The Prime Minister wants to implement Digital IDs, but many are concerned about the privacy and cybersecurity implications, while others claim it will be more dystopian.
The government has announced plans to roll out a Digital ID scheme across the UK. The scheme will be mandatory and will be stored on people’s smartphones. Ministers believe that it will make it easier to tackle illegal immigration and access to public services.
The notion for the legislation was based on the success of the NHS app during the pandemic for saving time for professionals and patients to manage their healthcare effectively.
Just like the NHS app, Digital ID will save people’s time when verifying their identity. The ID system will operate under a singular, verified identity and be linked to individuals’ passports, utility bills, and birth certificates.
This is not the first time Labour has tried to impose the ID scheme. Back in 2006, Tony Blair tried to implement ID cards to counter terrorism, but failed due to a stringent backlash from civil liberties campaigners.
Privacy and Civil Liberty
A petition was created in October, opposing for digital ID and was circulated on social media. The creator, Maxim Sutcliff, wrote, ‘We think this would be a step towards mass surveillance and digital control, and that no one should be forced to register with a state-controlled ID system.’
It received over 2.9 million signatures.
The government responded, detailing the need for digital modernisation and giving people the power over their data. They highlighted that 1 in 10 UK adults don’t have a physical ID and are limited in their access to employment and public services.
The government wrote about privacy and security concerns and argued that people can rely on them to carry out data protection, and trust that the system will be designed to have high security standards.
Unlike the government, civil liberties campaigners, such as Big Brother Watch, argued in their report ‘Checkpoint Britain’, that the Digital ID scheme is a database that will hold personal information and that individuals will lose sight of how their data will be used.
They concluded that the scheme will portray people as untrustworthy and require more checks in everyday activities.
Phil Booth, coordinator at NO2ID, who describes themselves as a UK-wide non-partisan campaign, believes that the elderly and the more vulnerable will be at risk for not having access to a smartphone and will find it difficult to comply. NO2ID believe the government will have a database set and monitor people’s data.
“Every time you use that digital ID to prove something about yourself to someone, it would ring home to the database. Over time, the government and any future government would have a complete dossier on every individual who has been using a digital ID for things,” he said. “That means they are accumulating a record of your job history and your home address over your lifetime.”
There is a worry that digital ID will possibly be ‘sharing data’ with other apps and already gathering information like location and spending habits.
Annalee Newitz, a science journalist and author of Autonomous, wrote, “Someone could find a backdoor into government servers and gain access to your ID that way, or they might get your information through a phone app laced with spyware.”
Annaee mentioned that there is no problem with using physical ID cards rather than digital ones, and argued that if we were to lose them, we wouldn’t lose everything else with them.
Phil Booth questions whether the ID scheme could be approached in a better and safer way. He believes that if we were to maintain the digital aspect of the national card, then it should include only an authenticator tool, providing an easier way to verify identification without being tracked.
Downing Street pledged that the Digital ID would not be used to track people’s activities and would not “expand to a social scoring system” like in China. Number 10 expressed concerns over policy concerns and mass surveillance, linking it to misinformation and conspiracy theories.
An Ipsos 2025 ID cards survey found the public to be 43% in support of having a singular ID, and 41% view it as a convenience for proving their identity. In their key findings, they found 49% believe ‘if you have nothing to hide, there shouldn’t be a problem’.
“But people will have reason to be concerned, and that’s not because they’re bad people; it’s because they’ve experienced what government does with its incredible power imbalance and its arbitrary efforts, and terribly shocking IT systems,” Booth said.
“They will have an understanding that they’ve done nothing wrong, but they found themselves with things being denied to them, because the computer says no.”
AI and Cybersecurity
In 2023, there were 1.2 million incidents of fraud recorded in the UK. As Artificial Intelligence becomes increasingly sophisticated, it is making it harder to combat fraud. AI has been used to create synthetic identities for opening online banking accounts and publishing harmful content online.
The Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT) believes the ‘adoption of Digital Company ID’ will improve security and save money in lost revenue per year. Another tech company, OneID, believes Digital Identity will build trust because it will be linked to authenticity and accountability for individuals.
OneID wrote that “As AI becomes weaponised by fraudsters, organisations need to keep pace by using multiple layers of protection.”
Some of the layers could include using end-to-end encryption and facial recognition verification that will prevent unauthorised access.
Security corporation Entrust released its 2026 Identity Fraud Report and found that National Identity cards made up almost half of all fraudulent incidents globally. They found bad actors mainly targeted France, Portugal, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Criminals are also drawn to Cryptocurrency and banking services.
Entrust proposes three ways to prevent fraud: documents to prove who you are, an authenticator tool to reverify and flag high-risk activities.
What raises concern in the cybersecurity aspect of digital ID boils down to the Government implementing the GOV.UK One Login system. Back in 2022, a cybersecurity expert whistleblower claimed that One Login system “lacked basic governance” and “insufficient security monitoring.” Both could subsequently result in security failures and data breaches.
Stephen Cobb, an independent security and risk researcher based in the UK, believes the single login is a good idea because big corporations have been using it for a long time.
However, it doesn’t necessarily make systems more secure. He stated that we would be using a range of connected computer systems under the Digital ID scheme, and that could be a concern.
To support his argument, he spoke about PatientAccess.com, a healthcare server where Britons use to access their subscription and test results, found to be down due to technical problems from CloudFlare. He mentioned a few weeks ago, Amazon Cloud Services went down, and part of HMRC was affected too.
“The idea that we could do it digitally better and faster, in my opinion, doesn’t hold water. How easy do you think it is to be able to access national data, steal people’s identity, and then, I don’t know, try to impersonate people like the cyber criminals or even use to ransom?” Cobb said.
In September, a gang of cybercriminals hacked into a nursery chain, obtained children’s names, pictures, and addresses and published them on the dark website. The BBC reported that the criminals also held information about the parents and carers.
Jonathon Ellison, from the National Cyber Security Centre, suggested that bad actors would target individuals if they knew money could be made.
Last year, the NHS was attacked by ransomware criminals and breached Synnois, a pathology service for blood, urine, and specimen testing. The attack impacted the majority of South East London NHS services, causing delays for over 11,000 patients. The cybercriminals published the stolen data online, the NHS reported.
Estonia was also cyberattacked in 2021, and the criminals were able to access over 28,000 photos from their government database.
Cobb raised concerns about the dark web forum and how easily it is to buy books on how to steal data. He added that there is a rent service, where someone could do this for you.
“It’s a lot easier than most people realise, and a lot of things could be hacked but are not being hacked right now because there’s no money in it,” he said.
With the advancement of AI, cybercriminals are enabled to create an enormous number of cyberattacks and can do so on a larger scale than previously. Stephen emphasised that bad actors do not hold any moral code for AI and will use it to their advantage.
Cobb questions what problems the government is trying to solve. “The key to everything in identity is trust. And if people right now don’t trust going online, and you’re asking them to put trust in a technology that’s going to have basically a key to their identity. Why?
“I mean, there are people working illegally, but is everybody having a digital identity card going to solve that problem? And I just don’t think it will.”
No to Digital ID
The government’s plans to implement the compulsory ID scheme ignited protests across the UK. On November 22, people gathered outside Marble Arch tube station in London, holding signs to oppose the rollout.
Some believe the government will have mass control over people’s online activity and deny their access to public services. Others made comments claiming “the government can’t be trusted.”
Other protestors had broader agendas: A group of Facebook mums were there to oppose 5G; they claim that public health is being affected by cell towers due to radiation. However, there is no evidence to support this claim.
Meanwhile, some individuals were serious about the concern of a singular digital identification. A lady at the protest understood some of the reasons for implementing the ID, but she was worried about the future and how it might be used against the public.
It is these debates that the Government will be focusing on as the legislation makes its way through Parliament in time for the new digital IDs to become mandatory in 2029
Featured image by Keelin Roe.