At the end of November Member of Parliament and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch met in London with Ukrainian officials to agree on a “ground-breaking digital trade deal” called the Digital Trade Agreement (“DTA”). As an example of the “need” for the digital trade deal the UK government website specifies:
There is a critical need for people to be able to use digital solutions to prove they are who they say they are, despite the loss of critical documentation or displacement across borders. The agreement provides a framework for the UK and Ukraine to cooperate to promote compatibility between their respective digital identity systems to help address this.
UK and Ukraine agree ground-breaking digital trade deal, UK Department for International Trade, 30 November 2022
A summary of the DTA makes it clear that the Ukrainian government has been prioritizing the most important things during a time of war, as anyone would when they are under attack: “Ukraine has strong digital aspirations, and they have identified greater digitalization of the economy as one of their main areas of focus.” And then, lest we forget, the UK government’s summary reminds us that Ukraine is in fact in the middle of a devastating war: “Putin’s large-scale aggression against the people of Ukraine is causing severe disruptions to their economy.”
The summary goes on to list the areas that are covered in the DTA:
Ukraine’s First Deputy PM and Minister for Trade and Economy Yulia Svyrydenko said:
This digital trade agreement illustrates that Ukrainian IT companies operating in Ukraine are in demand around the world … Ukraine will have guaranteed access to [ ] financial services.
As a global leader in digital, the UK is ideally positioned to aid Ukraine’s post-conflict transition to a digital economy, with over two-thirds of our services exports to Ukraine already digitally delivered.
UK and Ukraine agree ground-breaking digital trade deal, UK Department for International Trade, 30 November 2022
The UK-Ukraine DTA also has a provision for collaborating on digital identity, where Ukraine supposedly has a lot to teach the UK about ID tracking tech and using digital ID to access services.
Digitalization has become Ukraine’s flagship topic and the state priority during the last two years, the official website Ukraine Now declares. It goes on: “Here is how Ukraine moves forward with the concept of building a digital state …Diia is a new level of interaction between the state and citizens … Just recently, Ukraine has become the first country with a digital ID that is valid.”
Ukraine’s highly-sophisticated digital ID, Diia, is used to grant the public access to most government services online. It has nine digital credentials: the ID card, the identity provider certificate for network access, birth certificate, passport, driving license, tax number, student card, and vehicle registration certificate.
Although Wikipedia has become a tool of the Globalist propaganda machine, it has a useful history section about Ukraine’s Diia which shows an ever-encroaching digital agenda beginning in September 2019. It also has some useful links, although some of the links are now broken.
The UK does not have a national digital ID system and, over the years, there has been much pushback about implementing any form of national ID.
The DTA will “deliver greater compatibility and interoperability between digital identity systems in the UK and Ukraine,” according to the UK’s Department of International Trade. In return, the DTA will allow Ukrainians to access financial services.
The UK-Ukraine agreement is not the first the UK has entered. “Following the entry into force of the UK-Singapore Digital Economy Agreement, this agreement represents another step in securing modern, wide-ranging trade agreements that harness the benefits of the global digital economy,” the summary of the DTA states, “the Ukraine deal continues the UK’s leading role in shaping digital trade rules.”
In February 2022, the UK signed the Digital Economy Agreement (“DEA”) with Singapore. The UK was the fourth country to sign a DEA with Singapore following Australia, New Zealand and Chile.
Source: UK agrees with Ukraine to “cooperate” on & implement Digital IDs – The Expose