Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has announced that the Labour Government will bring in a digital ID scheme. While digital ID will be mandatory as a means of proving your ‘Right to Work’, you will not have to carry the ID or be asked to produce it.
Sir Keir Starmer said: “I know working people are worried about the level of illegal migration into this country. A secure border and controlled migration are reasonable demands, and this government is listening and delivering. Digital ID is an enormous opportunity for the UK. It will make it tougher to work illegally in this country, making our borders more secure. And it will also offer ordinary citizens countless benefits, like being able to prove your identity to access key services swiftly – rather than hunting around for an old utility bill. We are doing the hard graft to deliver a fairer Britain for those who want to see change, not division. That is at the heart of our Plan for Change, which is focused on delivering for those who want to see their communities thrive again.”
Comment
Andrew Bud, Founder and CEO of iProov, a developer of biometric identity verification products, said: “Trusted identity is an essential tool to give people the freedoms trust brings. This new initiative will finally cancel the penalty for not being able to drive a car and banish forever the pointless hassle and privacy invasions of producing gas bills and sharing bank statements whenever identity must be checked. A biometrically assured credential in the Gov.uk wallet, owned and controlled by the user themself, will enable everyone to assert trust in their identity and their status, stop it being stolen, and protect the individual from others who would try to defraud them. Past digital identity successes, such as the EU Settled Status, NHS Login and GDS OneLogin programmes, show that Government is capable of delivering such a large-scale programme quickly and effectively.”
Reactions
The Conservative Opposition reacted angrily to the proposal, while among civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch is running a ‘No2DigitalID‘ campaign, citing privacy and security risks, and has brought out a report ‘Checkpoint Britain‘. Big Brother Watch Director Silkie Carlo complained that the scheme would turn the UK ‘into a checkpoint society that is wholly unBritish’. Akiko Hart, Liberty director, said that decades of data scandals suggested UK Government can’t be trusted. She said: “Any trustworthy digital ID system must be designed to make accessing vital services easier – not to shut people out. The evidence from countries with established digital ID systems show the current plans in the UK could create a host of human rights issues while not reducing irregular migration.
“If the Government really wants to get this right, 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 compulsory.”
TBI
The think-tank set up by the former Labour PM Tony Blair, the Tony Blair Institute, has argued for digital ID towards closing ‘loopholes that trafficking gangs and unscrupulous employers exploit, reducing pull factors driving illegal migration to Britain and restoring control over borders’. The think-tank argues that such a scheme can speed up citizens’ interactions with government, cutting bureaucracy and reducing errors and opportunities for identity fraud.
October edition
ID is mentioned in the October edition of Professional Security Magazine as part of what’s proposed in outline by Reform UK as part of its policy to remove hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from the UK. Enforcement by Reform’s proposed ‘UK Deportation Command’ – the detaining and deporting part of what Reform calls for – implies the first of its trinity, identifying who’s illegal.
Background
The previous Labour Government in the 2000s came out with a voluntary plastic identity card, which was scrapped by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition after the 2010 election.
The digital ID would sit on people’s phones, alongside the proposed digital driving licence, Labour says. A public consultation will be launched later this year; considering among other things those who aren’t able or cannot afford or want to use a smartphone.
Pictured courtesy of the Home Office: on Wednesday, September 24 Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood visited Eurostar at St Pancras International in central London where she met with Border Force staff.
