Is it a good idea to have a single national identity number?
Recently a building society that I had used for years asked me to check that my details were up to date. The online form had a field for National Insurance number, something they hadn't been asking for previously. After a bit of digging this is because though since 2016 savings organisations have had to report interest earnings to the HMRC, nearly 1 in 5 reports can't be matched. National insurance numbers will ensure matching. Some people state (without reference) that it is down to America complaining about the quality of UK FATCA reports!
Now the government used to actively discourage using the national insurance number for identifying people. This was down to a peculiar British aversion to the potential for tracking. We have a separate government ID for tax and social security, NHS, local authorities council tax, library services, etc. - something that Nordic and many European countries would find ridiculous. We seem to be moving more and more to having the National Insurance number as a single form of tracking. Is this a good thing?
#serveillance #serveillanceState #FATCA #Privacy #nationalInsurance #HMRC
