The introduction of a national digital ID scheme wasn’t in the 2024 Labour Party manifesto. It now seems a significant omission. National ID schemes have a rather chequered history, and Labour preferred not to reignite the debate during the general election campaign. However, a year into office, and digital ID is firmly back on the political agenda, with the Government announcing a consultation on plans to introduce a scheme by 2029. It is being sold as a means to crack down on irregular working and another “get tough on immigration” measure.
Who has put this on the Party’s agenda?
The policy impetus for Sir Keir Starmer’s announcement in September 2025 seems to have come from two sources very closely linked to the Labour Party. First, the case was made in a report by Labour Together in June 2025, which recommended the Government introduce a ‘Britcard’. Then, the Tony Blair Institute, a cheerleader for digital ID for many years, released a report in September lauding the advantages of a scheme and claiming strong public support for it.
The Prime Minister’s sudden public conversion to digital ID may have been based on these two reports by influential groups within current government circles, but it was packaged as a means to deal with so called ‘illegal’ migration and less about the merits of a universal scheme. Oddly Keir Starmer avoided any mention of it in his Labour Party conference speech this year having only a short time before extolled the potential benefits, but a digital ID scheme is now nonetheless on the cards.
Haven’t we tried ID schemes before?
Some years ago, an Identity Cards Act (2006) was actually passed in Parliament and had begun to be implemented by 2010, with some 15,000 ID cards in circulation. However, the Coalition Government then scrapped the scheme in 2011, claiming it was intrusive and expensive. Indeed, both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats had committed to repeal the legislation in the 2010 election, but the history of ID cards in the UK goes back further.
While it’s often claimed the UK doesn’t have the same history of identity cards as the rest of Europe, ID cards were first used here during the First World War and appeared again in the Second World War, under the National Registration Act 1915 and then under the National Registration Act 1939, respectively. Following a High Court ruling that called into question whether it was right for authorities to continue to use a power given during a national emergency, though, May 1952 saw wartime identity cards formally ended.
The issue did not disappear with the cards. Supporters remained across a generation, and a green paper set out options in 1995 before Labour took the idea in 2002, eventually getting the legislation on the books in 2006 and appearing in 2009. The Labour Party 2005 general election manifesto included ID cards, but none have since and the 1997 and 2001 manifestos also omitted any mention.
Arguments made by Labour in government in favour of a scheme were actually similar in 2002 to those made in 2025. According to the-then government, the ID scheme would combat terrorism, benefit fraud, and toughen employment checks, in 2002 the 9/11 terror attacks a year previous were the catalyst.
What are the objections this time?
There may be similar political objections and obstacles to the full implementation of digital ID this time around to what was seen under the last effort, but circumstances are certainly different. Digital technology has moved on considerably and a single national digital identity scheme potentially has much greater appeal now, particularly if a scheme could streamline access to public services and avoid duplication of identity verification. However, unpicking and centralising the myriad range of existing ID verification schemes seems a very big long-term task for a state unable to implement a unified online GP booking service via the NHS app, to give just one example.
Many objections remain similar to those arguments placed front and centre in the No2ID campaign back in 2002. These include questions over the Government’s ability to protect the data, within the context of a series of damaging data leaks and hacks that have undermined confidence. There remain important constitutional considerations, and some have become a little sharper in focus this time round. Without a Bill of Rights, how much protection would individuals receive against misuse of the data by the state? And how about digital exclusion issues relating to those unable or unwilling to join a digital ID scheme? In such cases what would their status be? And how would they access services? Without inclusion in a party manifesto, would a scheme have democratic consent?
How about party politics?
At present the Conservative Party have called the scheme a gimmick and oppose it on cost and privacy grounds. Reform UK has expressed opposition, and the Liberal Democrats and Greens are opposed, though the Liberal Democrats have recently softened their stance a little.
There is also a significant level of scepticism within the Labour Party itself to the introduction of a scheme – many backbenchers are wary as the policy has not been tested in an election campaign. Commentators have also cautioned that even a seemingly benign government might inadvertently hand the tools of authoritarians to a future malign actor by the move. In the context of Reform UK riding high in the polls and the activities of ICE under Donald Trump, a state surveillance scheme is unlikely to find favour with civil libertarians warning of future shifts towards ‘a stronger, centralised techno state’.
Furthermore, objections have been raised across all the political parties in Northern Ireland; indeed, opposition to digital ID is a rare policy issue that unites both unionists and nationalists. The scheme has not been helped in Northern Ireland, and elsewhere, by Labour Together calling it a Britcard. Other unlikely foes joining forces over the issue include libertarians on the right and progressives of the left who reject the scheme for different reasons.
Do the public want a digital ID scheme?
Around three million people have so far signed a parliamentary petition opposing the scheme and the announcement precipitated an apparent fall in public support for for digital ID. The response to the announcement has been dubbed an example of Starmer’s reverse Midas effect, turning a policy that had a potential level of public support into one that is now opposed.
Much of this opposition may be to do with the way the scheme has been hastily sold as a solution to so-called ‘illegal immigration’ in terms of ‘right to work checks’. In effect this would mean bringing in a universal digital ID scheme via the back door, drawing in UK citizens to an effort apparently designed to combat illegal irregular working. It’s worth remembering that at present you are required to show proof of right to work, and that separately to employment, asylum seekers actually have their own ID card system already. If illegal working is such a large problem that it requires solving, there have surely got to be more sensible approaches to the issue.
The public debate swiftly shifted onto who might get the lucrative contracts for the scheme. There is a potential conflict of interest issue lurking as Tony Blair and his Institute have been at the forefront of the digital ID campaign. The major financial backer for the Institute is Larry Ellison’s US tech giant Oracle, and this has led to much speculation that it might be in pole position for a future contract. Some misinformation has also spread quickly, such as erroneous reports that Tony Blair’s son [Euan Blair]’s company would be awarded the contract. Other private providers have been more cautious in their response, with Palantir Technologies, a major government contractor, ruling out joining the bidding process apparently (tapping into some of the opposition groups sentiment) on the rather spurious grounds that the scheme lacked democratic legitimacy.
Are there any comparable cases that help?
Keir Starmer has been very keen to reference the Indian digital ID scheme, Aadhaar, but the world’s largest biometrics-based identity database, covering 1.2 billion people, has proven controversial. The $10bn a year savings figure that Starmer has quoted has not been verified, and the scheme has been criticised by investigative journalists as a method of mass surveillance; for denying services to the elderly, the impoverished and the infirm; for compromised safety and security; and for instigating a fundamentally altered relationship between citizen and state. Aadhaar has been dogged by court cases, and it took years to implement in full. In another worrying example elsewhere, the Dominican Republic has weaponised its national ID scheme to systematically block black Haitian-descended populations from accessing and renewing their Dominican ID.
Policymakers may instead prefer to look to Estonia and its two decades old digital ID scheme, which was introduced swiftly, with transparency, and as a non-mandatory scheme. Yet mirroring the levels of trust and speed of delivery seen in Estonia, a small state with a 1.2m population, in the UK is a significant challenge.
What are the chances of the scheme making the cut this time?
The introduction of a national digital ID scheme is a large undertaking. Any government requires a level of public trust to be able to build confidence in its purpose and also confidence that any system will have sufficient safeguards and be accepted by the public. The test and trace app introduced during the Covid pandemic was an expensive failure. Lessons from elsewhere are not necessarily positive in terms of data protection and issues of digital exclusion.
If our scheme is being sold as one to deter illegal migration, rather than an inclusionary one that is of benefit to all, it will likely fail to convince the public. By it, digital ID risks becoming a trojan horse of a universal scheme, but one the public will likely spot coming a mile off.
Mark Bennister.
Mark Bennister is an experienced academic researching comparative political leadership, prime ministerial power, governance, public policy, and accountability in parliament. He is a Visiting Reader at Queen Mary, University of London, an Affiliate Research Fellow at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, University of Cambridge, and Honorary Senior Fellow, University of Lincoln.
The Constitution Society is committed to the promotion of informed debate and is politically impartial. Any views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author and not those of The Constitution Society.