Thursday, November 20, 2025
Is digital ID in trouble?
The paper says that MPs were told that the Government's the policy has been so badly botched that it is now "irrecoverable, warning that "no one really believes" the controversial roll-out is designed to tackle illegal working:
Supporters claim this will be essential in tackling small boats - and say Britain has fallen behind other nations. But Silki Carlo, director of pressure group Big Brother Watch, told the cross-party Home Affairs Select Committee: "I don't think anyone in this room genuinely believes that the mandatory digital ID is about illegal working. Which begs the question, what is it really about, and what will the other uses be?"
And she continued: "I think that, it's likely that the way that this announcement has been managed makes it irrecoverable for this government and potentially for the next five to 10 years."
A petition calling for the proposal to be scrapped has been signed by over 2.9million people. Ms Carlo told the committee: "Your constituents are up in arms about it and I think it is because of the way that it's been introduced, the fact that no one really believes it's about immigration, that it might be about something else."
Keir Starmer has vowed to plough ahead with the proposals, saying it will make the UK's borders more secure and make it easier to prove your identity. MPs were told system - which would be free for users - would "put citizens in control of their own data".
But critics warned about the possibility of abuse and data leaks. James Baker, program manager at Open Rights Group, said: "Imagine the person you disagree with most in politics...
"Imagine what they could do with this type of system if you didn't have the right safeguards in place." And he continued: "This is what worries me about introducing this in a country like the UK is we we don't have a written constitution that has privacy protections."
This policy is going to be hard to sell and it is unlikely that Starmer has the political capital to see it through.
