A BREXIT-BACKING Worcester politician has criticised the EU over online privacy - claiming a Remain vote could damage our ability to use Facebook and YouTube without being spied on.

James Carver, an MEP who lives in the city, has hit out at the European Commission over controversial suggestions new cross-border laws should be launched to tackle online crime.

Andrus Ansip, vice-president of the commission's Digital Single Market, is behind an idea to use national ID cards to log into online websites.

Under the suggestion people would need an ID card, kept on national databases, to use sites like Facebook, Youtube and Twitter.

It appears almost certain to go no further after criticism from other EU politicians but Mr Carver, from UKIP, said the very suggestion shows a "disturbing trend" about the commissioner's attitude to online privacy.

"This is another disturbing trend in the forward march to control our lives and erode our rights to privacy," he said.

"It may well be great for Estonia but this whole one-size-fits-all mentality of the EU is just nonsense.

"It demonstrates yet another reason for freeing ourselves.

"It is no secret the EU has plans to roll out a continent-wide ID card, with a view to using the data to impose Europe-wide taxes and an EU-wide minimum wage.

"All this just means handing more power to the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels and steam rolling over nationally elected parliaments.

"This intrusive EU interference in social media and the internet is nothing new.

"In 2013 the European Parliament spent almost £2 million on press monitoring and trawling Eurosceptic debates on the internet for so-called 'trolls' during European elections, amid fears that hostility to the EU was growing."

The UKIP politician added: "If that is not a worrying authoritarian trend I don’t know what is.

"The only way to stop this is to vote for Brexit."

Britain doesn't use national ID cards at the moment, unlike most other countries in Europe.

Mr Ansip's paper, which has been uploaded to the European Commission website, says: "Online platforms need to accept credentials issued or recognised by national public authorities such as electronic ID cards, citizens cards, bank cards or mobile IDs.

"For every consumer to have a multitude of username and password combinations is not only inconvenient, but it becomes a security risk."