What will happen with Starmer’s digital ID scheme in 2026?

National digital ID programme

Then came September 2025, when Starmer – to many people’s surprise, particularly because the Labour government had previously insisted it would not introduce a digital version of ID cards – announced exactly that: a national digital ID programme.

“Digital ID is an enormous opportunity for the UK,” he said, launching the scheme. “We are doing the hard graft to deliver a fairer Britain for those who want to see change, not division.”

However, the announcement did indeed create division. Which brings us to today, and the year ahead.

Cabinet Office parliamentary secretary Josh Simons, who vehemently defended the scheme in December’s parliamentary debate, has been appointed digital ID minister and will spearhead the public consultation, which is likely to stir up the debate more than ever before. While Whitehall has attempted to reassure the public, industry and its own politicians, by promising a “massive inclusion drive” will be launched alongside the consultation, it is likely to be the main cause for arguments and debates in 2026.

One particular concern up for debate is the cost of a digital ID programme. It is no secret that the government does not exactly have a great track record in its spending on digital identity. Its first rodeo came in the form of Gov.uk Verify, introduced in 2013 as the holy grail, and buried as a huge failure with £220m spent and little to show for it.

The government has said the digital ID scheme will come at no extra cost to taxpayers, but all government programmes are paid for by taxpayers, and this programme is no different. How will people react to paying for a programme the majority of the public is not particularly pleased with to begin with?

The current figure for the digital ID scheme expenditure stands at a whopping £1.8bn, though exactly how that will be funded and which pots of money it will come from is yet unknown, and something to keep an eye on in the year ahead.

As Conservative MP Sarah Bool said in a parliamentary debate on the scheme in December 2025: “The Office for Budget Responsibility [OBR] has said that there has been no specific funding identified for the scheme, and it is forecast to cost £1.8bn over the next three years. We have a government drowning in Budget leaks and accidentally releasing prisoners left, right and centre, so how can they be trusted to create a system of ID?”

The cost of doing nothing

However, some claim that the cost of doing nothing far outweighs this substantial outlay of public money. Alex Laurie from Ping Identity said at the time of the 2025 Budget that while the price tag has “sparked understandable alarm, it distracts from the far greater cost of doing nothing”.

“The political landscape has shifted significantly since Tony Blair proposed a national ID in 2005 with far greater public backing,” he said. “Today, Keir Starmer faces a profoundly tougher, more privacy-aware audience, which makes a ‘cut-corners’ approach politically catastrophic. Getting this right isn’t just essential, it’s the only way to earn public trust.”

Whether the government can earn the public’s trust remains to be seen.

Another key digital ID development to look out for as we move further into 2026 will be the government’s relationship with industry. In the past year, it has been up and down, and currently remains fraught. It started with the announcement of Gov.uk Wallet, which took industry by surprise, and left many blindsided.

The government later said it was “unfortunate” that it failed to consult the digital identity industry ahead of the announcement, and promised to engage and cooperate with them going forward.

Then came the digital ID scheme announcement, which essentially is competing directly with the private sector and their digital ID offerings, again leading to furore and many a unhappy supplier.

It led to the Association of Digital Verification Professionals writing an open letter to Cabinet Office minister Darren Jones, who now has overall responsibility for the scheme, to request a meeting and propose a formal collaboration.

It is unlikely that government can succeed with its digital ID implementation without having industry on board, and a lot will hinge on how it navigates the digital identity landscape in 2026.

There is also the issue of data security. One of the key reasons why some people are concerned about the roll-out of digital identity is security, or rather the risk of the data not being secure.

December 2025’s parliamentary debate on the scheme proved that even Labour’s own MPs were worried. Labour MP Rebecca Long Bailey said the real fear was that “we will be building an infrastructure that can follow us, link our most sensitive information and expand state control over all our lives”.

This policy does not arrive in a vacuum. It sits alongside a worrying pattern: the accelerated roll-out of facial recognition, attempts to weaken end-to-end encryption, and data laws that strip away privacy protections.”

She added that the UK government does not have a good track record of keeping data safe, with numerous cyber incidents having taken place in 2025 alone.

The question remains whether Starmer and his government can dispel the fears and show a real strengthening of data security over the course of the next year.

The digital identity programme could go in many directions: it could be a complete failure, with a disastrous publicity campaign, like we saw with the government’s Care.data scandal a decade ago; it could lead to an industry revolt, which would not be good news for the UK economy; or the government could decide to listen to the public, its MPs and industry, and come up with a plan, perhaps based on a reasonable compromise that takes into account the current concerns around the scheme.

Regardless of how it unfolds, digital identity will be one of the key developments to watch out for in 2026.