You Need Digital ID for THIS!

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]English museums should only charge tourists if digital ID checks in place, UK politician says. The Labour peer, Margaret Hodge, has gone into more detail on proposals put forward in a report about the funding body Arts Council England. This article, by the way, is about to get really wild, and I wanted to get that intro out of the way first so you can understand some of the context. The politician behind the proposal to charge overseas visitors to national museums in England has discussed the controversial topic in detail in the UK Parliament, explaining she thinks that digital ID checks would need to be implemented first. The Labour peer, Margaret Hodge, published her review of the UK public funding body Arts Council England last December, which she said provided a clear path with a range of new initiatives that cover everything from new funding models to fundamental systems reform. And this is the juicy bit. The proposal that's garnered the most attention centers on possible admission fees for tourists at national museums in England, which the UK government says could provide significant benefits. In a recent address, Hodge suggested that such a measure would however require digital ID checks at museum entrances. Now, at the moment, there's a lot of museums in the UK that are free to enter, and a proposal has been put forward, which is a pretty good one, to be honest. If you're a UK citizen, you should be able to access these museums completely for free. But if you're not a UK citizen, they want you to be able to pay for it.

[00:01:24]So, basically, tourism will generate money for these museums. I think overall, the things that we can agree on. You know, it's a good way to generate revenue for tourism, all of this stuff. It's also a good way to give like a little reward back to the people that are citizens in the country. But But there's always a [ __ ] but. Digital ID. Ah. The idea is that by scanning your digital ID, you can prove you're a citizen of the UK and get free access to the museums. Ah. I know we've been talking about mandatory elements for like digital ID, but like of all the things that they could make mandatory, things like um you know, to get a driving license, to get a passport, all of this stuff. They They go [laughter] for museum entry. And I'm holding off reading the next sentence because it's just the most >> [laughter] >> It's the most wild sentence I've read in an article in a while. But before we get into that, if you're looking for a fantastic VPN to help keep you protected online, check out Private Internet Access at the link down below. With that VPN, you need one subscription which works across all your devices. They don't keep any logs, and they respect your privacy. It's also the best way to support the channel. And let's carry on with the video. All right, let's just fire off this next sentence cuz it's it's wild. It's wild. As first reported by the Museums Association, Hodge told the Communications and Digital Select Committee on the 14th of April, "I would be totally opposed to us doing anything about charging for museums until we have that universal system of digital ID.

[00:02:46]Just think about it. A black kid comes up, and the person on the desk says, 'Are you a foreigner?' There's implications that you could have from that, which be completely against the spirit of everything we want to achieve as a community in terms of cohesion. So, we should not do it until we have universal ID cards." Now, this is where this is really frustrating, because the way that has been phrased there is like that's a conversation would actually come up. No one behind the desk is going to go, "Are you a foreigner?" At the end of the day, at the moment, if you want to buy cigarettes, beer, or anything adult from a shop like lighters or knives or whatever it might be, the guy behind the till you can just flash your driving license or your passport and go, "Oh, yeah, by the way, I'm I'm over the age of 18." He doesn't take a photo of it, he doesn't store it, he doesn't keep it, he doesn't sell it to third-party companies overseas that are using it for their industrial military complex to steal all of your data. They just look at the number and the date of birth. Now, British passports are very, very unique, as are British driving licenses. If they wanted to make this system free for people in the UK, there are a number of ways they can do it.

[00:03:45]They can have it where the person behind the till just looks at your driving license or your or your passport, or alternatively, they could just create a system where if you're part of an electoral register, you can get a little code which allows you to have like free days out at museums in the UK. But there's so many ways that they can do this that isn't involving a full digital tracking infrastructure scheme that requires your digital identity to be scanned to access public places like museums. And this is one of the core problems with this. Behind this, there is actually something good. There is a concept that is good. You know, British citizens being able to access museums for free because we are citizens of our country, and we can learn about our arts, history, culture, all of this stuff is [ __ ] amazing. I am so on board with this. But this is where the digital ID will become that backstop, where the government can just fall back on it as a way to basically control everything. Now, let's talk about the Millennium Dome in the 2000s. They did kind of like a public lottery where people would get like free days out to access it, and they simply just sent something in the post to those people.

[00:04:47]Now, that could be done through email, where it's basically just a little ticket that you print off with the little barcode on it so they can scan that, you know, someone's been that day or that your ticket is valid. They could do all of this over email by using existing government information. The government already knows who is citizens of the UK. They also have through the various government portals things like email addresses, phone numbers, actual physical addresses. There's many ways that they can create initiatives like this to allow people to access these museums for free. There could be a bit of a transition process where people forget to bring their ticket or something like that, but there is a good idea somewhere mixed in all of this awfulness. There is definitely something here that bears fruit. But the digital ID backstop where they can just go, "Well, this is why we need digital ID, boys and girls." That is the problem with this.

[00:05:31]And And you know, we've spoke about a lot more serious topics, things like the way that the government can use your phone to track you with things like digital ID, and it can be used as a surveillance tool, and something that would violate your privacy. But if they're already floating the idea of that it can be used to access things like museums, we then get into the point where it's a geo-restriction model. It's a model where that if you don't have digital ID, you can be excluded from experiences. You'll have to pay to go to the museums. You'll have to pay to go to maybe some theme parks. This is where things expand out, and we end up in a society where if you don't want to be part of this tracking culture, it's going to cost you. And people, now more than ever, want to save money. Money is hard to come by. People are desperate to save money. So, what's the best way to punish people that are working 12, 16 hours a day, that are struggling to keep their family and kids afloat? Well, if they want to go for a day out, and they want to go for free, they must have digital ID. This is a huge, huge problem. I'm genuinely I know I say this in pretty much every video, but I'm really, really keen to hear what you guys think about this down below. In my opinion, this is the opposite end of the gateway. The gateway is other stuff, but this for me is a a way that they can use government-run institutions, things like museums and stuff like that, to actually make their dystopian future hurt financially. If you can't afford to go to the museum, you can go for free, but you must download the digital ID app.

[00:06:58]This is terrifying. I'm keen to hear what you guys think about this down below, and check out Private Internet Access VPN while you're down there, and uh I'll see you all in the next video.