In yet another blunder from the Labour Government of Keir Starmer, compulsory digital ID has been announced for the UK.
At the Global Progress Action summit in London, the Prime Minister made a long speech discussing social democratic politics in a time of rising populism, co-operation within the rules-based order, and outlining a new headline policy proposal: all British citizens are to receive a new mandatory digital ID, free of charge. This measure was framed first and foremost as an initiative to address migrant workers in the shadow economy and preventing those who cannot legally work in the UK from doing so.
This announcement received a mixed reception. Inspired by a paper published by Labour Together, the proposal has been hailed by some as a critical piece of civic infrastructure to ensure the enforcement of the law and fairness. It could also form the basis for broader digitisation in the vein of Estonia, a country which has led the way in the realm of digital governance. Meanwhile, a number of politicians have come out against the move. On the right, both the Conservatives and ReformUK reject digital ID as a gimmick, whereas the Liberal Democrats and the left have expressed their opposition in terms of civil liberties concerns. Liberty and Big Brother Watch have made starker indictments: digital ID is another step in our sleepwalk towards authoritarianism. Media speculation around the announcement led a government petition to rapidly receive over a million signatures calling for mandatory digital ID not to be implemented. Evidently, Starmer’s new proposals are controversial.
This is far from the first brush Labour has had with ID reforms. The Labour government of Tony Blair attempted to implement this measure back in 2005. The Identity Cards Act 2006 made provisions for the implementation of a national ID system for the purposes of combatting terrorism, migration, and welfare fraud. The scheme also proposed the creation of a central government database to track every use of the identification card via the retention of biometric data, a degree of state surveillance almost unprecedented in British society. Briefly adopting national registration for conscription and rationing during both World Wars, the scheme was dropped in 1952 and Britain has been happily free of compulsory ID ever since. And due to public backlash and the eventual repeal of the Identity Cards Act by the Coalition in 2010, Blair’s proposal never came to pass.
Starmer’s current proposal poses exactly the same risks as the scheme rejected fifteen years ago. For digital ID to work, it would require all of the relevant information to be placed on a central database. This would be an unprecedented centralisation of sensitive information about all British citizens. Big Brother Watch is right to note that forcing the whole British population onto such a database would create a honeypot for nefarious actors as a target of cyberattacks. However safe the government claims its systems will be, we can never be sure. One data-breach is all it would take for a hostile power to gain access to all of this sensitive information, putting our data at far more risk than it currently is. Instead of having no one single point of failure, the UK government seems insistent on handing our data over to malevolent actors on a silver platter.
Beyond concerns about what digital ID will mean in the short-term, there is also the matter of what it will grow into. Mandatory identification to work or rent is merely the thin end of the wedge when it comes to what the state could do. To address the inevitable criticism that this argument merely constitutes the slippery-slope fallacy, I do not believe this to be the case. ‘Mission creep’ is a legitimate concern, as the British state has shown us time and time again over the past decades that it very much intends to build a surveillance state. The Investigatory Powers Act 2016, also known as Snoopers’ Charter, gives the British state the ability to spy on all of our online communications. These powers are currently being used to pressure Apple into granting the UK government a backdoor to all of their encrypted data without telling users that their data has been compromised. Despite Liberty winning a legal challenge to the use of live facial recognition in 2020, police forces up and down the country now use this technology. This creates a climate of fear and suspicion in which citizens are treated as guilty until proven innocent. And mere months ago, the Online Safety Act has led to the draconian censorship of the internet. We are already slipping down the slope of authoritarianism.
The evidence is clear. The persistence of the UK government in spying on its own citizens can only constitute a co-ordinated effort to implement a surveillance state on British soil. And BritCard, if implemented, would complement this effort. While not being actively discussed by Starmer at the moment, what would stop the government from increasing the scope of digital ID to random police checks of pedestrians – which is common in countries with mandatory ID – in an attempt to try and find migrants with no visa or asylum? And if this were implemented, what would be the result for minority communities in our country? Would people of colour have to live in fear of being pulled over by the police for simply walking out of their own home? Even if the proposal before us today does not constitute Orwellian levels of control over our lives, the proposals before us in the future may bring about such a reality. If the infrastructure exists, it will be used to expand the state’s power. That it is why any authoritarian move from the state must be blocked at its source, lest our freedoms go the same way as a frog in a pan of gradually boiling water.
Perhaps the most convincing argument against digital ID is not fearing what it may grow into, but pointing out the very real harm it will cause in the immediate future. Beyond data security concerns, mandating the use of digital ID will impact some of the most vulnerable in society. It may be easy to forget that tech literacy is not universal; some people do not have mobile phones, while others prefer physical forms of identification. If digital ID mandates invalidate physical forms of ID as a means to verify the right to work or rent, this will disproportionately harm the poor, elderly, and disabled members of our society. Not to mention transgender people, who may be forced to ‘out’ themselves to potential employers or landlords if BritCard decides to display sex at birth rather than gender identity. Which, considering the aftermath of For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers and Labour’s pivot towards outright transphobia, appears likely. More fear about how policy will impact their lives is the last thing transgender people in our country need right now, who may now have to fear the potential danger or discrimination consequent to the premature reveal of their personal identities to peers they may not trust.
On top of constituting a severe erosion of our civil liberties, the framing of digital ID as a means to curb small boat crossings is fundamentally flawed. “You will not be able to work in the UK if you do not have digital ID,” was the Prime Minister’s message at the Global Progress Action summit, seemingly naïve to the fact that the black-market does not have a propensity to follow the law. The shadow economy Kier Starmer spoke of already does not follow the law. What makes him think they will follow this one? BritCard will scarcely be more of a deterrent to prospective migrants than existing right to work checks, just as identity cards have failed to be a major deterrent in countries which have already implemented them. The only people who will be prevented from working are British citizens that have done nothing to deserve this degree of government intrusion into our lives. All with an estimated price tag of up to £400 million. If only the government were willing to spend this amount of money on initiatives which would help the people of this country rather than resorting to cruel cuts as a means to create fiscal space for crueller policy.
We should reject the introduction of digital ID for what it is: a desperate and cynical attempt by a government which stands for nothing to play on public fears around immigration as a means of retaining power. If the intent of the government was the more wholesome aim of improving digital infrastructure and allowing for civic engagement such as the ability to report potholes, it would not have to be compulsory. I oppose government mandates which contravene individual liberty as a matter of principle, especially if the policy being imposed is as detrimental as this one. At least lockdowns and vaccine mandates are only temporary and have their basis in sound epidemiology as a mechanism to build herd immunity in a population against a deadly pathogen. All BritCard will do is cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions, all at the detriment of our own freedoms.
I implore you all: resist this authoritarian putsch while you still can. Because if the last few years of legislation is any indication, your right to complain and protest against government incursions on our freedoms will be the next thing they take away.
“The state represses and the law cheats.” – Eugène Pottier, 1871