> I watched the video and the suggestion is that this makes it easier for employers to verify that someone is authorized to work. Is that actually true?

Yes. The rules are complex, and currently the government essentially deputizes employers and banks to enforce them; anyone running e.g. a restaurant is having to essentially guess whether a potential employee is in the UK legally or not, on pain of criminal charges if they get it wrong in one direction and discrimination lawsuits if they get it wrong in the other.

I hate the UK surveillance state as much as anyone, but one-stop ID verification managed by the government is honestly less bad than the current patchwork. The banks are already "voluntarily" sharing everyone's identity information with the government, without any of the legal checks and balances that would apply to an official system.

> If the idea is that a digital ID authorizes employment ... well I hope people can see the problem, here.

Stop vagueposting. If you have something to say, say it.

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rtpg 11 hours ago | parent [-]

> anyone running e.g. a restaurant is having to essentially guess whether a potential employee is in the UK legally or not, on pain of criminal charges if they get it wrong in one direction and discrimination lawsuits if they get it wrong in the other.

I don't get this. Is there nothing like some sort of number to register any tax withholding or the like? I imagine that tax authorities and immigration authorities don't actually cooperate together (and for good reason!) but my impression for places like the US is that you really do have to provide some sort of number provided by the government for most kinds of employment.

Unless of course you're just not trying to pay payroll taxes I guess?

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logifail 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> some sort of number provided by the government

There are countries where each citizen has one unique identifier (Sweden's "personnummer", Denmark's CPR).

The UK is definitely not one of those! [yet]

Instead there are many different identifiers, each for a different purpose, and stored in different systems which almost certainly don't talk to each other.

Just for starters: NHS number for healthcare, National Insurance number for social security and pensions, Unique Taxpayer Reference for tax, Passport (with a number that changes when you renew your passport), Driving licence (with a "number"[alphanumeric] which stays constant even when you renew)...

Multiple overlapping identifiers... and I may have missed some :)

	▲	43 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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lmm 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Is there nothing like some sort of number to register any tax withholding or the like?

There is, but it's not tied to any strong identity verification process, and so there's a thriving fraud where unemployed citizens will rent out their numbers to working illegals. It's not something that the tax office has ever really worried about, since if anything it tends to increase the amount of tax paid (if several people are sharing the same tax ID they'll pay a higher tax rate), and while they might bat an eye at someone with 5 different salaried jobs it's not particularly suspicious when it's gig economy work.

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ellen364 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

To work, you need to provide a National Insurance number, which is unique and tied to certain state benefits like pension. The idea is you work, pay "national insurance" contributions and accrue "contributing years" to get a state pension later.

The wrinkle is that it doesn't seem to be tied well to identity. Someone working illegally can provide an NI number that's legit but not theirs. Their work accrues to someone else's NI record, but the person getting the extra years probably never notices and the person working under their NI number doesn't care because they aren't entitled to a state pension anyway, they just want to work now.

	▲	rtpg 42 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		OK, this makes sense to me. Clearly I lacked some imagination on this whole front

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IanCal 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There is a number for this but it’s not tied to your right to work. We have a mash of different systems.

Here’s what employers need to do currently: https://www.gov.uk/check-job-applicant-right-to-work

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incone123 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Tax numbers have no bearing at all on your right to work. If you work legally in the UK for a while then you get a national insurance number but if you then leave and your work visa expires, your national insurance number remains as an identifier.