Show HN: Use Their ID – Use your local UK MP’s ID for the Online Safety Act

[timje1]

Hi HN - I made a site that takes a UK postcode, grabs the local MP's information and generates an AI mockup of what their ID might look like.

It's a small, silly protest at the stupidity of the Online Safety Act that just came into force.

edit - My open AI credits got hugged to death, please use a known postcode (like one from Kier Starmer's constituency, WC2B6NH) in the meantime.

[dannyobrien]

As someone who was involved in the original guerilla digital activism that spawned the third-person URL format for independent UK government-watching websites (ie "Write to Them", "They Work for You"), I applaud your on-topic brand extension, Tim :)

[pjc50]

Thanks for your activism Danny - by coincidence I'm wearing an ancient NTK tshirt today, from a simpler era of the internet.

[timje1]

Thanks Danny - it was indeed following 'They Work For You' - I'm a big fan of that site.

[verytrivial]

Do please take a moment to consider which MPs carry the burden here. It's mainly a single flavour. Mention it on the doorstep next time.

https://votes.parliament.uk/votes/commons/division/1926

[arrowsmith]

I'm not sure what this recent vote is about. The original Online Safety Act was introduced and passed by the Tories in 2023 (although it's only coming into effect now, obviously.)

So the Tories, who created this awful bill in the first place, are now voting against it? Clown country.

[jjani]

In the UK on this specific topic, "both sides" is as true as ever. This is very obvious when looking at the bigger picture instead of just a single vote. I wish it wasn't, if only it was indeed just one side.

[ta1243]

Government parties are whipped

What's really interesting is those that voted "Aye" who aren't Labour/ex Labour

DUP and Reform. Well the one reform MP that bothered to turn up. How surprising.

[crinkly]

What a fucking mess.

Labour voted in conservative policy. Conservatives voted against it. Reform, whilst all over the news for being against it, voted for it.

[thorum]

Unintended side effect, UK MPs can now watch as much porn as they want with plausible deniability.

[ljm]

I don’t know about this law specifically, but every other law attacking the internet or encryption has attempted to exempt people in government.

That defeats the point of the legislation since it creates a gaping wide backdoor to exploit official people, who are now the most valuable targets because of that exemption.

Never mind the matter of providing a rule for the people and making the people who made the rule immune to it.

[ben_w]

Unless they're being filmed while watching it because they watched it in parliament: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/neil-parish-b...

[jakkos]

It's a matter of time before the online safety act leads to horrendous data breaches. Once it's normalized to have to show your id to visit sites, any website will be able to pretend it's using a third party verification service but just save your id and sell the data on what you were doing.

The blackmail trade will be incredibly lucrative.

[qualeed]

I like the spirit but wouldn't this run afoul of one or two laws? Identity fraud or some such?

I'm not in the UK, so I don't have any idea about their laws, but I'd be shocked to find this was above board. Your FAQ claims it's a parody site and claims "The ID number isn't valid and you can't use the card for anything real." but you've just confirmed here it can indeed be used for real things (discord, reddit).

Your domain registration is UK-based, so, be careful!

[nemomarx]

If you can fool discords implementation with a video game character they can't actually be checking very well?

[belorn]

Law often focus on intent. I am not sure if identity fraud can be applied if the person are not gaining anything (assuming they are of the right age). Service providers might be of fault if their verification practices are not compliant with regulations, but I don't know if the law puts any requirements on users to verify their identity.

To me this seems more similar to a people participating in a masquerade or comedian who dress themselves in the likeness of a politician. They are using the identity of the politician, but not in the way that identity fraud is intended to prevent.

Domain registration is an interesting example. To my knowledge, falsifying domain registration data is not a crime. Domain registrars have regulations to verify the identity of customers, including the recourse to suspend a domain if the data is incorrect. I could see a case if a person impersonate a politician in order to falsely attribute content of a website, under a registered domain name, as belonging/sanctioned by that politician, but that would likely fall under defamation laws. The crime could also be identity fraud, but the intent would be defamation.

[pjc50]

What does the online safety act actually say about this? It's only supposed to be age verification, and if you are actually old enough does it matter how you proved it?

Many of the age verification services explicitly promise not to retain photos!

[Mindwipe]

The only way you'd ever get found out is if the affected MP was lying to the public and the identity documents do indeed get retained...

[ralferoo]

> I like the spirit but wouldn't this run afoul of one or two laws? Identity fraud or some such?

I would say not, but then again I'm no lawyer.

There's plausible deniability in that there's a big "this is satire" watermark on top of the licence. The DOB in part 3 is wrong, and the driver number in part 5 is modified to include the 5 letters of the surname, but is otherwise incorrect. The DOB encoded in the licence number doesn't even match the wrong DOB in part 3 either.

If anything accepts this as valid ID, then it just shows how farcical the system is.

[chippiewill]

I agree, the UK Police wouldn't typically let you get away with "it's just a joke". This would constitute a mixture of identity theft, fake ID and misuse of computers.

[yegle]

Chinese Netizens are very familiar with Xi Jinping's national ID number precisely for this reason :-)

ID verification is enforced on all Chinese websites. People figured out they can just use Xi's ID number.

[Gathering6678]

This is not true. A) personal ID numbers are not publicly available (you could certainly get your hands on some, but I doubt a lot would know Xi's ID), and B) more importantly, nowadays ID verification in China uses more sophisticated methods, e.g. in order to not be restricted when playing games, users need to prove they are over 18. The user would permit the game to verify through a payment provider such as Alipay (I don't think one would even need to give their ID to the game, as it is handled by Alipay which has done KYC already).

Although I suspect such ... "innovations" ... would soon get to the western world including UK.

[djrj477dhsnv]

> ID verification is enforced on all Chinese websites.

Is that really true? So search engines? News sites? Pseudo-anonymous discussion forums?

[MiddleEndian]

lol on a much lighter note, for many years I used to use 111-111-1111 as a general phone number for CVS card discounts. It stopped working several years ago though.

[protocolture]

If you really want to piss off the UK government, add a comment section.

[1a527dd5]

I think this is a fun project, but I'm not sure I'd leave this up for much longer.

MPs can be litigious. Especially if this is seen to be enabling things like ID fraud.

Also, there are only 650 constituencies. I would pre-populate the list so when entering a new postcode, it doesn't stall waiting for AI.

[crinkly]

MPs will be immediately trying to hang the civil service for telling them this was a good idea. Don't expect legal action. Do expect buck passing.

[arrowsmith]

The generated images are very obviously AI fakes. I don't think anyone is going to be seriously fooled by this.

> I would pre-populate the list so when entering a new postcode, it doesn't stall waiting for AI.

It looks like it already works like this? It was slow the first time I searched for my postcode, subsequent times have been very fast.

[Spivak]

You want a different photo each time to avoid easy filter lists.

[crinkly]

This is great. Weaponising the stupidity of the idea, compromising it entirely until it's so obviously ineffectual it's unenforceable, then going after the politicians who pushed it for the waste of money and effort.

Create a scandal. Bad PR is the only way out now.

[gardnr]

It looks like the code was/is going to be published?

From the FAQ:

> How did you do this?

> This site uses React for the frontend and Node.js for the backend. The MP data is fetched from the UK government public API, and the AI-generated images use the latest model from open AI. The images are stored on a Cloudflare R2 bucket. The code is open source, so you can check it out on GitHub. It was done in a hurry.

The git repo linked from that FAQ shows a 404: https://github.com/timje/use-my-mps-id

[Arubis]

This is the sort of thing that brought me into tech in the first place, before it became the villain it had started off fighting: humorous, effective pushback against stodgy power structures. More please!

[ta1243]

Your MP

    Name: Mike Wood
    Party: Conservative
    Constituency: Stafford

Err, Stafford has been Labour since the last election, and before that it was a Conservative, but it was Theodora Clarke. Mike Wood is MP for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire.

Surely the way you build something like this is a postcode -> constituency table (I assume available free), a constituency -> mp table, and mp -> image generation (with caching or generate multiple versions)

Even if the lookup data mis-selected the constituency (I think some postcodes can straddle constituencies), surely the Constituency/Name/Party would be consistent.

I'm guessing you're using chat-gpt for the entire program?

[timje1]

Nope! Office of national statistics published a CSV for postcode -> constituency name [ https://geoportal.statistics.gov.uk/datasets/6f2f35a9a0b94e7... ], and then the official gov.uk parliament API for a constituency name -> MP lookup [ https://members-api.parliament.uk/index.html ]. So all of the data is the officially available data. I humbly posit that this is a publicly owned bug.

[wonderwonder]

How does this new policy not end with promising upstart political careers being torpedoed when the party in power “accidentally” leaks their porn history? There is no way the intelligence community doesn’t have a back door to this. Vote how we want on this bill or your embarrassing history just gets found

[evil-olive]

it's a bit buried in the FAQ - if you're a non-UK user like I am and just want to see what the output looks like, Keir Starmer's postcode is WC2B6NH so inputting that will give you an already-generated example of the output.

[arrowsmith]

> Keir Starmer's postcode is WC2B6NH

It's actually the postcode of a WeWork in Holborn (which happens to be in Starmer's constituency.)

Keir Starmer's postcode is SW1A 2AA.

[ReflectedImage]

If you are just looking to get pass the age check: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU9K1LsgX7c

will do it.

[jrockway]

This is so good. Not only does it get you past the verification screen, it infects the next generation of AI models with AI slop, and it adds MPs to a list of suspicious names that are likely fraud. That means that it ruins the Internet for MPs, which is just wonderful. Like, I legitimately think that Starmer might have extra trouble signing up for things now.

All in all, one of those ideas that sounds good on the surface, but the more you think about it the better it gets.

[DalasNoin]

Always tells me that the MP wasn't found for my selected area.

[bargainbin]

Just like any other interaction with your local MP…

[elthran]

Ah, you must be a Clacton resident then

[timje1]

what's the postcode?

[bashtoni]

When I tried it with the Walthamstow constituency the ID used a , as a date separator instead of a .

Seems odd, but probably wouldn't be noticed by an automated validator anyway.

[timje1]

They're definitely not perfect. I wouldn't want them to be perfect, then they might be used for something nefarious. The mock IDs use fake details and fake faces, and don't even attempt to get the watermarks and machine readable parts right.

[vonneumannstan]

This sounds funny but it probably gets you sentenced to 10 years of hard labor in the King's coal mine or something similarly draconian.

[profstasiak]

The government has a monopoly on violence and I believe they will use their violence here.

I am not a layer but identity theft is a first thing that comes to mind

[jonplackett]

Are you just using ChatGPT api to make the images? I’m surprised it would let you make driving licenses.

If so it’d be kinda crazy to go after you if anyone can just make an image like this in ChatGPT anyway.

It get all sorts of complaints from it and then it eventually says it’ll make one but only someone similar and only similar to a uk licensed and then makes something pretty close to reality - but not as recognisable as yours.

[dom96]

Are the generated images supposed to look like the MP? they look nothing like it as far as I can see.

[tempay]

I think so, Keir Starmer and several others show plausible faces.

On the otherhand Ashfield (NG178DA) fails spectacularly.

[spuz]

I'd be interested to know which if any of the ID verification services were fooled by this.

[mensetmanusman]

The UK has been a police state for decades, why are people surprised by this?

[Steve16384]

Compared to where?

[123456west]

Wc2b6nh

[Mindwipe]

Always tells me an MP can't be found despite multiple attempts.

[timje1]

Seems like open AI is rate limiting me for a minute, I didn't expect to get top of HN this quickly. Use Starmer's for now - WC2B6NH

[philipwhiuk]

Are you putting in a valid UK postcode?

[SilverElfin]

Won’t the government force these websites to do some kind of stronger identity verification in the future? I worry that it’ll even come with broader support when the EU or whoever implements ID verification for protecting children or banning misinformation or whatever.

[GaggiX]

>Won’t the government force these websites to do some kind of stronger identity verification in the future?

These heckin' kids needs more protection. I suggest banning all VPNs too, only this way kids are truly protected like they are in China and Iran.

[camtarn]

This is hilarious. Very well done.

[Muromec]

>It's a small, silly protest at the stupidity of the Online Safety Act that just came into force. The IDs actually work (for Reddit, Discord etc.) which highlights how terrible this implementation is.

Could you give a short TL;DR of how ids are constructed so we can all laugh here in comments?

[timje1]

it's literally just the MPs name. It's a fake DoB (because their DoB's aren't public knowledge anymore) all the numbers and such are nonsense, the images wouldn't fool a human for one second. The AI tools don't let you generate an ID for any real human being (because that sounds like all sorts of fraud) so you can't upload a picture of the MP or anything like that - so I just let the model fill in whatever face it thinks is appropriate for the given name.

[natewww]

love this, nice work

[physicsguy]

'MP not found for that postcode.'

[unwind]

Meta: typo in title, says "Dd" instead of "Id".

[tomhow]

My bad, fixed now.

[patmcc]

Wow, people who walked near the capital were thrown in prison. Really? Just walked near the capital. Didn't break in, attack cops, destroy property. Really. Just walked near the capital.

Wow that's crazy.

[spullara]

uk ain't playin' these days, i would take it down if you are under their jurisdiction

[HeartStrings]

World belongs to the brave.

[throw2805]

In UK you get arrested for a mere tweet if it hurts anyone's feelings and it's called democracy. Unbelievable.

Btw UK surpassed Russia in these kinda arrests

[spacebanana7]

OP's comment is only slightly misleading. Per the myth detector [1]:

".... similar comparisons, stating that 3,300 people were arrested in the UK while only 400 in Russia, have circulated on social media for years. The original source of this claim is Konstantin Kisin, a Russia-born, half-British comedian, writer, and podcast co-host. His interview, where he makes this comparison [at 26:26], was recorded in 2019, based on data from 2016-2017.

For years, social media users have relied on Kisin’s statements to compare Russia and the UK. Many refer to data from the human rights group Agora, which reported that 411 people faced prosecution in Russia in 2017 for social media activity. In the majority of cases, media users were accused of [....] what authorities consider provocative content. On the other hand, UK comparisons are often based on a 2017 article in The Times, which cited 2016 data showing that over 3,300 people were arrested or questioned under Section 127 of the Communications Act. However, the same article notes that in half of these cases, investigations were dropped before prosecution. Additionally, Section 127 is not limited to social media, and it also applies to emails and other forms of electronic communication. Moreover, the Russian figure represents prosecutions, while the UK figure represents arrests, making the comparison inappropriate for many reasons. For example, the content of the clauses differs: in the UK, they are applied to a broader range of cases, while the data from Russia reflects arrests for the activity on social media. Additionally, the analysis of cases shows the difference between the two countries in the application of the laws. In Russia, many citizens and journalists have been arrested for expressing critical opinions or posting government-opposed views on social media. It is also worth noting that in the UK, cases brought under Section 127 that result in citizens being subjected to community service or fines are often debated."

The article I've cited mainly discusses a comparison by Guri Sultanishvili which is harder to justify, but Konstantin Kisin's comments have been more widely referenced in the public debate.

[1] https://mythdetector.com/en/free-expression-on-the-internet/