With the aim to provide UK citizens and legal residents with a smartphone-based identity card, the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer has announced plans for a digital ID system, or so-called ‘Brit card’.
By the end of the current parliament, digital ID is set to become mandatory for ‘right to work’ checks. The government says it will streamline access to services like driving licences, childcare, welfare and tax records while combating illegal working, a key factor in small boat crossings to the UK. These have continued despite various measures put in place to control — even with the help of France where the migrants embark.
Potential benefits: Digital IDs could reduce bureaucratic friction, improve verification for employers and protect against fraud. Countries like Denmark and Estonia have shown the potential benefits: Danish students are able to automatically retrieve job or educational qualification, whilst Estonians can access health records and child benefits seamlessly.
Elsewhere, India has reportedly saved around £10 billion (£7.43 billion) annually through similar, adjacent schemes by reducing welfare fraud. Supporters have argued the UK system could deliver similar efficiencies while helping employers comply with ‘right to work’ requirement.
The Post Office is even exploring the option of offering digital services through its 11,500 branches, thereby extending support to those struggling with digital access. It also called on the government to “make post offices the trusted place for essential government services, like digital ID or pharmacy prescription collection’.
As Neil Brocklehurst, Post Office chief executive said: “Like any modern retailer, we must evolve to meet customer demand and sell the product and services which will drive revenue for the postmasters and partners who operate our branch network”.
Meanwhile, tech leaders like Janine Hirt, the chief executive of Fintech’s industry body, Innovate Finance, have expressed the potential for innovation and secure data sharing if the system is designed with competition in mind.
Hirt said: “It is vital that the roll-out of digital ID supports a competitive market, underpinned by a trust framework, not via a monopoly or costly State solution”.
Mounting public backlash: Yet, she has also recognised that ‘the decision to mandate government ID, however, risks the discussion being focused on civil liberty and sovereignty — rather than the utility and innovation this technology can bring to people across the UK”.
And she is not alone in thinking so. The scheme has faced intense public scrutiny since its announcement, with over two million people having already signed a petition opposing mandatory digital ID within just days of the plan being announced.
There is a great deal of concern around the matter of privacy, mass surveillance and growing cybersecurity threats, with experts warning that centralising personal data creates an irresistible target for hackers.
Professor Alan Woodward from Surrey University cautioned that a national ID database could become a “huge target” for cyber crime, while civil liberties groups have labelled the system a “nationwide honeypot for cyber criminals”.
Civil liberties advocates warn that the system carries a significant risk of “function creep”. As Hirt argued, “a digital ID could provide a useful identity attribute, but if it becomes the de facto scheme, it risks being expanded beyond its original intent into banking, healthcare, housing or even voting”.
The concern is that once the infrastructure exists, it could be used to track citizens’ movements and interactions more extensively than initially promised. The Labour government insists the scheme will improve security and access, with Starmer labelling it an “enormous opportunity”.
The leader of the Conservative opposition, Kemi Badenoch sees it differently. She said that “a compulsory digital ID hands the state too much power over ordinary people’s lives”.
Andy Jalil
The writer is our foreign correspondent based in the UK.
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