Keir Starmer has announced plans to introduce digital identity cards for all UK citizens in a bid to tackle illegal immigration and ‘modernise’ the state.
The prime minister outlined how so-called ‘BritCards’ could be used to provide a more ‘consistent’ way of verifying someone’s identity.
Details of the new scheme have yet to be revealed. Though it is expected immigration will be a major focus, work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden visited Estonia last month, where digital ID has been in place for over 20 years.
Estonia’s digital ID system is one of the most advanced in the world, serving as a secure gateway to both public and private services. In the tiny Baltic state, which has a population of 1.3 million, citizens can access 2,600 services online via its X-road digital infrastructure, which requires one log-in and authentication process.
Beyond registering births, marriages, and deaths, or accessing everyday essentials like banking, healthcare, voting, and taxes, digital ID allows citizens to add digital signatures to documents, enables contract signing, provides access to medical records and e-prescriptions, and can even replace a passport when travelling within parts of the EU.
McFadden told the Times that Britain risked being “behind the curve” on the tech revolution, and that smartphone ownership has changed the nature of the debate. He warned that the public sector cannot risk being left behind as the private sector innovates with new technologies, including AI.
The details of the scheme will be developed through a public consultation, which will also consider how to ensure digital ID is accessible to people without a smartphone or passport.
Britain last seriously pursued ID cards in the mid-2000s under Tony Blair’s Labour government. The Identity Cards Act was passed, creating plans for biometric ID cards linked to a central National Identity Register. The scheme aimed to strengthen immigration control, prevent fraud, and improve national security after the 9/11 and 7/7 terrorist attacks.
The first ID cards were issued on a limited basis, initially to foreign nationals and then to volunteers in some regions, however the scheme was scrapped in 2010 when the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition took power. Activist groups such as Big Brother Watch have consistently opposed such schemes, as an infringement of civil liberties and encroachment of mass surveillance.
But Starmer, who gave a speech today, said: “And that is why today I am announcing this government will make a new, free-of-charge digital ID mandatory for the right to work before the end of this parliament … You will not be allowed to work in the United Kingdom if you do not have digital ID. It’s as simple as that.”
He also told the BBC recently that the arguments have since “moved on”, saying: “We all carry a lot more digital ID now than we did 20 years ago, and I think that, psychologically, it plays a different part.”
Reform called the move a ‘cynical ploy’ and the Conservatives are said to be ‘sceptical’ of the plans, whilst the Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey recently cautioned against a ‘knee-jerk’ reaction against digital ID, in a major shift in stance for a party traditionally opposed to such schemes.