Keir Starmer’s announcement that the UK will introduce mandatory digital ID for all citizens has sparked furious debate about their use, effectiveness and threat to privacy.
In making its case, the government has promised to take the “best aspects of the digital identification systems that are already up and running around the world”. The plans would require each person to have an electronic ID, stored in a digital encrypted “wallet” on their smartphone. This would prove people’s right to live and work in the UK, which the PM says will help crack down on illegal migrants and benefit fraud.
Where are digital IDs used and what for?
There are plans to roll out a Digital Identity (eID) Wallet to all EU citizens by the end of 2026, but many European countries already use a national electronic ID system. Last month, Switzerland became the latest to approve such a system, with voters narrowly backing plans for optional and free-of-charge electronic identity cards.
Outside of Europe, Australia, Canada, Japan and South Korea all offer citizens a way voluntarily to verify their identity online and access some services digitally.
The UK government has also studied India’s Aadhaar system, which provides all citizens with a unique 12-digit number that has “saved around $10 billion annually by reducing fraud and leakages in welfare schemes”, said Gov.uk. Prime Minister Narendra Modi claims the system, which includes facial scans and fingerprints, is India’s ticket to the future.
China first introduced national ID cards in 1984. A new “internet ID” that lets the state, rather than private firms, verify the identity of website and app users “augments China’s radically different approach to managing and surveilling the digital lives of its citizens”, said The Economist.
What can they be used for?
The e-Estonia platform, which contains legal photo ID and provides access to all of Estonia’s government services, is “by far the most highly developed national ID-card system in the world”, said Sky News.
In Denmark, “life online is almost impossible without MitID”, said The Guardian. Introduced in 2023 as a public-private partnership between banks, insurers and the digitisation ministry, the app is needed to pay taxes, book a health appointment or apply for college.
Poland’s mObywatel has 10 million active users and allows people to check points on their driving licence, look up local air quality or change their polling station. Ukraine’s DIIA app is used by the majority of citizens to access more than 70 online services, as well as to track drone attacks.
Have they caused problems?
Cyberattacks have become “customary” since e-Estonia was first launched in 2007, according to the Estonian government. In 2021, a Tallin-based hacker obtained around 300,000 document photos “through a security vulnerability in the state portal”.
Other arguments against digital ID centre on privacy. Civil rights campaigners worry that the huge amounts of information “could be amalgamated, searched and analysed to monitor, track and profile people” and “shift the balance of power towards the state”, said The Guardian‘s UK technology editor Robert Booth.
In India, mass collection of data from 1.3 billion citizens has left civil libertarians “horrified”, said The New York Times. Enrolment in Aadhaar is now “mandatory for hundreds of public services and many private ones, from taking school exams to opening bank accounts”.
“You almost feel like life is going to stop without an Aadhaar,” one woman told the newspaper.
Many countries use electronic ID to streamline access to services despite concern by civil rights groups they ‘shift the balance of power towards the state’
