The UK’s proposed obligatory digital ID scheme is not going to assist cut back unlawful migration or cease individuals working illegally, and will as a substitute arrange the infrastructure for exclusion and mass surveillance, MPs have been instructed.
On 26 September 2025, UK prime minister Keir Starmer introduced that the authorities deliberate to introduce a compulsory nationwide digital ID scheme, arguing it might assist crack down on unlawful working and management the nation’s borders.
The scheme will probably be obligatory for “proper to work” checks by the tip of the present Parliament, and consists of title, date of beginning, nationality and residency standing info, and a photograph.
The announcement follows the launch of the Gov.uk Pockets in January 2025, which is able to begin by digitising driving licences and veterans’ playing cards, earlier than shifting on to incorporate each government-issued credential by the tip of 2027.
Whereas the federal government has already confirmed that digital ID will probably be out there within the Pockets, underpinned by the present Gov.uk One Login digital id platform, there may be at present a scarcity of readability over how a digital ID system will work in apply.
To scrutinise the federal government’s digital ID plans and its claimed advantages, the House Affairs Committee (HAC) launched an inquiry in June 2025 into the introduction of recent types of digital ID.
The committee has obtained dozens of publicly out there submissions – the overwhelming majority of which expressed robust opposition to obligatory digital ID – and its first proof session with professional witnesses was held on 18 November 2025.
Digital ID advantages
Commenting throughout that session on the potential advantages of a digital ID system, Alexander Iosad, director of presidency innovation on the Tony Blair Institute, stated it might permit individuals to show issues about themselves “in a way more handy, non-public and safe approach”, including that it might additionally allow a excessive diploma of personalisation within the supply of public providers.
“The flexibility to entry providers on the idea of who you might be and what we all know to be true about you … opens actually thrilling prospects for the way public providers, and providers extra broadly, function,” he stated.
The flexibility to entry providers on the idea of who you might be and what we all know to be true about you … opens actually thrilling prospects for the way public providers, and providers extra broadly, function Alexander Iosad, Tony Blair Institute
“It permits us to maneuver from a reactive, one-size-fits-all mannequin that was constructed for a distinct age, to a personalised, preventive mannequin with a layer of accessibility that’s not potential with a conventional mannequin, the place it’s a must to apply for each service and show time and again issues about you that the state might already know.”
Laura Foster, an affiliate director of tech and innovation at commerce affiliation TechUK, additionally highlighted the advantages of time financial savings and comfort, which is why most individuals at present flip to digital IDs: “The federal government’s personal statistics present that 44% of the individuals they surveyed have already used some type of digital ID service within the UK.”
She added that digital ID providers are at present most developed within the monetary providers trade, and are already delivering advantages for the sector by way of streamlined providers and lowered compliance prices.
Iosad added that though digital ID will inevitably turn out to be a goal for fraudsters itself, as “something that turns into central to a course of turns into a goal”, there are examples the place such methods have helped cut back fraud considerably. Iosad cited Norway’s introduction of a digital ID system, which has “lowered cost fraud from 1% to 0.00042% of transactions”.
Nonetheless, on the centre of the digital ID debate are questions of belief, with many against a compulsory system expressing considerations about information storage and centralising info on residents, which may very well be repurposed down the road with out individuals’s enter or consent.
For Edgar Whitley, a professor in apply (info methods) on the London Faculty of Economics, there must be a framework in place to make sure there may be absolute readability on how individuals’s delicate private information is used within the context of digital ID.
“Sadly, the announcement of the right-to-work proposals says, ‘Create intelligence information on companies which might be conducting checks’. That instantly makes everybody suppose there’s in all probability a record-keeping exercise happening,” he stated.
“The BritCard proposals, which have been one of many influences of this, stated, ‘A digital id would permit the House Workplace to construct a canonical report of the place and when [immigration] checks have been efficiently accomplished’.”
He added that whereas design selections might be made to not construct sure record-keeping capacities into the system, individuals will stay involved in the event that they consider these points may very well be turned on and off by the state at will.
Unlawful immigration and work checks
On the federal government’s acknowledged purpose of utilizing a digital ID system to clamp down on unlawful immigration and conduct right-to-work checks, a number of witnesses identified that employers are already in a position to perform these checks digitally, and have been doing so since June 2025, when the Information (Use and Entry) Act was handed in Parliament.
Additionally they famous {that a} digital ID system would make little distinction to employers already illegally hiring employees.
“For a rogue employer who’s using unlawful immigrants, a digital ID just isn’t all of a sudden going to make them go, ‘Oh, I’ll behave myself and do the suitable checks and never rent these individuals’,” stated Whitley.
He additionally questioned the federal government’s framing of a digital ID as “voluntary”.
“As I perceive it, the present proposal is that any time you wish to tackle a job, with a brand new contract of employment, you’ll have to have a digital ID, and the one approach an employer will be capable to make use of you is that if they’ve checked the digital ID. That’s the factor that most individuals are reacting towards. There have been studies saying, ‘Don’t fear, it’s going to be voluntary’ – till it’s a must to change jobs, which signifies that everyone goes to need to have it.”
He added that making digital ID obligatory will inevitably create all types of issues round id exclusion.
On the exclusion facet, James Baker, a programme supervisor on the Open Rights Group, stated such a system “has the potential to marginalise individuals from having the ability to take part within the economic system” as a result of if one thing goes incorrect with their digital ID, they’re mechanically excluded from having the ability to earn a residing.
He additional added that using digital IDs is already obligatory for migrants below the House Workplace’s digital visa (eVisa) scheme, which has created a variety of points for these affected.
Highlighting how the eVisa scheme has up to now been tormented by information high quality and integrity points, Baker stated there are a lot of real-world examples of the place the obligatory scheme is inflicting hurt.
“Individuals with the fitting to work within the UK have misplaced out on job alternatives as a result of they haven’t been in a position to entry their share code to show their proper to work,” he stated.
“We’ve got had examples of individuals going into a store and being requested to indicate their eVisa share code to buy alcohol, and so they have been unable to do it. The place you will have obligatory methods launched like that, it’s not hypothetical. We’re already seeing real-world examples of exclusion in existence.”
A government-issued, obligatory digital ID has the potential to create an extremely intrusive system of surveillance and information assortment Silkie Carlo, Massive Brother Watch
Silkie Carlo, director of Massive Brother Watch, added that whereas the eVisa is at present restricted to migrants, a compulsory digital ID system would create a scenario the place everybody wants a allow to go about their on a regular basis lives.
“A government-issued, obligatory digital ID has the potential to create an extremely intrusive system of surveillance and information assortment, and it opens up prospects for the federal government to problem and revoke permissions in sure methods,” she stated.
“Until you will have this digital ID card, you won’t be able to work. Already, different authorities departments are speaking about renting, advantages, schooling, and so forth. I believe we’d be having a very totally different dialog if the federal government have been speaking a couple of system that they thought was so enticing that, in the event that they made it out there, numerous individuals would wish to use it. As an alternative, it’s a obligatory system that’s paired with restrictions on individuals’s liberties.”
Carlo stated whereas the federal government is introducing the system to ostensibly cope with unlawful immigration, she doubts “anybody on this room genuinely believes … [the system] is about unlawful working”, including that she is “extremely” involved about operate creep and what the system will finally find yourself getting used for.
“That begs the query, what’s it actually about, and what is going to the opposite makes use of be? This was introduced by the prime minister on a Friday afternoon, and simply hours later, the federal government webpage about digital ID was speaking about tax, advantages, schooling, childcare and lots of different makes use of for a digital ID,” she stated.
A number of witnesses additionally raised points round the price of updating the UK’s legacy methods for a authorities digital verification stack to work, and highlighted the significance of open supply for belief on this space.
“There’s a danger on this debate about digital ID the place, if we see it as separate from the broader digital transformation, the digital transformation will head in a single course, the digital ID ambitions will head in one other, and they won’t join,” stated Tony Blair Institute’s Iosad.
“In our view, the dialog about digital ID is a chance to pay the type of consideration we should always have completed for a decade or extra to digital transformation in authorities. The size of alternative is immense; we have now missed out on plenty of what we should always have completed, and now’s the time to mitigate.”
