting shoplifters whenever called upon.

Prior to the 1st of May 2004, the business of shoplifting was mainly restricted to schoolkids and older folks who’d fallen on hard times but it wasn’t long before we began to notice a shift in the nationality of those who were caught stealing from our premises and this was evinced by one piece of document: The Romanian ID card.

The Romanian ID card was a laminated document with the country’s flag(Blue, Yellow and Red) at the top end, followed by the details of the holder.

Suffice it to say that it was an ugly document but one to which we became accustomed to seeing, given the vast numbers of Romanians who were caught nicking stuff from the shop.

To us Brits, the notion of having to carry around an identification card, like our Romanian friends, was quite jarring and made no sense.

But it was de rigeur across the continent.

French, Germans, Poles, Italians, Belgians, Austrians were obligated to have their…