The Government has announced that they are planning to introduce mandatory Digital ID cards called “BritCard” that would make us all reliant on a digital pass to go about our daily lives, In what appears to be a desperate attempt to control and limit us.
Digital ID is being pushed in the name of convenience and security, but in reality, it hands unprecedented control to governments, corporations, and unelected bodies, while giving the state enormous control and treat the population with suspicion. Introducing one in Britain would fundamentally change the nature of our relationship with the state, eroding our rights and freedoms.
Keir Starmer has defended these plans for a new digital ID held on people’s phones as an “enormous opportunity” for the UK amid a fierce backlash.
The Prime Minister 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 all want to be able to prove who we are safely, privately, and conveniently but while digital ID I guess can be helpful for some people in certain situations, it is certainly not a magic solution for all scenarios.
People in marginalised, vulnerable and minority groups are more likely to have reduced access to online services (e.g. people with disabilities, low income or the elderly), particularly where digital identity is a requirement. While many of us do not have access to smartphones,
Digital ID is not a neutral piece of technology. It is a mechanism of control. Once accepted, it will shape the conditions of your daily life, whether you can work, access healthcare, travel, or even use your own money.
The digital ID would be used as an authoritative proof of identity and residency status in the UK and include name, date of birth, and a photo as well as information on nationality and residency status , which potentially connects your employment, tax, benefits to your passport, your criminal record, your health records, NHS access, your driving license, and very probably to your internet and social media access.
This is not a left or right issue. It does not matter if you are Conservative, Labour, Green, Reform, or even a lifelong communist. Digital ID does not discriminate by party. It is an infrastructure of surveillance that, once built, will be used by whoever holds power next, and the one after that.
Authoritarians want the ID cards. Ordinary people are being lied to about what Digital ID is. Anyone who understands the implications of centralized tracking/surveillance system and how it will be abused understands it's a bad idea. No citizen is safe when freedom becomes conditional on a digital profile. History shows us the trajectory.
South Africa’s pass laws. East Germany’s Stasi. Modern-day China’s social credit system. Each began with assurances that ordinary citizens had nothing to fear. Each grew into systems that monitored, excluded, and controlled entire populations.
To believe Britain is immune to that pattern is wilful blindness. Technical arguments matter too. A centralised database will be a permanent target for hackers, foreign states, and criminals.
Data leaks will be catastrophic because biometric identifiers cannot be changed. System errors will strand innocent people outside hospitals, workplaces, and homes. The poor, the elderly, and the disabled will be hit hardest.
I do not trust a Government with ID cards which, among other things, abuses its power now to label a non-violent group protesting against a genocide, as “terrorists”, with all the draconian legal consequences that result from such a label.
Today it's a mandatory ID card to prove you have the right to work but in the future you might have to use it to access the NHS, to rent or buy a home, or to access benefits. These schemes always expand. Once the infrastructure is in place, it's easy to sleepwalk into surveillance state where we constantly have to prove who we are just to go about our daily lives. It will be a bureacratic nightmare.
A centralised database could be shared across government departments and the police, and fed into AI systems that effectively create an authoritarian pre-crime state.
Digital ID cards can be used by abusers who want to control. For example, abusers will be able to prevent someone from getting a job by denying them access to their digital ID.
This is dangerous for everyone in the UK. Alongside very serious concerns about civil liberties, data security and misuse, ID cards are also a huge waste of money,
In WW2 it was mandatory for UK citizens to carry ID cards everywhere, at all times. After the war, In 1950, Harry Willcock, a 54-year-old dry-cleaner and former councillor, refused to show his identity card, he stated to the Police Officer demanding his ID; “I am a Liberal, I am against this sort of thing.” His case helped turn the tide. Citizens rejected this authoritarian control as they were deemed fundamentally at odds with British values and civil liberties. and protested against ID cards,
In April 1951, members of the British Housewives’ League burned ID cards outside Parliament. Within months, in February 1952, the new Churchill government abolished them. What was true then is also true now.
Starmer's views himself as a shepherd and the people as his flock of sheep. But in his dystopian vision of society, we are mere chattel to be controlled by ever more encroaching laws. A former prosecutor, for him we are all of us guilty until proved innocent. He is mendacious, malevolent, conniving and corrupt.
We need to send a loud and clear message to him that we do not support mandatory digital ID cards.
Far from being a panacea to solve illegal migration, digital ID cards would give the government unprecedented mass surveillance powers and the risk of malicious access to our personal data can not be overstated.
We’re already living through an unprecedented crackdown on hard-won freedoms. Labour has branded Palestine Action a terrorist group, locked up climate protesters for taking part in a Zoom call and threatened privacy online.
Now Starmer wants to force people to put all their details on their phones. Downing Street claims there will be “no requirement for individuals to carry their ID or be asked to produce it”, but with the latest polls suggesting a Reform government would be a “near-certainty” it’s hard to avoid the question of what Farage would do with this handy tool for authoritarian control. Starmer’s half-baked pre-conference distraction may prove to be his most costly blunder yet.
Tony Blair tried all this in the 2000s with the Identity Cards Act, and again in 2021 through the Institute for Global Change. British people were not stupid, It was rejected then, and must be rejected again for very good reasons. We’ve already got birth certificates, passports, National Insurance numbers, driving licences etc.
We don’t need compulsory Digital ID cards! A hard no to digital ID, surveillance, control, and conditional freedom. No consent. Not now. Not ever. As Liberty has said : "Technological advancements mean that digital ID systems pose an even greater risk to privacy than they did when last proposed in the 2000s." https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/issue/digital-id-liberty-position/
Digital ID won’t “control immigration” It will however control you! BritCard / Digital ID will also fundamentally change the nature of our relationship with the state and turn Britain into a “papers, please” society, putting the burden on all of us to prove our right to be here. It must be campaigned against and rejected.
Over 1 million people so far for a multitude of different reasons have signed the following petition telling Starmer that they will not comply with his mandatory ID cards. Please sign and share.
It reads: "We demand that the UK Government immediately commits to not introducing a digital ID cards."
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