Seven campaign groups have written to UK prime minister Keir Starmer urging him to scrap plans for a mandatory digital identity system – a project that is expected to be announced imminently, as part an effort to tackle unauthorized migration.
“Mandatory digital ID would fundamentally change the relationship between the population and the state,” write Article 19, Big Brother Watch, Connected by Data, Liberty, Open Rights Group, the Runnymede Trust, and Unlock Democracy [PDF].
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“Although the current digital ID proposals are being considered in the context of immigration, there is no guarantee that a future government would not make digital ID a requirement to access a range of public and private services.”
The letter argues that mandatory digital ID is “highly unlikely” to help cut unauthorized migration and would instead push more migrants toward dodgy employers and landlords who ignore government rules. It says the mandatory eVisa scheme, which covers more than four million legal migrants, has suffered from inaccuracies and that those who are digitally excluded, disabled, or elderly “would be disproportionately impacted by these problems and risk being locked out from accessing essential services.”
They also point out that Labour said it was not planning a digital identity scheme in advance of last year’s general election.
“Introducing digital ID through the backdoor, particularly in the absence of parliamentary oversight or meaningful public consultation, would be both unpopular and undemocratic,” the letter states.
An online petition set up by Big Brother Watch has already been signed by more than 100,000 people.
So far, the government has said only that it is considering a scheme. “We are looking at whether a new digital ID could help tackle illegal immigration, transform public services, and bring benefits to people’s everyday lives,” said junior science minister Kanishka Narayan in a parliamentary written answer on September 16. “No firm decision, estimate, or assessment has yet been made.”
However, several media reports suggest an official announcement is imminent, likely at the Labour Party’s Annual Conference, which starts next week.
Former home secretary David Blunkett and one-time foreign secretary William Hague recently wrote opinion articles urging the government to press ahead with the digital ID project, a concept promoted for several years by former prime minister Tony Blair.
Blair and Blunkett led the last Labour attempt to introduce ID cards in the 2000s. The initial parliamentary bill failed repeatedly to pass the House of Lords, which can block legislation that has not been included in a manifesto, an issue the current government could face.
Following Labour’s re-election in 2005, and successful legislation in 2006, the Home Office developed the scheme but only managed to issue 13,200 cards before the coalition Conservative-Liberal Democrat government led by David Cameron scrapped it soon after taking office in 2010.
A mandatory digital ID scheme would meet robust political opposition. In 2023, Reform leader Nigel Farage condemned the concept as “taking us towards being like modern-day Communist China.”
It would also see the UK moving in the opposite direction to the US, where in June President Donald Trump axed the digital identity section of an executive order signed by former President Joe Biden. ®