Silkie Carlo
@silkiecarlo
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Director @BigBrotherWatch. Fighting for a free future for all. Working on human rights + tech. Vegangelist 🌱Buddhist 🌞 Views = my own✌️
London
Joined October 2011
Had a lot of fun with our KeirCards protesting digital ID outside parliament today! Well done to everyone who emailed their MPs. Our opposition was reflected loud + clear in the debate. It won’t be easy but I really think we have a chance of stopping mandatory ID…🤞
🗣️ Digital ID being debated in Parliament now. Follow along for live updates⤵️
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'If you care about this, please make noise!' Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo has slammed Government plans to expand live facial-recognition in town centres and fold passport photos into a national database, accusing ministers of 'authoritarian instincts'.
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🗞️FRONT PAGE NEWS: Stop facial recognition We would never accept DNA checkpoints across our high streets and nor should we accept widespread face recognition checkpoints, treating us all like criminals in a constant line up. Read⤵️ https://t.co/EMKzzkPTtv
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I’m delighted to be chairing this panel discussion with @silkiecarlo of @BigBrotherWatch and @jamesrbuk : The State of Surveillance Wed, Dec 3, 2025 at 7:00 PM
eventbrite.co.uk
Digital IDs, Facial Recognition and Surveillance
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🚨NEW: We've just launched a speedy tool for you to tell your MP to reject digital ID Politicians will debate a petition rejecting mandatory digital ID signed by almost 3 million people on 8 December 2025. This is our chance to create the strongest opposition to the
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The Government's digital ID policy has been so badly botched that it is now "irrecoverable", MPs have been told https://t.co/DQgLhhy53G
mirror.co.uk
Campaigners told the Home Affairs Select Committee that voters are 'up in arms' about the proposals and do not believe it is just about tackling illegal migration
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👁️“A mandatory digital ID has the potential to create an incredibly intrusive system of surveillance + data collection It opens up possibilities for the government to issue and revoke permissions" Today, @silkiecarlo gave evidence in Parliament AGAINST a mandatory digital ID,
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🚨BREAKING: We’re outside Number 10, handing Keir Starmer your message to reject digital ID. We refuse to be treated like barcodes, we will not live in a surveillance state, and their spin will not wash with us. This day belongs to all of us. It’s for the 175,000+ of you who
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We took evidence from @silkiecarlo, Director of @BigBrotherWatch on human rights and the regulation of AI ⬇️ Follow our inquiry for announcements on new public hearings in due course. Find out more: https://t.co/yAUScIzj0i
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👁️"There is no meaningful restriction in law on the use of facial recognition...the government's been a bit asleep at the wheel" In Parliament's @HumanRightsCtte today, our director @silkiecarlo gave evidence against the Orwellian expansion of facial recognition in the UK
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I wonder why we were not told more / anything at all about this “experience of the new state” in Labour’s manifesto 🤔
According to the official readout of today’s cabinet meeting, the chief secretary to the prime minister told ministers this: “We have to build a new state and shut down the legacy state, with digital ID making people's experience of that new state fundamentally much better.”
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Wow! Darren Jones, Starmer’s right hand man, is talking about actually *rebuilding the state* around the planned mandatory digital ID 🥴 If you were worried about digital ID being a lunatic project destined to spiral out of control, you were right…
**ID cards latest** Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the PM - has told today's Cabinet meeting that he will shut down "the legacy state" and build a new one using digital ID. He told Sir Keir Starmer and his top team that "many people felt government no longer worked, despite
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Could this get any more desperate?! “Opening drawers is hard! Here, have this multi £bn mass surveillance system” Anyway, banks etc will simply require both a digital ID *and* a separate proof of address/utility bill. (See https://t.co/WmPWmz3Liu by @AlecMuffett )
alecmuffett.com
I spent the best part of 14 hours yesterday learning how to argue with people who, perhaps blindly, believe that Digital ID will bring “advantages” to “everybody”; a detaile…
It’s frustrating having to rummage around in a drawer, looking for an old electricity bill just to open a new bank account. Digital ID will make our lives easier.
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Blair’s national ID scheme cost the country £5bn & never even fully rolled out before it was scrapped. Please explain what is “more efficient and cheaper” about an even more expansive digital ID system especially given, as you say, many of us already have documents we use as ID?
Does @silkiecarlo have a passport? A driving license? A bank account? ID is already a vital part of any modern society. Assuming Silkie doesn’t oppose existing laws for when ID checks are needed, why oppose a more efficient/cheaper/secure way of doing them? UK must modernise.
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If you agree that mandatory digital ID cards are a terrible idea, please ask your MP to sign my motion opposing them. These plans risk turning us into checkpoint Britain. They must be scrapped. Email your MP my motion:
edm.parliament.uk
That this House strongly condemns the Government's plans to introduce a mandatory digital ID scheme; notes that after being used in World War 2 compulsory ID cards were abolished in 1952 because of...
In 1952 the Churchill govt abolished ID cards, restoring personal liberties. Labour’s plans for mandatory digital ID, alongside restrictions on protest, threaten those same liberties. Listen to the millions signing petitions in opposition, and scrap this Orwellian proposal!
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In 1952 the Churchill govt abolished ID cards, restoring personal liberties. Labour’s plans for mandatory digital ID, alongside restrictions on protest, threaten those same liberties. Listen to the millions signing petitions in opposition, and scrap this Orwellian proposal!
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🆔Digital ID for 13-year-olds = State overreach "At a time when parents are taking a critical view of whether children should have smartphones, it is shocking that the government is considering enrolling children into this digital ID app." - @silkiecarlo Read⤵️
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India’s massive biometric ID system is a case study for a FAILED digital ID system. 🔒 Personal data of a billion citizens was sold online for just £6 as a result of a breach - this included names, home addresses, phone numbers & photos 🍽️ People have starved to death after
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How fast is Britain becoming a technocratic surveillance state? How do we stop it? In this conversation with the fascinating @MrWinMarshall we discuss Starmer’s digital IDs, digital currency, facial recognition, online censorship..! And much more. https://t.co/bpgCEgEHv5
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WOW The Conservative Party’s Wolfson Report on repealing our human rights has a large section on banning + restricting our right to protest 😱 NO ONE can honestly be so stupid to think ditching the population’s human rights is just to “sToP tHe BoAts”?! https://t.co/7Ln6um1GoH
conservatives.com
Wolfson Final Report
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