Thursday, 11 September 2025

A sad tale and an AI fail

Yesterday, I learned of a sad event. Yet another of our much-loved Surrey country pubs has closed. I refer to the Dog and Pheasant in Brook, on the A286 between Milford and Grayshott. Here is the tweet about the closure in July:

I have been to this pub many times, often walking there and getting a bus back to Godalming.

But the way in which I became aware of the closure is interesting, too. As Reform UK campaign manager for Godalming and Ash, I was re-working my maps of the constituency to make sure they were aligned with the latest electoral boundaries. As part of that task, I was looking up the populations of our local villages, so we would have data to help work out whether or not we should bother to send a leafleting posse.

Recently, Google has added an “AI Overview” to the results of its searches. I was, therefore, a little surprised, having entered “brook surrey population,” to get this response:

Yes, you read that right. “There isn’t a settlement named ‘Brook’ in Surrey.” AI fail! There is also a Brook south of Albury, by the railway line from Dorking to Guildford. Double fail!

However, when I followed the very next link (you can see it above!), I got this:


Well, that tells you something. When a German organization can find Brook, Surrey, UK, but Google’s AI cannot, that rather discredits the AI, does it not?

I have to say, I think that artificial intelligence (AI) is a wrong turn, an aberration. I have more than 50 years of experience in software development. I have spent decades managing teams of software programmers, and decades testing what they produce. (Sometimes, but not always, at the same time). And I can tell you, without doubt, that no software can ever possibly be better than the programmer who wrote it.

AI suffers from this same problem. No set of AI rules of deduction can be better than whoever set its rules. But it has two more, even bigger, problems. One, no AI can be better than the data it has available to it to make its decisions. And two, this Google AI and its database seem to have been released for public use, without having been thoroughly tested. (By the way, this is not the first issue I have found with Google’s AI summary).

Now, consider how those that consider themselves our masters seem to want to use AI. “If the computer says it, it’s right.” Several hundred sub-postmasters, falsely accused of fraud against the Post Office, were caught in just this trap.

Yet Google’s AI said: “There isn’t a settlement named ‘Brook’ in Surrey.” Even mention Brook, Surrey, on-line, and could you be accused of “misinformation” under the on-line safety act?

Being what I am, I tried the same query the next morning, and got a different AI answer, but also wrong: “There isn’t a settlement named Brook in Surrey with readily available specific population data.” So now, Brook may or may not exist, but the AI doesn’t know its population. The Germans still do know it, though.

Then I tried Enton Green, which according to postcode-checker.co.uk has a (believable) population figure of 271. But the AI says it is around 10,000! Another AI fail.

So, why did the Dog and Pheasant have to close? No, it wasn’t AI’s fault. Brook is still there in reality, and the pub still has a catchment area. But successive governments, with bad policies such as “nett zero,” have suppressed our economy so far, that we ordinary people can no longer afford to go out and enjoy ourselves.

On this evidence, no-one should use AI at all. If decisions depend on the answers, the risk of error is far too great. The answers seem to change from run to run, too. But Google and the establishment seem to be pushing for everyone to use it.

That is worrying. For having people – likely including government – regularly using, and believing, an unpredictable tool that makes egregious errors like these, could easily become a major threat to those few freedoms we still retain.

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Saturday, 6 September 2025

The Natural Law of Humanity

Image credit: Tumisu, Pixabay

Last week, I looked at ethics in general, and the relations between moral obligations and human rights. Today, I’m going to try to answer head-on the question: What is right, and what is wrong, for a human being to do?

Where I came in

To list my first three conclusions from last week’s essay:

1)     Identity determines morality. Right and wrong behaviours for a species of sentient beings are determined by the nature of the species.

2)     Ethical equality. Among members of the same species, what is right for one to do, is right for another to do under similar circumstances, and vice versa.

3)     The natural law of humanity. There exists a list of ethical obligations, which represent the behaviours natural to human beings. This can be codified.

The second and third of these statements follow directly from the first. And as evidence for the first, I gave you the behaviours of different species co-existing in the same environment, such as waterfowl around a lake. Their behaviours have a similar core, but each species has its own variations too.

Our nature

In last week’s essay, I also stated my view of the present stage of development of humanity as a species. I identified the main elements of our nature as: To take control of our surroundings, to use them for our benefit, and to leave our mark on them. To use our faculties of reason, to seek to understand what we see around us and what we experience. To form ourselves into social groups, and to organize them in such a way as to bring benefits to everyone in them; and so, to provide a civilized habitat, in which we human beings can live our lives to the full. To interact with each other using Franz Oppenheimer’s economic means, “the equivalent exchange of one's own labor for the labor of others.” And thus, to seek to co-operate in order to take control of our surroundings.

I introduced these elements of our nature in an essay called “The Rhythms of History,” back in late July. In which, I looked at our history in terms of a series of forward-moving revolutions; interspersed with periods of stagnation or backsliding, which result from counter-revolutions, or reactions, launched by those that want to hold us back.

The elements I listed above are those aspects of our nature, which have been most apparent during some of the best and most revolutionary periods in our history. In particular, the first “age of reason” in ancient Greece; the Renaissance; the second age of reason, otherwise known as the Enlightenment; and the Industrial Revolution. They are the aspects of ourselves, which have made us human beings as a species what we are today.

My plan of action

I dub the codified version of the natural law of humanity, as at our present stage of development, “the Convivial Code.” I use the word “convivial,” not only in its basic sense of living together, and in its sense of being friendly and jovial (with a sub-text of feasting in good company!), but also in the sense of “fit to be lived with.” Thus, convivial conduct is the conduct of a human being, who is fit to be lived with in a civilization.

That said, to codify the natural law of humanity completely is a monster of a task. Certainly not one which can be done by one individual, or in just a couple of thousand words!

I shall, therefore, structure the rest of this essay in three parts. First, I will make some general remarks about the Code. Second, I will look at John Locke’s one-sentence statement of the law of Nature in his Second Treatise of Government. And third, I will list the obligations, which I see as my best shot so far at capturing the salient features of the Code.

General features of the Convivial Code

The Convivial Code will be an ethical code of conduct, which encapsulates the natural law of humanity. It will be, in essence, a touchstone for humanity, at the stage at which we are today. It will be independent of any particular culture, religious belief or non-belief. It will constitute a core set of standards of “civilized” behaviour for human beings worth the name.

It will make allowance for those exceptional situations, in which strict adherence to the Code may not be practical. Self-defence and defence of others, in particular, will under certain specified circumstances be seen as valid reasons for deviating from the letter of the Code.

People who make every effort to keep up to the standards of the Code, and so to obey the natural law of humanity, make themselves convivial, or “fit to be lived with.” Together, these people constitute what I call the “convivial community.” What binds this community together is a shared willingness to behave convivially. I equate this with the “great and natural community” of John Locke, to which all human beings would naturally belong, if it were not for “the corruption and viciousness of degenerate men.” (And degenerate women).

The opposite, behaviours that violate the Code, I call disconvivial behaviours. I also sometimes use the term “real wrongdoing” for such behaviours, or even inhumanity. For those that fail to measure up to the core standards of human behaviour, most of all if they do so habitually or in large matters, are failing to behave as human beings. They are degenerates. Thus, they are not fit to be accepted into any civilization of human beings worth the name.

The Code has nothing necessarily to do with “laws” as they are made today. It cannot, and must not, be invented – and most of all, it cannot be made by edicts of any cabal of politicians or their hangers-on. That route, as Locke identified, results in laws that are often no more than “the fancies and intricate contrivances of men, following contrary and hidden interests put into words.” Instead, the Code must be discovered, by examining and understanding ourselves, our cultures and our history.

One major way in which the Code will differ from systems of political laws is that, for long periods, sometimes even over many centuries, the Code will be timeless. So, once set up, it needs no legislative. Changes only become necessary when circumstances occur which have not been envisaged before, or human nature itself changes, or new knowledge becomes available about what it is. And these events are rare. For example, the latest change in human nature came with the Industrial Revolution. Because of this, absent such events, the Code will be applicable retrospectively.

Once constructed and agreed – and that is a monster of a project in itself – the Code must be tried out in practice, very likely in prototype communities. These can then be used as seeds towards its wider and wider adoption. Other aspects to be hammered out would include the procedures for determining when a change is necessary to the Code, for specifying the changes, and for introducing a new version of the Code.

John Locke’s summary

Here is the text of John Locke’s one-sentence summary of the Code, from §6 of his Second Treatise. “The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it, which obliges every one, and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no-one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.”

In what sense did Locke mean that we are all equal? He certainly didn’t mean a socialist idiocy like equality of economic outcome. Indeed, he wrote: “I cannot be supposed to understand all sorts of ‘equality.’ Age or virtue may give men a just precedency. Excellency of parts and merit may place others above the common level.”

No: he meant ethical equality! In the same sense as I do. For he said, of the law of Nature: “What any may do in prosecution of that law, every one must needs have a right to do.” As to being all independent, it is a fact that each of us has our own body, our own mind, and our own will. It is up to each of us, as an individual, to live our lives as best we can. And as long as we behave as human beings, no-one should have any right to stop us doing so.

As to “no-one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions,” Locke is saying: no killing of human beings, no physical assaults, no infringing on others’ rights or freedoms, and no stealing or destruction of property. That’s a pretty good first shot at a law of civilized behaviour for human beings, is it not?

And yet, when we look at the actions of leaders, functionaries and hangers-on of political states around the world today, we see that a lot, even most of, the time they fall seriously short of this mark. Indeed, wars, physical assaults and destruction of property are built into the very foundations of the “Westphalian” states we suffer under. As is taxation, which enables the politically rich to extort earnings or property, or both, from the politically poor. And violations of our human rights and freedoms have become all but routine. Such as the “on-line safety act,” and facial recognition cameras in the public space.

My own contribution – “the Code lite”

It may not surprise you, at this point, to find that I have been working for many years towards my own best shot at writing the Convivial Code.

As I explained in last week’s essay, I see ethical codes in terms of lists of obligations to be kept to. Therefore, that is how I will express my approximation to the Code. As to its level of detail, I am aiming somewhere in between John Locke’s one-sentence statement, and a full treatment, which I would expect to extend to many dozens, if not hundreds, of pages.

I have expressed my version, which I will call “the Code lite,” as a list of 25 obligations. Of these, the first seven are positive obligations, to which the individual must keep if they are not to violate the natural law of humanity. The next four are expectations – things which the individual must strive to do. The remainder are negative obligations or prohibitions; things which the individual must not do. In each of these, the exceptional situations I discussed above, like self-defence, which may justify a deviation, must be borne in mind.

And I will define here what I mean by justice and injustice, and the adjectives just and unjust. By “justice,” I mean what I call “common-sense justice.” That is, the condition in which each individual is to be treated, over the long run, in the round and as far as practicable, as he or she treats others. And when I use the words “just” or “unjust,” I mean in accordance with, or not in accordance with, common-sense justice.

As I did above with John Locke’s version, you may care to contemplate how well the behaviours of those in positions with political power today, whether they are publicly visible or not, measure up to these obligations, expectations and prohibitions.

The positive obligations

1)     Respect the human rights and freedoms of all those who respect your equal rights and freedoms.

2)     Always seek the facts on any matter, and tell the truth as you understand it.

3)     Be honest, candid, straightforward and sincere in all your dealings.

4)     Take responsibility for the reasonably foreseeable effects on others of your voluntary actions.

5)     If your voluntary actions cause objective and unjust harm or inconvenience to others, you have an obligation to compensate them.

6)     If you engage in activities that impose a risk of harm on others, you must have in place resources to enable you to compensate them if such a harm eventuates.

7)     Always practise what you preach.

The first of these obligations, obviously, does not answer the question “precisely what are the rights and freedoms, which everyone must respect?” This I regard as something which must be fleshed out in the process of detailing the Code. But in outline, any right in any of the major lists of rights, from Magna Carta, via the 1689 bill of rights and the 1791 US bill of rights, to the UN declaration and the European Convention, must be checked to see if it is in reality a valid right. And if it is, it must be back-to-backed with an obligation or set of obligations, in the way I explained in last week’s essay.

The remaining obligations are more self-explanatory. They require close adherence to truth and honesty. They impose on you a responsibility for what you do to others; require you to provide compensation if you unjustly harm others; and impose a restriction on the risks to which you may subject others.

The last obligation is, perhaps, the most important of all. For hypocrisy – preaching that in a given situation, people should act in one way, yet yourself acting differently – is a sure sign of disconviviality.

The expectations

8)     Strive to be independent, self-reliant and rational in all your thoughts and actions.

9)     Always strive to carry out what you have knowingly and voluntarily agreed to do.

10) Always strive to behave with objectivity, justice, integrity and good faith.

11) Strive to be tolerant of all those who are convivial and tolerant towards you.

These are all couched in terms of striving to meet an obligation, rather than simply meeting it in every situation. This reflects the fact that these expectations are, for many if not all of us, harder to keep to than are obligations such as truthfulness, honesty and straightforwardness.

The prohibitions

12) Don’t bully anyone, or commit any aggression against anyone’s life, person or property.

13) Don’t interfere in other people’s lives without a good, objectively justifiable reason.

14) Don’t unjustly do to others what they do not want done to them.

15) Don’t intentionally do or aggravate injustice.

16) Don’t promote, support, co-operate with or condone any unjust violation of human rights or freedoms.

17) Don’t promote, support, make or enforce any law that harms, inconveniences, or violates the rights or freedoms of, innocent people.

18) Don’t seek to control others through emotional manipulation or obfuscation.

19) Don’t put any obstacle in the way of the economic free market, or unjustly deny anyone’s access to it.

20) Don’t unjustly deny others the right to make their own decisions in thought or action.

21) Don’t deny anyone the presumption of innocence, or require them to prove a negative.

22) Don’t try to take more from others than you are justly entitled to, or to impose costs on others that bring no benefit to them.

23) Don't pick favourites, or operate double standards with anyone.

24) Don't recklessly impose harm, or unreasonable risk of harm, on others.

25) Don’t willingly let yourself become a drain on others.

Would you agree with me, that these are all things which every civilized human being should refrain from doing? If you agree, would you also agree that under today’s conditions, we are all of us, again and again, subjected to violations of many, if not all, of these prohibitions?

To sum up

In this essay, I have made my best attempt to “put some flesh” on what I call the Convivial Code, the ethical code which specifies the natural law of civilized humanity. I have noted some of its general characteristics. I have given John Locke’s one-sentence summary of it, and my own “Convivial code lite” of 25 obligations. And I have suggested, for your consideration, that the behaviours of those with positions of political privilege today are very, very far from satisfying either John Locke’s summary of the Code or mine.


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Tuesday, 26 August 2025

Ethics, Obligations and Rights

 

(Image credit: Peggy Marco, Pixabay)

Today, I shall return to discussing the ideas, which have led me to create my own system of political philosophy. My subject, on this occasion, will be ethics: “the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles.”

Looked at from the outside, ethics is a strange discipline. The subject matter is simple: What is right for us human beings to do, and what is wrong? And why? Yet, when you look at academic papers on ethics, or even at the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, things rapidly become muddy.

Ethical schools

Ethics today has many different tendencies. First, there are virtue ethicists, who see right and wrong in terms of the presence or absence (or somewhere in between) of elements from some laundry-list of virtues. Aristotle, one of the very first ethicists, was among them.

Second, there are deontologists or rule ethicists, for whom right acts are distinguished by adherence to a set of rules or obligations. Immanuel Kant was among the foremost of them. Historically, they have divided into religious and secular camps. But deontologists do not need to be religious, or to incorporate principles from any religion into their list of rules.

Among deontologists are the natural law ethicists. For these thinkers, the source of the duties or obligations is a “natural law,” which is the same for all those under it. Thomas Aquinas was the major natural law ethicist of the religious camp. And John Locke had his own version of natural law, which was independent of religion (even though he was a Christian).

Beyond these, there are consequentialists, who see right or wrong for an act as being determined by the consequences of that act. There are many skeins of consequentialist views, but no particular school seems to have produced a clear champion. Utilitarianism, an early form of consequentialism which, in the words of founder Jeremy Bentham, sought “the greatest happiness of the greatest number,” was very influential for a time.

There are also pragmatic ethicists, who reject any idea of universal ethical principles or natural law. And rights ethicists, who see ethics in terms of human rights and freedoms.

My own approach to ethics

My views have their roots in the ideas of John Locke. So, I come to ethics from a natural law perspective. That makes me, in the first instance, a deontologist or obligations ethicist. But I also seek to incorporate elements of rights ethics, and even virtue ethics, into my system.

The identity determines morality principle

Because I am agnostic in religion, my ethical philosophy does not require a deity or law-giver. Instead, I posit that the natural law for human beings is determined by human nature.

I derive this from a more general principle, which I call “identity determines morality.” I state this as: “Right and wrong behaviours for a species of sentient beings are determined by the nature of the species.” As evidence for this, I invite you to observe the behaviours of different animal species living side-by-side in the same environment, such as waterfowl around a lake. Their behaviours have a similar core, but each species has its own particular variations too.

Thus, for me, any species of sentient beings, including humans, has its own natural law, defining what is right and wrong for members of the species to do.

The ethical equality principle

An immediate follow-up to the identity determines morality principle is what I call the ethical equality principle. I state it as follows: “Among members of the same species, what is right for one to do, is right for another to do under similar circumstances, and vice versa.” This tallies with the Enlightenment idea of the rule of law. In which everyone, whether in government or not, must obey the same rules.

Last month, I wrote about the Westphalian state, which was designed by 16th-century Frenchman Jean Bodin, and under which we still suffer. How well does this state, with its sovereign and subjects, conform to the ethical equality principle? …Not well at all. It directly contradicts the idea of ethical equality! For it lets the sovereign do things, which the subjects may not. And the sovereign is not responsible for the consequences of what it does.

The natural law of humanity

A few weeks ago, I outlined my views on human nature. It is natural for us to take control of our surroundings, to use them for our benefit, and to leave our mark on them. And it is natural to us to use our faculties of reason, to seek to understand what we see around us and what we experience. Moreover, it is natural for us to form ourselves into social groups, and to organize them in such a way as to bring benefits to everyone in them. By doing this, we build civilizations, which provide the habitat in which we human beings can live our lives to the full. And in that habitat, we interact with each other using Franz Oppenheimer’s economic means, and seek to co-operate to take control of our surroundings.

The ethical obligations which enable this, I call the natural law of humanity. This law obliges us to behave in ways that make us fit to be lived with, and so fit to take part in civilizations. In my view, right behaviour for any human being is convivial, civilized behaviour.

Because the natural law of humanity consists of obligations, and those obligations are the same for everyone, it can, in principle, be codified. I call this list of obligations (once it has been written!) the Convivial Code. I shall say more about that code in my next essay.

My view has a flip side, too. Those that, persistently or in large matters, fail to behave up to the obligations of the natural law of humanity, are failing to behave as human beings. Should we not, therefore, consider that they may not be, in actuality, human beings? That the “ugly duckling,” that neither walks nor quacks like a duck, might not be a duck at all?

My views on other ethical approaches

Virtue ethics

Having been trained as a mathematician, I like to quantify things if I can. And I find virtues difficult to judge in a quantitative way. It is all very well to say that, for example, “courage” or “moderation” is virtuous. But just how courageous, or how moderate, a particular action is in a particular situation, seems to be a movable feast. I find it far easier to judge actions (and, where necessary, motives) according to rules, as the deontologist does.

That said, if I find that I can convert a particular virtue into an obligation or set of obligations, I can incorporate that virtue into my system, by merging those obligations in to my list.

Consequentialism

I find consequentialism, as the basis of an ethical system, unsatisfying. For, in many practical situations, we do not have enough information to judge the consequences of an action ahead of time. This makes it impossible to judge, before acting, whether the action is right or not.

Consequentialists also like to use thought experiments with questionable assumptions built into them. For example, the “trolley problem” [[1]] seems to assume that five lives are always of greater value than one. Even if one of those five was, for example, a young Adolf Hitler.

There is one concession, which I do make to the consequentialists. When proven damage has been unjustly caused to someone by voluntary action of another, and that damage could reasonably have been foreseen to result from that action, I see the perpetrator as under an obligation to compensate the victim(s). In this case, if the evidence of damage is clear enough, it should be possible to quantify it. And a rule or set of rules, such as the Romans used in cases of theft and fraud, should be able to map damage to compensation.

Utilitarianism

I find utilitarianism anathema, because it seeks to maximize the total good, not the good of each individual. It therefore may “justify” small numbers of innocent individuals suffering huge losses, while benefiting a much larger number of people. As an individualist, I follow John Locke’s definition of the public good: “the good of every particular member of that society, as far as by common rules it can be provided for.” So, I can’t accept such outcomes.

Pragmatic ethics

Pragmatic ethics is also anathema to me. This is because it rejects the possibility of ethical principles which are independent of culture, so denies the existence of a natural law of humanity. Yet, it does not supply any evidence to back up this denial.

Rights and obligations

I see human rights and freedoms as extremely important. Indeed, when I try to list detailed obligations to be included in the natural law of humanity, I place respecting the rights and freedoms of all those, who respect the equal rights and freedoms of others, at the very top of my list.

In my view of ethics, valid human rights or freedoms can always be mapped into obligations which, when obeyed by everyone, will deliver those rights or freedoms to all those who respect them for others. The reverse is true, too. If everyone around an individual keeps to the obligations which make up the natural law of humanity, then that individual will enjoy the rights and freedoms, which correspond to those obligations.

I call this process, of mapping between rights and obligations, “back-to-backing.”

Examples of back-to-backing

In simple cases, a right can be directly linked to a single obligation. For example, the right against slavery can be back-to-backed with the obligation “Do not hold anyone in bondage.”

Similarly, an obligation can be back-to-backed with a corresponding right. The Christian “Thou shalt not kill,” or “Do not murder,” for example, maps to the right to life.

But this mapping isn’t always one-to-one. For example, to deliver to those around them the right to security of person, individuals need to refrain from carrying out several different criminal acts. Which include violent aggression, rape and paedophilia.

Practical limitations and exceptions

One problem with viewing ethics in terms of lists of obligations is that it isn’t always practical to keep to the obligations with absolute strictness. For example, to include an absolute prohibition on physical violence would be impractical, because it would not allow those under attack to defend themselves. Each obligation must, therefore, also specify the conditions under which individuals may reasonably break it, and at what level.

I identify two sets of circumstances, which can generally justify acts that deviate from ethical obligations. These are self-defence against aggression, and defence of others against aggression.

To allow these as reasons to deviate in certain situations answers many of the tricks, that philosophers like to bring up as apparent counter-examples to ethical principles. For example, the natural law of humanity will require you to be truthful and honest in all your dealings with others. But if someone you suspect of wanting to harm your neighbour asks you where he has gone for the week-end, it can be OK to lie in your neighbour’s defence, and say that you don’t know. This would, however, not be OK if you have specifically undertaken to tell the truth in the matter, for example in a court of law.

False claims of pseudo-rights

Today, we hear from certain quarters claims to “rights,” that seem to have something wrong about them. A “right to a stable climate” and a “right not to be offended” are cases in point.

Recently, I discovered that both these “rights” can quite easily be shown to be false. Ask the question: What obligation or obligations would guarantee this “right” for everyone, if I, and everyone else, kept to them? If that question has no answer, so that the “right” cannot be back-to-backed with one or more obligations, then the “right” claimed must be false, because nothing anyone can do can deliver it.

For the touted “right to a stable climate,” it is a fact that the Earth’s climate, historically, has been variable. It has changed in major ways, completely independently of human activities; for example, in the Roman and Mediaeval warm periods, and the Little Ice Age. So, no obligation or obligations of any kind, entered into by any number of humans, could possibly stabilize the climate completely.

For the claim of a general “right not to be offended,” ask: How can anyone know what precisely will offend a particular individual, whom they have not met before? And as long as you keep to the obligations which make up the natural law of humanity, how can any human being reasonably be offended by anything you do?

Those, that press false claims of rights such as these, are in my view themselves violating the natural law of humanity.

Human rights

By a human right, I mean a right common to all convivial human beings. (I exclude from this definition what I call contractual rights, which arise out of contracts voluntarily made with others).

Who has human rights?

The 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (just about the only half-way good thing the UN ever did) says – rightly – the following. “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms… without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”

Thus, a human right accrues to every human being without exception, subject only to the individual behaving as a human being. That is, keeping to his or her obligations under the natural law of humanity.

This may be summarized in three statements. First, you should judge others, not on the basis of who they are, but by what they do. Judge them by their actions, and where necessary, what you can discern about their motivations. I call this “judgement by behaviour.”

Second, human rights are earned. You earn your human rights by behaving as a human being. That is, by obeying the natural law of humanity, including respecting others’ human rights.

Third, human rights, once earned, are sacrosanct. If you behave as a human being, and respect the human rights of others, no-one may justly violate your human rights.

Classification of valid human rights

Over the centuries, many lists of human rights have been constructed. From Magna Carta of 1215, via the 1689 English Bill of Rights and the 1791 US Bill of Rights, to the UN declaration, to the European Convention on Human Rights.

These lists contain four types of valid human rights. First, there are fundamental rights. These result from obligations, which apply to everyone, to refrain from doing something. The associated obligations have the form “Do not...” followed by something bad.

Second, there are rights of non-impedance. These result from more nuanced obligations, of the form: “Do not put any obstacle in the way of...” followed by something good. Rights of non-impedance always carry an implied rider: “...provided it does not violate your, or anyone else’s, rights.”

Third, there are procedural rights. These rights, such as the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, must guide the procedures used in confrontational situations. And in particular, the relations between government and the people it is supposed to serve.

The fourth class, and perhaps the most difficult to characterize, I call expectations. These result from obligations that positively require you to behave in a convivial and civilized way. For example, to be truthful and honest in all your dealings. An expectation is, in a sense, not quite as strong as a right, because everyone makes mistakes. But those, that without good reason fail to live up to reasonable expectations, are nevertheless breaking the natural law of humanity.

Misguided “rights”

There is a fifth group of supposed “rights,” which I label “misguided.” They are misguided, because they cannot be delivered without violating the rights of other individuals. For example, an indiscriminate right to “social security” requires some people to be forced to pay for things that bring benefit to others, not to them.

Most of these misguided “rights,” however, can quite easily be re-formulated into rights of non-impedance. Social security, for example, becomes the right not to be prevented from insuring against, or associating with others for protection against, economic hardship. And the supposed right to work turns into the right not to be impeded in trading with others in whatever way is mutually acceptable.

To sum up

My ethical philosophy can be summed up in the following eight statements:

1)     Identity determines morality. Right and wrong behaviours for a species of sentient beings are determined by the nature of the species.

2)     Ethical equality. Among members of the same species, what is right for one to do, is right for another to do under similar circumstances, and vice versa.

3)     The natural law of humanity. There exists a list of ethical obligations, which represent the behaviours natural to human beings. This can be codified.

4)     Back-to-backing. Human rights and obligations can be “back-to-backed,” so that one or more rights can be enjoyed if everyone satisfies one or more obligations.

5)     Practical limitations. Self-defence and defence of others can be valid reasons for breaking the natural law of humanity.

6)     Judgement by behaviour. You should judge others, not by who they are, but by what they do.

7)     Human rights are earned. You earn your human rights by behaving as a human being.

8)     Earned human rights are sacrosanct. If you behave as a human being, no-one may justly violate your human rights.


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Sunday, 17 August 2025

Response to “Call for Evidence” on new forms of digital ID

<Name and address redacted>

<E-mail address redacted>

17 August 2025


Image credit: https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/campaigns/no2digitalid/

This is my response to the “Call for Evidence” on the subject of “Harnessing the potential of new digital forms of identification.” The Call for Evidence is to be found at [[1]].

Background to my response

I am responding, in the first instance, as a member of the public who is very knowledgeable in the area of computer systems and databases, and who has a strong commitment to full respect for the human rights of all those who earn them.

I am also campaign manager for my local branch of Reform UK, and leader of the local group of the civil liberties organization Together: [[2]]. My history of activism for human rights and civil liberties goes back more than 30 years. Not only to my membership of NO2ID in the 2000s, but also to my association with the Libertarian Alliance as far back as 1989.

As I recall, a major argument made for Tony Blair’s ID card project in the 2000s was that to mandate that everyone’s data be held in a centralized database would provide “a single source of truth” for those accessing that data. This, of course, raises questions such as “how do we know the data is correct?” and “is it possible that data can become corrupted?” (whether maliciously, inadvertently, or through malfunction).

After decades as a software developer and project manager, I know – without doubt – that data in a database is often incorrect, and the possibility of corruption can never be discounted. No database can ever be “a single source of truth,” and the reason is very simple; the only source from which truth can possibly be extracted is the real world in which we live.

The argument also raises questions of ethics and human rights. Like: Just how much should government be allowed to know about each individual among the people they are supposed to be serving? I would say, “only the absolute minimum required to deliver service.”

To go on. Who should be allowed to access the data, and who not: and who decides? And precisely what level of mandatory data, in any given situation, breaks the threshold of reasonability, and becomes a violation of the human right to privacy, or dignity, or both?

NO2ID’s efforts in the 2000s resulted eventually in the shutdown of Labour’s ID card project through the Identity Documents Act 2010: [[3]]. I would remind you of the words of then deputy prime minister Nick Clegg: “The wasteful, bureaucratic and intrusive ID card scheme represents everything that has been wrong with government in recent years. By taking swift action to scrap it, we are making it clear that this government won’t sacrifice people’s liberty for the sake of ministers’ pet projects.”

In the interim, we have seen chilling examples of what can happen when “whatever the computer says is right” is adopted as a general principle. Several hundred sub-postmasters were falsely accused of defrauding the Post Office because of exactly this. Many lost their entire careers, some were falsely imprisoned, and some committed suicide.

Moreover, Mr Clegg’s words back in 2010 seem to have been forgotten. To give three recent examples: We have had “vaccine passports” mandated for people who merely wanted to go about their work and their daily lives. We have had an “on-line safety” bill, that is stifling free expression on-line. And we have police using facial recognition technology in the public space, without any legal oversight.

And yet, today, we have Tony Blair – once more – advocating even more draconian intrusions into our rights of privacy and dignity than he was 20 years ago. The same Tony Blair, that was caught lying for the sake of starting a war in Iraq. And Blair is doing this with the support of the “opposition” shadow home secretary, Chris Philp. The same Chris Philp, who wanted police to double their use of facial recognition technology: [[4]]. And whose statement that the on-line safety act “won’t endanger freedom of speech” [[5]] was shown to have been misinformation, just a few months after the act came into force: [[6]].

I shall now address the individual questions.

Question 1. How effectively is data relating to individuals currently being used and shared by the Home Office and its agencies?

It does not take much googling to come up with a long list of data breaches committed by the Home Office, or their agents or sub-contractors.

·       2009: A memory stick with data on prisoners was “lost” by the Home Office’s contractor, PA Consulting: [[7]]. As the BBC reported there, PA Consulting were “heavily involved in the department’s ID card scheme.”

·       2016: The High Court awarded damages to six asylum seekers for privacy and data protection law breaches after their personal data was inadvertently published on the Home Office website: [[8]].

·       2018: The Home Office lost a privacy and data protection appeal concerning former asylum seekers: [[9]].

·       2019: The Home Office revealed the e-mail addresses of hundreds of people seeking help with the EU settlement scheme: [[10]].

·       2020: The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) says the Home Office has been responsible for more than 20 data breaches a month in the administration of the EU settlement scheme, including losing passports and sending ID cards to wrong addresses: [[11]]. The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) said the scheme breached GDPR law 100 times – which campaigners said had “sinister implications” for the planned digitisation of the wider immigration system.

·       2021: The ICO reprimands the Home Office for data breaches concerned with follow-ups to the Windrush scandal: [[12]].

·       2022: A very serious data breach relating to the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy, which led to the High Court granting an unprecedented superinjunction: [[13]].

·       2024: The ICO finds that the Home Office’s pilot of GPS electronic monitoring of migrants breached UK data protection law: [[14]].

·       2025: The Guardian reports that a Home Office contractor collected data on UK citizens while checking migrants’ finances: [[15]].

·       2025: The Telegraph reports that the Home Office is allowing police to use their passport photo database and immigration database for facial recognition searches: [[16]].

Not only is this last being done without the consent of the people affected. But unfettered use of facial recognition technology in the public space is already very likely beyond the line which divides ethical right from wrong. The two together are clearly beyond that line.

While not strictly in the province of the Home Office, it is also notable that the government’s “One Login” project, seen as a vital component of proposed systems such as “gov.uk wallet,” has failed to meet the government’s own standards for digital identity systems: [[17]].

So, the answer to the question as posed can only be, “Atrociously.” However, there are wider questions, too. Should any organization be allowed to hold as much data on everyone, as the Home Office and government now do? Or do the risks inherent in having so much data held centrally, about so many people, for so many purposes, all but guarantee that there will be abuses such as the ones I listed above – and perhaps worse problems, as yet unreported?

Question 2. What potential benefits could the use of new forms of government-issued digital identification have for the Government’s ambitions to reduce crime and to manage migration?

This is, in my opinion, the wrong question to ask. Before even thinking about potential benefits of new forms of digital ID, should not the measurable benefits of existing forms of digital ID, and the checking that goes with them, be evaluated against the costs to the people who have borne them? Both financially, and in terms of loss of rights and freedoms?

The public good

Let us never forget that a government is only legitimate when it acts for the public good. That is, per John Locke, “the good of every particular member of that society, as far as by common rules it can be provided for.” This means that a government becomes illegitimate as soon as it acts without regard for the benefit of the governed. And it must not act just for the aggregate benefit of some collective called “the governed,” but for the benefit of every individual among the governed, real criminals excepted. It is hard to see how any new form of digital ID could be legitimate under this definition, most of all if it was mandatory.

Existing forms of digital ID checking fail to reach significant numbers of people. For example, those who, for reasons perhaps of age, disability or clumsiness, are unable to use a mobile phone effectively, and therefore choose not to have one.

I myself have never yet been able to pass any on-line ID check, for just this reason. So, for example, when I reached the state pension age, I was forced to apply for the pension by post. How, then, could projects like “one login” and “gov.uk wallet” possibly meet the needs of people like me? And what would be the effects on us if such things were mandatory?

Why is there a need for new forms of ID checking?

The majority of people in the UK already have passports. And most of those adults who don’t have passports, have driving licences. Why are these documents not already sufficient to identify any British citizen, or legally resident foreigner, in any situation within the UK?

I can see that a card issued to new asylum applicants might help them prove that their application is still ongoing, so it is not “illegal” for them to be in the UK. And it could help to make sure they are not allowed benefits they are not entitled to. But I cannot see any advantage at all for British people in any new form of ID checking.

The pitfalls in going ahead with more digital ID

Moreover, based on the Home Office’s record as outlined above, and the all but certain injustices that will result whenever data in a computer is regarded as “truth” over evidence from the real world, perhaps a better question would have been: should digital forms of ID be downgraded in importance, or even abolished altogether?

And does not the “mission creep,” that seems far too prevalent in government today, lead inexorably to ever-increasing pressures against our human rights and freedoms? As Messrs Blair and Philp are showing, by their support for more digital ID schemes? In my more cynical moods, I would say that Blair and Philp are the kind of individuals that government ought to be defending us against, rather than it taking on board their illiberal agendas.

The government is not being honest with us

I cannot leave this question without commenting on two rather odd phrases towards the end of the question. One, the government claims to have “ambitions to reduce crime.” That does not sit well with a recent incident locally, in which a village shop was raided at night, at a time when – according to the officers themselves – there were only two police officers on duty for a whole borough of 130,000 people. Nor does it sit well with the fact that, when you do see police in the area, they are usually not doing anything to combat crime, but either driving around at high speed with sirens blaring, or sitting by roadsides waiting to catch out people driving some tiny smidgeon above a totally arbitrary speed limit, which wasn’t there even a few years ago.

And two, government claims to want to “manage migration.” Yet successive governments of all parties have allowed nett incoming migration to climb to absurd levels, resulting in a UK-wide population increase of more than 16% in 25 years. It is impossible to believe this has not been deliberate. And the current Labour government seems to have ceased to do anything to stop, or even or to staunch, the flow of immigrants that, according to their own laws, are “illegal.” Again, this “management” (or lack of it) has to be deliberate. So, any claims that a national digital ID system will “fix illegal immigration” are deceitful, if not also risible.

Question 3. What different categories of information about individuals could most usefully be included in government-issued digital identification?

I already answered this question above: “only the absolute minimum required to deliver a service.” That means that individuals should only ever need to identify themselves to government when using a particular government service, and should never have to supply any more information that is needed to deliver that service.

The idea that there should be a single, all-encompassing government digital ID system goes completely against this principle. If it is mandatory, that makes it even worse. “Convenience” for government should never take precedence over the human rights and freedoms it is supposed to be defending. Moreover, given the constant tendency of government towards “mission creep,” the more comprehensive the data collected for any purpose, including identity checking, the greater the danger of that data being used for purposes which harm innocent people. That George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual, may be a cliché; but that does not make it any less true.

Question 4. What potential risks does the adoption of new forms of digital identification have for individuals, including risks to privacy and security of personal data?

I have identified, above, a number of these risks:

·       Digital ID systems treat data in a computer as if it was “a single source of truth.” But this data may be, and often is, inaccurate.

·       Data may be held, beyond that strictly required for the purpose for which it is to be used.

·       Wastefulness, bureaucracy, and intrusiveness by government in people’s lives, as already seen in earlier government ID schemes in the UK.

·       Violations of the human rights to privacy and dignity.

·       Breaches by government of the standards to which it is supposed to keep.

·       Government acting without the consent of the people it is supposed to be serving.

·       Government ID requirements making it difficult or even impossible for some people or groups to go about their daily lives.

·       Mission creep being used to bring about Orwellian total surveillance and control.

Questions 5, 6 and 7

These questions seem all to be predicated on the assumption that those setting the digital ID agenda intend such a project to go ahead, regardless of what the people of the UK may think, and ignoring any objections that may be raised.

It is easy to find recent government “consultations,” that have proved to be nothing but a “box-ticking exercise” for an already pre-determined agenda. The 2020 consultation on “de-carbonizing transport” was a case in point, and the recent consultation on local government in Surrey looks set to be another. Such behaviour is extremely dishonest, and certainly violates the Nolan Principles of Public Life, if not also the ethical norms of British culture.

To sum up

I am strongly opposed to any plan for any form of compulsory digital ID. It would violate the human rights to dignity and privacy. And it goes against the values of British culture – the culture which sparked the Enlightenment, and nurtured the Industrial Revolution.

I will list six specific issues I identified:

·       The idea, that data in computer systems can be “a single source of truth,” which can override evidence from the real world, is fundamentally flawed. The whole idea of digital ID checking, therefore, is also fundamentally flawed.

·       The Home Office, and government in general as at present constituted, are untrustworthy, and should not be allowed the kind of power that any new digital ID system would bring.

·       If use of a mobile phone is to be a necessary part of a digital ID system, some individuals, particularly disabled and older people, will be unable to prove who they are.

·       There are serious risks to human rights and freedoms in any digital ID system. These include inaccuracy, overreach, wastefulness, intrusiveness, violations of privacy and dignity rights, and failing to act in the interests of, and with the consent of, the people.

·       Digital ID systems could far too easily lead towards an Orwellian system of total surveillance and control.

·       The call for evidence is asking the wrong questions. Instead of what new digital ID systems should be developed, it should be asking whether attempts at digital ID systems in the UK have gone too far, and should be scaled back or even scrapped.

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