The speech outlined plans for a Digital Access to Services Bill, establishing a legal framework for the use of digital identity, which has received mixed responses
The King’s Speech indicated a renewed effort in spearheading the implementation of a digital ID scheme by the UK government.
The scheme aims to create a national ID to make public services quicker and more secure to access, with the potential to include private sector services, such as gym memberships or parcel collections.
The plan is now being powered by legislation in the form of a Digital Access to Services Bill, which will form a legal framework under which the government can create, issue and use a digital ID.
“My ministers will also proceed with the introduction of digital ID that will modernise how citizens interact with public services,” the King said in his speech.
Originally, the scheme was billed as mandatory for right to work checks; however, in January 2026, the government backtracked on this and removed the compulsory aspect, following uproar from privacy campaigners.
While employers will be required to conduct right to work checks digitally by 2029, employees will not be obliged to hold a government digital ID, and will instead be able to choose between using physical documents, a private sector ID or the government’s version.
“The government is renewing Britain with accessible public services that work for citizens and come together on the Gov.uk app. The app will become the front door to accessing public services – as with online banking or shopping apps – with the digital ID system at its foundation,” said the briefing notes on the King’s Speech.
The national coordinator of privacy campaign group NO2ID, Phil Booth, said ministers claimed digital IDs would tackle £1.8bn of identity fraud per year, but that following “the failures of One Login, on which the ID system will depend”, it is already showing it isn’t secure.
“His Majesty just announced ‘government by app’ – a lifelong ID number and compulsory biometric registration, in a system that will track every time you use your digital ID,” said Booth.
“Claims that digital ID will be ‘convenient’ and ‘reduce bureaucracy’ are clearly contradicted by the evidence. You’ll still have to fill in the rest of all the forms you’re required to fill in ever more frequently – and now the Home Office, with all its dodgy data, will have final say on you being able to get a job,” he added.
Consultation and industry relations
Earlier this year, the government launched an eight-week consultation on its digital ID scheme, aiming to seek views on how its digital identity system will be shaped.
The consultation, which was published on 10 March, ran until 5 May, during which time it sought public opinion on how the digital ID should be designed and used, and still be accessible for those who are digitally excluded.
According to the government, ministers travelled to each nation in the UK during the consultation period to hear views on the scheme.
They also hosted private roundtables and meetings with stakeholders across banking, inclusion, digital verification services (DVS) providers and wider society.
Many of these DVS providers have already been certified to offer digital ID services as part of the government’s DVS trust framework. The UK’s digital ID industry is large, and rapidly growing.
However, when the scheme was first launched, many providers felt blindsided and sidelined by the announcement, having not been consulted.
Commenting on the King’s Speech, Robin Tombs, CEO of digital ID provider Yoti, said the impact of the bill announcement would very much depend on “the detail still to come, particularly whether citizens will be able to store and use government-backed credentials across certified private sector wallets, or only within a government-operated app”.
“That distinction will be critical in determining how open, competitive and interoperable the future UK digital identity ecosystem becomes,” he said.
Tombs added that he’d like to see a healthy, competitive and interoperable market, allowing citizens to choose whether to use a government-issued or private sector ID solution to verify their identity.
In a LinkedIn post, Richard Opliant, a lawyer in the digital ID space, said the Digital Access to Services Bill left more questions than answers.
One of his key points was that the government had launched a consultation on the scheme while the plans for the bill must already have been in place.
Why did the government bother with its recent consultation on digital ID if it planned to bring in legislation all along?
Richard Opliant, lawyer
“Why did the government bother with its recent consultation on digital ID if it planned to bring in legislation all along? This is akin to an employer inviting multiple candidates for interview and then proceeding to hire the internal candidate whom they had favoured from the start,” he said.
Opliant also highlighted that the already existing framework for digital ID providers and the companies certified on the framework already do what the government aims to accomplish by the end of this Parliament – namely, digital right to work checks.
“The briefing paper simply states that the role of DVS providers is to ‘accelerate adoption of the national digital ID and support the acceptance of digital identities across the economy’. This is disheartening,” he said.
According to the briefing notes, the private digital ID sector generated £2.1bn in annual revenue for the UK economy in 2023-24.
Adrian Field, director of market development at OneID, a digital identity network, said in a LinkedIn post that with an already established marketplace of DVS providers, “it would be good to see more support from the government for DVS services to digitise, secure and grow our economy”.
The briefing notes on the King’s Speech said the digital ID scheme would let the public have “the option to use digital ID to prove who they are quickly and easily across public sector services and the wider economy”.
However, the government already has a flagship digital identity system for access to public services – its One Login programme.
“The key question will be ‘access to which services?’. If it’s public services, as the King says, then any new approach needs to build on and complement One Login, which is already providing digital access to all public services by 2027,” said Field.
Read more about digital identity
Eight-week consultation aims to get the public’s view on how the proposed digital ID system would work, and contemplates introducing a universal unique identifier linked to the ID.
The Home Affairs Committee hearing on digital ID reveals consultation is due next week; there will be no central database; and while government wants to build the system in-house, it will not replace private digital ID providers.
The proposed national digital identity app will no longer be compulsory for conducting right-to-work checks, removing the most contentious and widely criticised element of the scheme.
