Ben Ansell

British grandmother 73, deported for missing the letter from the government asking for a recent photo for their big ol' database

Compulsory Ziblatt for Bluesky posters IMO

I think it is the case that you could start a process from today where you caught overstayers. The problem, as you say, is that it wouldn't make much of a dent in currently actually existing illegal immigration.

The Kemi/Ange similarities are just too delicious

Absolutely - facial ID will work for the people you currently have in a database and that might be in the five figures maybe?

I suspect it's a lot of overstayers - the problem is not having had the original facial ID to make the plan work. But given that about 2/3 of asylum applicants come from normal (non Channel) routes and that is circa 70,000 last year, you can certainly get to a lot of potential overstayers that way

As someone who has had their license plate cloned, I claim innocence!

That would have to be it I think. How they plan on removing 150,000 people a year with that I'm not sure. They could probably catch a few thousand.

Yeh that's the zero false positive part I suppose. If you are constantly arresting people who are here legally and letting them go... ah, now I see why it would be a UK version of ICE.

I think four posts is probably giving this new idea about the level of seriousness it deserves, which as you say, is uh not great for His Majesty's Opposition.

Otherwise what exactly is the plan?
Either you have faces of illegal immigrants in some as yet non-existent database.
Or you 'simply' have faces of everyone legal and a perfect recognition system.
Or you have faces of legal immigrants and look for overstayers and catch a few thousand people. n/n

Otherwise the plan would be this. All UK citizens, all legal permanent residents, all legal visa holders & all tourists would need to provide facial ID to the government.

And the facial recognition system would need a zero % false positive rate. And then you simply flag anyone not in the system 3/n

Putting aside the cost in Nvidia GPUs for the UK government involved in this, the basic problem is the absence of a database of the faces of illegal immigrants. I can imagine a world in which all visa applicants give facial ID and then you deport overstayers but I think that's it... 2/n

Just going back to this, I think it's worth thinking through the underlying logic of how a facial recognition system could work to ensure Badenoch's plan to deport 150,000 illegal immigrants per year. 1/n

This morning, the Trump Administration’s Department of War gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will. It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a Governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will.

Yeh that's probably right. What I mean more is that policy ideas inspired by first year of Trump (DOGE, ICE) are likely to sour pretty quickly.

Also, what is the database of illegal immigrant faces they are planning on matching camera data to???

I think on immigration the recent Pew stuff does suggest a turn towards being pro immigration again in the States - quite thermostatic.

With so many voters having changed their minds in the last 15 months, for @samfr.bsky.social, I used @britishelectionstudy.com and @yougov.co.uk data to look at who is moving, why, and whether they’ll return.

A 🧵 looking at the key points, but the whole article has so many more essential details!

It being Britain almost certainly a few things will be both. Maybe cycling.

Concerningly!

A lot of parties are acting as if the election is tomorrow as opposed to likely 2029 after which either Trump is out of office, or more concerningly, still in office.

The government want more coercive powers for the state against protests, and the main opposition party wants more coercive powers for the state against migrants.

Our political-media culture continues in a loop where the response to every perceived problem is yet more coercive powers for the state.

A notable response from the most traditionally conservatives of the Ivies. Essentially ‘go do one’.

👏👏👏👏👏

I shouldn't be enormously surprised I suppose but this post is aiding me in creating a new blocklist.

Many thanks

Holy hell. DHS just openly stated that its agents use “reasonable suspicion” to make ARRESTS. This is blatantly unconstitutional. The Supreme Court is clear that you need probable cause to arrest someone, as opposed to stop them to ask them a question or two. This is huge b/c…

Not a question that deserves an answer to be honest with you.

I’m fine with that claim. I think he could have been less rude to Rob.