YOU CAN’T REJECT THIS COOKIE

Mate. You’ve got an iPhone.

Nearly three million people signed a parliamentary petition opposing digital ID.

And whenever the subject comes up, people talk about data.

Who has it? Where is it stored? What will government know about me? What will companies do with it?

And I get it.

But I also don’t.

I understand wanting privacy. I understand being suspicious of governments and corporations. I understand asking what information is being collected and what somebody intends to do with it.

What I don’t understand is this idea that digital ID represents the moment the system finally gets you.

The fantasy of living outside the system.

It reminds me of those people who tell you they’re going to live off-grid.

And I always think:

Unless you’re planning to disappear into a forest, dig your own well, generate every watt of your own electricity, grow your own food, deal with your own waste, never drive on a public road, never use a bank, never need a hospital, never pay tax and somehow never interact with another piece of modern infrastructure again, you’re not really outside the system.

You’ve reduced the number of connections.

And that’s fine.

There are people who genuinely produce their own electricity, collect water, grow food and live remarkably independently.

But even the bloke sitting in a cabin telling everyone on YouTube that he’s escaped modern society had to upload the fucking video.

Modern life isn’t one grid.

It’s hundreds of overlapping ones.

You can disconnect yourself from one. Maybe several.

But the idea that most of us are wandering around completely independent until somebody introduces digital ID is fantasy.

You’re already connected.

You were never invisible.

People talk about data as though somebody invented it five minutes ago.

They didn’t.

Long before smartphones, businesses kept customer records. Banks recorded transactions. Credit-reference agencies built financial profiles. Electoral registers recorded addresses. Telephone companies generated records. Supermarkets discovered loyalty cards. Direct-marketing companies built enormous databases.

Then came the internet.

Then search engines. Cookies. Social media. Smartphones. Location services. Apps. Cloud computing. Connected cars, watches, televisions, cameras, doorbells and homes.

This isn’t a switch somebody is about to turn on.

It’s a road we’ve been travelling down for decades.

We traded for convenience.

At almost every stage, we traded something.

Sometimes we didn’t make much of a meaningful trade at all.

Information about us has long been collected, processed, combined and shared through systems most ordinary people rarely think about.

So when somebody posts:

“I WILL NEVER LET THEM TRACK ME.”

…from an iPhone connected to a mobile network, logged into Facebook, sitting in a house with Wi-Fi, a bank account, a credit file and perhaps a smart electricity meter…

I’m sorry.

I get the concern.

I don’t get the illusion.

The issue isn’t whether data exists.

Governments have always needed information about populations.

Who lives where. Who owns what. Who owes tax. Who can vote. Who was born. Who died. Who married.

Businesses have always kept records too.

The fundamental change is not that human beings suddenly discovered data.

It’s the scale, speed, connection and resolution of modern data systems.

This isn’t theory.

Water companies are already trialling different ways of charging households.

Anglian Water has seasonal tariff trials.

Severn Trent began a rising-block tariff trial in 2026.

Other trials explore different relationships between measured consumption and what customers ultimately pay.

None of that requires a conspiracy.

Britain has a genuine water problem. Smart meters can help identify leaks. Better information can help manage consumption. Pricing structures can encourage conservation.

I understand all of that.

But I also think we should recognise what we’re building.

The system doesn’t have to be evil.

I think this is where we repeatedly misunderstand modern power.

We’re always looking for the villain.

Someone sitting in a dark room watching 70 million screens.

A government department plotting how to control everybody.

A corporation deliberately constructing a dystopia.

But systems don’t have to be sinister to acquire enormous power.

They merely have to become normal.

Then stand back twenty years later.

The architecture has changed.

Facebook is optional. Water isn’t.

This is where water changes the argument completely.

Don’t like Facebook? Leave.

Don’t like TikTok? Delete it.

Don’t trust a website? Reject its optional cookies.

But essential infrastructure isn’t an app.

You can’t wake up tomorrow and say:

“I’m not particularly happy with Thames Water’s data policies. I’ll download Severn Trent instead.”

There’s a pipe entering the property.

You need what’s inside it.

And that creates an entirely different relationship between an individual and a system.

You’re not participating because you’ve been persuaded by an advert.

You’re participating because participation is necessary.