Key Takeaways
- Labour Together has called for the U.K. government to introduce a mandatory digital identity scheme.
- The “BritCard” proposal echoes the government’s failed ID card system introduced in 2006.
- Many of the same objections that killed the previous national identity push also apply to the latest proposal.
An influential Labour thinktank has called for the introduction of a mandatory, nationwide digital identity scheme in the U.K.
Labour Together’s proposal to issue citizens with a digital “BritCard” marks the latest attempt to introduce ID cards in the U.K. But the same objections that killed previous iterations of the idea still stand today.
ID Cards in the U.K.
Unlike many other countries, the U.K. doesn’t issue ID cards or maintain a unified national identity database.
Brits still need a national insurance number to work, and they need a passport to travel. But these systems operate in isolation.
Civil liberties advocates argue that siloing national databases prevents overzealous government surveillance.
In the past, when the government tried to centralize the U.K.’s national identity system, it was met with stiff opposition.
Labour’s Failed ID System
After the government passed legislation to introduce mandatory ID cards in 2006, a grassroots campaign to oppose the plans emerged.
The campaign group NO2ID captured the public’s aversion to the proposed ID system in a report to parliament.
“We believe that it is everyone’s fundamental right to assert who they are, who they choose to be, without being checked against an approved list; that citizens should not need the permission of the state to exist,” the report stated.
After several years of struggling to implement the scheme, the Labour government was ultimately ousted in a general election in 2010.
When the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government took over, all ID cards issued under the ID scheme were cancelled and databases destroyed.
Tony Blair Revives ID Proposal
In the 15 years that Labour was out of power, calls for a national identity scheme in the U.K. were largely suppressed.
But in the wake of last year’s election, former Prime Minister Tony Blair has sought to resurrect his failed plan for a nationwide ID system. Only this time, physical cards are out and digital credentials are in.
Not wanting to rehash old arguments and become weighed down by a policy that has proven unpopular among the British public, the new government rejected Blair’s proposal.
But certain quarters of the Labour Party refuse to let sleeping dogs lie.
MPs Push for Digital Identity
In April, a group of Labour MPs wrote to the government urging it to reconsider digital identities.
Echoing the Blair government’s failed 2006 legislation, they argued that a nationwide identity system would help streamline public services, prevent tax fraud and curb illegal migration.
Now, those same points have surfaced in Labour Together’s BritCard proposal, which would require citizens to use a smartphone app to prove their right to work or reside in the U.K.
Labour’s recent digital identity push has made an important rhetorical shift from past ID card proposals.
In a previous era, migration control was just one of several supposed advantages of a centralized ID system. Now, BritCard is primarily posed as a way to “help Britain control illegal migration and secure its borders.”
Government Officials Split on BritCard
While Prime Minister Kier Starmer has yet to comment on the proposal, members of his cabinet are split on the issue of mandatory digital IDs.
Technology Secretary Peter Kyle supports the concept, while Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has voiced her opposition.
Resistance to BritCard falls along the same ideological lines that characterized opposition to Tony Blair’s scheme.
For example, Big Brother Watch objected that the proposed system, “would fundamentally change everyone’s relationship with the state, moving us towards a ‘papers please’ society and putting a burden on all law-abiding people to prove our right to be here.”
“The debate about digital ID isn’t really about immigration; it’s about access to, and control of, everyone’s data,” interim director of the group, Rebecca Vincent, warned.
