Keir Starmer launches digital ID scheme, but does it stand a chance?

Does the public want a digital ID?

One of the key questions is whether there is an appetite for a digital ID among the public. The previous attempt to introduce ID cards was nothing short of disastrous. In 2023, public response to a government consultation on data sharing for digital ID revealed strong concerns around data privacy in particular. At the time, the government insisted that many of the individuals responding to the consultation were wrongly concerned about the potential compulsory roll-out of ID cards.

However, a YouGov poll, cited by Labour campaigners in favour of a digital ID earlier this year, shows that 34% of the public tend to support the introduction of national identity cards and 25% strongly support it. Filtered by age, 42% of those over the age of 65 strongly support the idea, while only 12% of those between 18 and 24 strongly support it. However, the survey only captured the views of 1,700 people.

Public opinion research commissioned by TBI shows that digital ID enjoys majority support among the British public, with 62% in favour and just 19% opposed

Ahead of the government’s announcement, a report by the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) called for a digital ID to be introduced, citing research showing that more than 80% want a digital ID app with at least one function.

“Public opinion research commissioned by TBI, published for the first time in this paper, shows that digital ID enjoys majority support among the British public, with 62% in favour and just 19% opposed,” the report said.

However, the actual polling questions show that this is only after respondents had been asked a series of questions about how often they are inconvenienced by paper documents, being locked out of accounts due to wrong passwords, or having forgotten to bring ID out with them.

Whether this supposed appetite will endure once it becomes clear what a digital ID actually entails, and which information and data sharing principles will be applied, remains to be seen.

Can the government deliver?

This is not the government’s first rodeo when it comes to digital ID. Many will remember the Gov.uk Verify programme, introduced in 2013 as the government’s holy digital identity grail. By 2016, the aim was to have 25 million users by 2020. However, by 2021, the government had pumped £220m into the scheme with little to show for it. Its successor programme, One Login, has had more success, but costs currently stand at nearly £450m.

The TBI, which is pro-digital ID, estimates that the setup cost for a national digital identity scheme would be approximately £1bn, with day-to-day running costs of around £100m per year.

“The £1bn setup cost would fund large-scale enrolment, as well as the development of the core digital infrastructure needed to link data securely across government departments, providing the foundation for a system that is both scalable and resilient,” the TBI report said.

“Much of this work is already underway as part of the One Login roll-out and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s (DSIT) Blueprint for Modern Digital Government, so the overall cost is likely to be lower. For example, Labour Together estimates the cost of delivering a digital right-to-work/right-to-rent credential, including the GOV.UK app, at between £140 and £400m.”

While Starmer touted the scheme as “free” for those living in the UK, the programme will be paid for with taxpayers’ money. The costs, combined with the digital expertise needed, in a government already struggling to fill its current digital skills gap, and a lack of public appetite, could make it a tricky delivery.

Do we need a government-designed digital ID?

Another question is whether there is any real need for a government-designed digital ID. The market is already flooded with various private sector digital ID products and a stellar digital ID industry.

When the government introduced Gov.uk Wallet, there was uproar from the industry, members of which felt undercut, undervalued and blindsided by the launch, which was done without consulting the sector.

Laura Foster, associate director for technology and innovation at trade body TechUK, said a mandatory digital ID “must be built in a way that upholds privacy, safety, transparency and public trust”.

“Digital ID is already widely used across finance, banking, insurance and age verification, helping people and businesses complete important tasks securely and with confidence. That already includes the right to rent and work. This progress has been made possible by the government’s Digital ID and Attributes Trust Framework, which supports a transparent and secure approach,” she said.

“Government should integrate proven technologies, rather than starting from scratch. The UK has a highly credible digital ID industry that is keen to work with the government on how this proposal could be taken forward. Consultation is vital as it will allow government and industry to work together and ensure any proposed models for mandatory digital ID are clear, citizen-centric and do not override tools and services people and organisations already trust to use.”

In a LinkedIn post, Adrian Field, director of market development for digital identity network OneID, said the UK already has a competitive digital ID market, with numerous companies already certified by the government’s Digital ID and Attributes Trust Framework.

“These services cover a broad range of use cases, including right to work (the main use case that the proposed government ID is meant to solve). As we already have the solution for the stated government problem, why waste taxpayer funds on a duplicate system?” he said in the post.

“The UK’s digital ID industry can become another global success story to follow in the footsteps of fintech, but only if it is supported by government and not displaced by centralised services. A centralised government ID puts this economic growth at risk.”

Field added that the government’s failure to consult the private sector before launching Gov.uk Wallet delayed projects and put investors off the UK market until DSIT relented and revised its model to include private sector services.

Stopping illegal immigration?

One of the key benefits of introducing a digital ID, according to Starmer, is that it will help the government crackdown on illegal working and help control the country’s borders.

Through a digital system streamlining Right to Work checks of everyone in the country, the government aims to crack down on forged documents, illegal channel crossings and criminal gangs.

Employers are already able to carry out Right to Work checks digitally, and have been doing so since June 2025, when the Data (Use and Access) Act was passed in Parliament.

According to Akiko Hart, director of human rights organisation Liberty, introducing a digital ID system won’t reduce “irregular migration”, but it will “create a host of human rights issues”.

There must be robust safeguards around our privacy and data, offline versions for people who need them and, most importantly, any system must be optional, not mandatory

“The government should not pursue a policy that not only won’t achieve its goals, but will lead to discrimination and exclusion in the process,” she said. “Compulsory digital ID will exclude some of the most marginalised members of society, including those in poverty and the elderly, from housing and employment.”

Hart added that while in a digital world, there is a need for a safe and secure way to prove our identities, it needs to be a system “designed with the purpose of helping people to access vital services like healthcare or proving our identity more easily – not creating barriers or shutting people out”.

“There must be robust safeguards around our privacy and data, offline versions for people who need them and, most importantly, any system must be optional, not mandatory,” she said.

Exactly how a digital ID would stop people from coming into the country illegally in the first place is still unclear, as is how the government aims to ensure compulsory uptake among citizens, particularly when many in the population are opposed to the idea of ID cards.

While the government said it will offer alternatives for those who aren’t able to use a smartphone, and that the scheme will be inclusive, the prospect of exclusion is real.

The executive director of Open Rights Group, Jim Killock, said the introduction of a digital ID is “the last thing this government should be embarking on during a cost-of-living crisis”.

“The digital visa schemes that are already in place for migrants are a stark warning of the harms that are caused by data errors, systems failures and an indifferent, hostile Home Office. People have been unable to travel, lost job offers, and even been made homeless because of existing digital ID schemes,” he said.

“Labour is at risk of creating a digital surveillance infrastructure that will change everyone’s daily lives and establish a pre-crime state where we constantly have to prove who we are as we go about our daily lives.”

Another communication failure?

The announcement of the digital identity scheme has already caused significant controversy, and while the billing of it as an immigration deterrent might work well as initial headlines, it is hard not to draw comparisons to another failed government campaign: the Care.data scandal.

The Care.data programme was launched in spring 2013, intended to extract data from GPs to be stored in a central database held by the then Health and Social Care Information Centre.

The aim was to create a data platform that could help researchers develop new treatments and improve care, but the programme struggled with public backing, mainly because of an extremely poor information campaign and not being clear with the public on how the data would be used, how people could opt out of having their information shared, or the potential risks of sharing the data.

The plans were slaughtered by privacy campaigners, and eventually, following a review by former national data guardian Fiona Caldicott on opt-outs and data sharing in the NHS, the government decided to scrap the programme.

The national digital ID scheme could be considered to already be falling into the same pitfalls, and Starmer’s government will have to tread carefully to avoid another data scandal.