Digital RUC: The Trojan Horse for Total Digital Control
I’m fundamentally against digital RUC (Road User Charges). There is no advantage to you and don’t let anyone say there is. It will cost huge money to implement and run (your tax dollars), and it will cost you more in the long run.
This is only an onboarding ramp for digital ID. I hear most of my friends saying they don’t care—in fact, digital ID does have some transactional advantages, and I’m not going to argue about that. What I will argue is the forcing of us to move to this system with very little say. I want the choice. If I choose to use cash because it’s easier for me to budget, I still want to be able to. But our government in New Zealand is trying to bring in digital RUC, and I believe this is a precursor to something much bigger.
Does the government listen to people anymore? Most of us have gone quiet and are just getting along with our lives—driving asleep at the wheel while our freedoms are quietly stripped away.
Wake Up Call: When Dissent Becomes Expensive
Just as a wake-up call, let’s look at a few cases you’ll be aware of. The truckers in Canada who protested about COVID all had their bank accounts frozen. We have a Crimes Act here in New Zealand, and if you break the law, your assets can be confiscated, including your bank account. Once again, most people I know don’t care—they’re all law-abiding citizens.
Wait… unless in the future you say something on social media, some hurty words that someone doesn’t like.
The Canadian government used the Emergencies Act in February 2022 to freeze bank accounts of Freedom Convoy protesters and supporters without due process. The RCMP told the committee that around 257 accounts of people and businesses involved in the protests had been frozen by financial institutions, and banks were told they can’t provide “any financial or related services” to people associated with the protests, a move that will result in frozen accounts, stranded money and cancelled credit cards. A Federal Court later ruled that the Canadian government was “not justified” in freezing protesters’ bank accounts.
Vietnam: The Digital ID Blueprint in Action
Are people aware of the forced digital ID process in Vietnam? 86 million citizens have just been debanked until they go through the process of digital ID.
Vietnam has implemented what they call “Project 06,” which launched in January 2022, hailed as a technological revolution to digitize the country. Starting September 2025, banks all across Vietnam began deleting access to over 86 million bank accounts that have not been “verified” under the country’s new digital ID scheme. The State Bank of Vietnam calls it a “system clean-up measure” and “a data-cleansing revolution”.
The VNeID is now mandatory in Vietnam and serves as the exclusive gateway for accessing all online administrative procedures, such as tax declarations, social insurance, and residence management. Everything from banking to renting an apartment is linked to the digital ID. One wrong move and the government can completely erase someone from the system.
The Data Explosion: Thousands of Data Points
Those who have heard me say this know that cybersecurity experts estimate that data brokers collect an average of 1,000 data points on each individual with an online presence, though some companies like Oracle claim to have data on more than two billion people globally and are able to surmise more than 30,000 attributes per individual. Now we all get comfortable and think no one can read all our data anyway. But now with the new data tools like AI algorithms, this is what will be used to track us.
So let’s take a look at the future: your data is collected in one digital place, accessible by partners of the company storing this data. If you read the terms and conditions of digital RUC companies, they share with their advertising partners and the government if they require it. So basically everyone has access to it except you!
They can monitor your health, your social connections, your daily movements, and all activities including locations. EROAD, one of New Zealand’s major tendering eRUC providers, states their devices “measure distance travelled with a high degree of accuracy, and also capture location, route and operational data” and “record, store and continuously transmit encrypted data” to their web-based platform.
Australia’s Digital ID Push: The Social Media Gateway
While we debate digital RUC in New Zealand, look at what Australia is implementing right now. Australia has enacted the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024, prohibiting social media use by children under 16 and mandating age verification. While the government claims there will always be non-government ID options, the infrastructure is being built for digital ID verification.
Australia’s Digital ID system launched with mandatory age verification requirements that introduce additional considerations regarding privacy protection. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has identified these verification tools as surveillance systems that could impact speech and privacy rights. Australia’s comprehensive approach establishes new precedents for national-scale digital identity implementation that other countries are watching closely.
The Social Credit Future: China’s Playbook
Do you support the social scoring that they have in China? Let me point to some examples. In some of China’s largest cities, a high-tech effort is underway to bust low-level offenders like jaywalkers. Cameras record them going through intersections, zero in on their face and publicly shame them on nearby video screens. In Shanghai, jaywalking, traffic violations, refusing to visit elderly parents, not sorting out garbage into the appropriate bins or dodging train fares could all be recorded on social credit files.
There’s a story of journalists whose social points stopped them from being able to purchase train tickets. Nearly 15 million people have already been prevented from traveling under China’s social credit system.
What’s Right in Front of Us
So what’s next? What’s right in front of us if this goes ahead? Well, you could be automatically ticketed for doing 55 in a 50km area. You could be visited by the police because you commented about something that offended some ideology you don’t agree with—like what’s currently happening in the UK.
The police are making more than 30 arrests a day over offensive posts on social media and other platforms in the UK. In 2024, 1,160 people were prosecuted for malicious communications under laws that make it illegal to send messages that cause “annoyance,” “inconvenience,” or “anxiety” to others. Officers from 37 police forces made 12,183 arrests in 2023 – around 33 per day, representing a 58% increase since 2019.
Just look at people getting arrested for saying they like bacon or posting memes.
The Bottom Line
Look, I don’t care if you want to have a rainbow painted pedestrian crossing, but I do care that if I comment about it on my socials, I could face consequences that extend far beyond a simple disagreement about the cost.
The trajectory is clear: digital RUC leads to digital ID, which leads to comprehensive digital control. We’re being sold convenience and efficiency while our fundamental freedoms are quietly eroded. The examples from Canada, Vietnam, China, and the UK aren’t distant warnings—they’re current realities that show us exactly where this path leads.
Digital ID can have genuine advantages for transactions—I acknowledge that. But I want the choice. I want to be able to use cash if it helps me budget better or pay money direct via a QR code at MY convenience. I want to be able to opt out if I choose to. What I’m seeing with digital RUC is the government removing that choice, forcing us into a system that’s supposedly “better for us” while creating the infrastructure for unprecedented control.
The question isn’t whether you trust your current government with this legislative power. The question is whether you trust every future government with this level of control over your life and their private entity adversaries. And the question for my friends and fellow Kiwis is: are we really going to sleepwalk into this digital surveillance state, starting with something as seemingly innocent as road user charges?