HN Explorer

Show HN: Use Their ID – Use your local UK MP’s ID for the Online Safety Act (use-their-id.com)

862 points by timje1 ↗ HN
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.

46 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 96.2 ms ] thread
spullara
uk ain't playin' these days, i would take it down if you are under their jurisdiction
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!

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.

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.

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?

DalasNoin
Always tells me that the MP wasn't found for my selected area.
elthran
Ah, you must be a Clacton resident then
Mindwipe
Always tells me an MP can't be found despite multiple attempts.
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 :)
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.
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
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

thorum
Unintended side effect, UK MPs can now watch as much porn as they want with plausible deniability.
dom96
Are the generated images supposed to look like the MP? they look nothing like it as far as I can see.
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.

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

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.

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
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.

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