There are 3 million compelling reasons for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer not to roll out a national system of mandatory digital identity cards. That is the number of signatures on a monster online parliamentary petition opposing his plan — announced late last month — even before an official consultation begins next month.
On his trip to India last week, Starmer pointed to that country’s vast digital ID system as a “massive success,” taking in a visit to Infosys Ltd, one of the biggest providers of its architecture.
Back home, the opposition is plainly formidable. But what of the benefits? Many countries with strong traditions of civil liberties have ID cards. For governments like the UK’s, the blend of existing digital technology and the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) holds out the promise of creating an efficient e-government of joined-up public services — and with it the eradication of tedious form filling and rifling through drawers for bank statements to prove who we are.
Illustration: Mountain People
Many of us who might on previous aborted outings of the identity-card idea have huffed that the state has no right to gather yet more of our personal data find ourselves open to revisiting the notion. My mind was changed to some degree when I visited the digitally go-ahead Baltic republic of Estonia and saw that the future largely works. Estonians have more reason to be freedom lovers than most, given their past as a colony of the Soviet Union, but their embrace of a digital ID system means they can now vote online (85 percent do) and register births or deaths. Married couples can even separate and divide their worldly goods online. About 3,000 state services can be accessed without needing to stand in a queue or send in paperwork.
Even the glum evenings spent filling out a tax return have been reduced to five minutes because their forms are automatically repopulated with data submitted the previous year; all that is needed is a quick update. It also has safeguards that answer a fundamental worry of many Brits — the government cannot access files without a court order and any security breaches leave an electronic trace, lessening the chance of large incursions going unnoticed until the damage is done.
Given we spend so much of our lives online or on social media, it might seem odd that UK political parties of all flavors have been quick to unite against what they deem a step toward an Orwellian Big Brother state. In part, this is historical: “Papers” have been regarded as un-British ever since their brief introduction in World War II. These objections are not wholly frivolous; the operations of the British state can indeed be clumsy and intrusive. The police force has a history of abusing its access to personal data, while its recent insensitive approach to recording “hate speech” — regarded by many as free speech — has stoked paranoia about the long arm of the law reaching too far into society.
“An authoritarian plan to make Britain even more like East Germany” was the vituperative front-page response of one Conservative supporting newspaper. That was clearly penned by someone who never spent time in a country run by the Stasi, but No. 10 can expect an avalanche of criticism in that vein — never mind that Britons do not seem to mind having more cameras on their streets than anywhere else on earth, bar China.
The government has failed to explain clearly the purpose of a digital ID system, although the context and tone of its sudden announcement at the Labour Party conference made it pretty clear that it is intended to stop illegal migrants getting jobs; one of the pressure points on the government is the gray economy into which migrants can disappear, uncharted by the tax system. French politicians have long blamed laissez-faire British hiring practices — the so-called pull factor — for attracting people who cross the Channel illegally for work in the UK. However, in the absence of clarity from ministers, net support for digital ID cards has fallen from 35 percent in early summer to minus-14 percent after Starmer’s announcement, a poll by More in Common showed.
“You will not be able to work in the United Kingdom if you do not have digital ID,” Starmer has said. “It is as simple as that.”
However, it is far from straightforward. Everyone entitled to work already has a National Insurance number; if an unscrupulous employer fails to perform existing right-to-work checks — risking a ￡60,000 (US$79,624) fine — they will probably ignore a requirement to see a digital ID, too. That is why it is called the shadow economy. Germany, France and other countries with ID card systems have problems with illegal working.
“No checks, no control. Tough checks, real control,” said Liam Byrne, a former immigration minister during the administration of former British prime minister Tony Blair who advocates digital ID on those vigilant terms.
However, the challenge is not talking tough, but sounding more persuasive, by taking doubts seriously and meeting them head on. In India, Starmer at last began to make a more positive case while calling for “a national debate” — invariably a sign that a government knows it is losing an argument. He added that the system has “huge benefits” — digital ID could be used for banking, as in India, and for managing benefits and bill payments, powered by AI to maximize efficiency. Like me, he cited the Estonian example as “transformational.”
Putting aside the chaotic presentation, Starmer needs to answer a few simple questions as cogently and honestly as possible. First, how much will a digital ID system cost? (The UK government has a poor record on digital innovation, so it might also be reassuring to know that Whitehall proposes to buy off-the-peg rather than building from scratch.) Second, precisely which functions will be voluntary versus compulsory? Finally, how secure will the system be?
Reassurance is key: Even Estonia has suffered data leaks, despite its preparedness against cyberattacks from Russia. Leaks of National Health Service data have damaged UK public confidence; the Ministry of Defence recently posted sensitive details that exposed Afghan allies to Taliban reprisals. So while there will never be a truly leak-free system, the government needs to show how digital ID can provide reasonable security for personal details. Given how often financial services send the doleful message that our passwords need changing because they have been subject to a data breach, any explanation better be more solid than it currently sounds.
In an era when trust in authority is at an all-time low, the prime minister needs to lead a conversation with the voters, not just release a sequence of statements about his intentions. So far, persuasion has not been his forte. Without it, he risks losing the public, forfeiting a digital revolution and crashing yet another Starmer-era policy. On both fronts, the stakes are high and the temperature is rising.
Martin Ivens is the editor of the Times Literary Supplement. Previously, he was editor of the Sunday Times and its chief political commentator. This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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