The Official UK Digital Identity Panopticon

The Official UK Digital Identity Panopticon

Chatting with former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair in December 2025, UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: [M]y ultimate vision for that part of the criminal justice system was to achieve, by means of AI and technology, what Jeremy Bentham tried to do with his Panopticon. That is that the eyes of the state can be on you at all times. [. . .] we’ve already been rolling out live facial recognition technology, but I think there’s big space here f…

Shabana Mahmoud is turning the UK into a prison with transparent walls

In a recent conversation with Tony Blair, home secretary Shabana Mahmoud boasted that her vision for the UK has always been a “panopticon”. The conversation took place at a Tony Blair Institute event. This is noteworthy because the Tony Blair Institute has been behind the push for digital ID and digital currency, along with its billionaire backers, such as Larry Ellison (the guy who is heavily censoring TikTok to the point where political videos…