Opinion UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer directly addressed his new policy of mandatory digital ID in the country for 23 seconds in its effective launch speech.
Appearing at an international conference of center-left leaders run by the IPPR think-tank on 26 September, the UK prime minister talked about the challenges of delivering social democracy, eventually touching on the subject of illegal migration.
Privacy activists warn digital ID won’t stop small boats – but will enable mass surveillance
“For too many years it’s been too easy for people to come here, slip into the shadow economy and remain here illegally, because frankly we’ve been squeamish about saying things which are clearly true,” he said before getting to the point.
“That is why today I am announcing this government will make a new free-of-charge digital ID mandatory for the right to work by the end of this Parliament. Let me spell that out: you will not be able to work in the United Kingdom if you do not have digital ID. It’s as simple as that,” he said, moving on to poverty, climate change, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and energy security.
On 17 November 2004 then home secretary David Blunkett delivered a speech, also hosted by the IPPR think-tank, on his own plans for identity cards. The Home Office had published an initial consultation on “entitlement cards” in 2002, and then Prime Minister Tony Blair included mandatory ID cards in the Queen’s speech of November 2003. A year later, Blunkett spoke in detail about his plans, took questions, teased the NO2ID campaigners who had burnt a giant ID card outside, hinted that supermarket loyalty cards should be more tightly regulated, and said that his son had been one of 5,000 people opposing the plans in a consultation.
As was the case for Blunkett two decades ago, Starmer’s scheme will experience opposition. More than one million people had already signed a parliamentary petition against the scheme, a few hours after the prime minister announced it on Friday.
But there are also a number of differences from the last time this was tried. The most obvious is that Starmer wants to repurpose everyone’s smartphone as an ID card, saving the government from having to issue pieces of plastic, potentially making the scheme cheaper and easier to establish. That does also mean that what the government press release calls “the authoritative proof of who someone is and their residency status in this country” will reside on devices mostly made in China with software controlled by US companies.
While both schemes involve or involved the government building a central database of everyone, Starmer’s database looks set to have rather less on it than Blunkett’s, who had planned to include the fingerprints of every adult in the country. Although, like today, the Blair-era scheme did not require people to carry ID cards, the authorities would have had the ability to use fingerprint biometrics to identify people, however, some experts doubted the ability of the technology to do this reliably in a database of tens of millions of people.
The latest plans include no mention of fingerprints. As it stands, Starmer’s digital ID will have data equivalent to a passport or a visa: name, date of birth, nationality or residency status, and a photo. The government said that a forthcoming consultation “will consider whether including additional information, like address, would be helpful.”
While mandatory, the government only plans to require its use to check the right to work, albeit while talking about its potential in other areas. David Blunkett, interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme, said he was “slightly mystified” about this, criticizing the government for not making a stronger case:
“We are living in an era of conviction, high-profile, shake-the-tree politics and this looks like a whimper,” he said.
Another difference is that Starmer’s government does not plan to charge directly for digital IDs, whereas Blunkett’s plans involved increasing the price of passports to cover overheads. Instead, it will add to the government’s overall spending at a time it is borrowing billions to fund day-to-day running costs. Former prime minister Tony Blair’s institute, which has lobbied strongly for such a scheme, estimated the setup costs could be £1 billion. However the 10-year cost estimate for the Blair-era scheme reached £5.1 billion in 2008, equivalent to £8.4 billion now, although this included the expense of physical cards. In the event the government produced just 13,200 of these before the scheme was scrapped by the Conservative-LibDem coalition in 2010.
Starmer’s timing looks more aggressive than Blunkett’s. The government plans a consultation later this year with consideration of how the system will work for those who can’t use smartphones, which could be followed by a draft law next year. The Blair government fought an epic parliamentary battle to get its legislation through, although this time around, many Labour MPs have already said they are in favor. The government could then need to run a procurement exercise and would then have to build the system. While it might be possible to repurpose passport and visa records for most people, it would need to enrol millions more, and decide how to deal with those who refused.
There are less than four years before the current Parliament must end and that might be all the time available as Reform, the Conservatives, and pretty much every other political party in the country have voiced opposition. “I do not see a single benefit to the government having digital ID other than them controlling what we do, what we spend and where we go and we in Reform are wholly opposed to in every single way,” the party’s leader Nigel Farage said on an X video. “We won’t back any system that makes ID mandatory for British citizens,” Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch wrote on X.
A new YouGov opinion poll has suggested Reform would win 311 seats if a general election were held tomorrow, 15 short of an overall majority, with Labour winning 144.
A lot can happen in four years. Can this? ®