The UK government has pledged to introduce a digital ID system for all UK citizens and legal residents by the end of the current Parliament (so no later than 2029). The integration of digital ID into government services, though already under way, has hitherto been largely voluntary. However, it is becoming steadily less optional, as the government has said it will now be required as a precondition for work in the UK, and a version of it (GOV.UK One Login) is already being imposed unilaterally upon company directors throughout the UK.

Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones has suggested in a recent interview (19/11) that digital ID is completely optional and will simply make government services more accessible and convenient. But this is a rather disingenuous sales pitch. On the one hand, Starmer himself insists that digital ID will be required as a precondition to work legally in the UK; on the other hand, like any new technology, there will be a transition period, but voluntariness is unlikely to last forever. 

Evidently, the government will not immediately require everyone to use a digital ID in their interactions with government agencies. But as digital ID becomes more normalised, it will likely become as compulsory as holding a passport for international travel. Can you really imagine a modern government allowing “hold-outs” to stay in the physical world while digital ID systems become the norm? 

Providing citizens with an easy way to seamlessly verify their identity when they access government services may seem like the “efficient” thing to do. However, this apparent efficiency comes at a high price, exposing citizens to significant risks of government over-reach, surveillance, and system failures. 

The old “clunky” system, in which there was bureaucratic redundancy and replication and in which physical ID cards had to be shown to access discrete government services made it........

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