The UK Government has launched a new digital ID scheme, which it alleges will help combat illegal working, while making it easier for the vast majority of people to use government services.
The scheme will be available to all UK citizens and legal residents, allegedly saving time by ending the need for complicated identity checks, which often rely on copies of paper records.
Instead, the roll-out will, in time, make it simpler to apply for services like driving licences, childcare and welfare, while streamlining access to tax records.
The new digital ID will be held on people’s phones, like the NHS App or contactless mobile payments.
There will be no requirement for individuals to carry their ID or be asked to produce it, but a digital ID will be mandatory as a means of proving individuals’ Right to Work.
This
initiative builds on the Government’s crackdown on illegal working and its mission to control borders. Illegal working arrests have soared by 50 percent, and new legislation is being brought forward to help stop illegal working in the gig economy.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, “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.”
The Government further claims that the new plans will help reduce identity theft and preserve privacy, with security at its core.
Cybercrime has been on the rise across the world, with Cybersecurity Ventures recently predicting global cybercrime costs to grow
by 15 percent per year over the next five years, reaching $10.5 trillion USD annually by 2025, up from $3 trillion USD in 2015.
The UK, alongside the rest of the world, has seen a rise in cybercrime and cybersecurity breaches over the past few years.
In June 2025, a government survey revealed that in the past year alone, almost half (43 percent) of UK businesses reported cybersecurity breaches or attacks, with a further 20 percent falling victim to at least one cybercrime.
The Government’s digital ID aims to fend off such attacks by only sharing the relevant information for the specific scenario in question, limiting personal details from being shared unnecessarily.
It will also use state-of-the-art encryption and user authentication to ensure data is held and accessed securely.
However, it has received criticism from privacy campaigners such as Big Brother
Watch, for its potential impact on democratic freedoms: “Plans for a mandatory digital ID would make us all reliant on a digital pass to go about our daily lives, turning us into a checkpoint society that is wholly un-British,” Big Brother Watch Director Silkie Carlo said.
“Digital IDs would do absolutely nothing to deter small boats, but would make Britain less free, creating a domestic mass surveillance infrastructure that will likely sprawl from citizenship to benefits, tax, health, possibly even internet data and more.
“Incredibly sensitive information about each and every one of us would be hoarded by the state and vulnerable to cyberattacks.
“Starmer has no mandate to force the population to carry digital IDs and millions of us will simply not do it.
“The cost to the public purse will likely run into the billions, much like Blair’s
failed scheme, but the cost to our freedoms would be even more serious.
“He is making an enormous mistake and should drop the plans sooner rather than later.”
Starmer’s Labour Government is not the first to attempt to introduce digital IDs for UK citizens. Tony Blair introduced the Identity Card Act in 2006, but this was later scrapped by the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government in 2011.
To date, the UK has only had compulsory ID cards during World War II, after which they were scrapped in 1952 following similar criticism over costs and police use.
Building on the work already underway to roll out a GOV.UK digital wallet, the latest iteration of the digital ID will sit on people’s phones, alongside the digital driving licence which the Government has already announced plans to introduce.
The Government says it will listen to a range of views on how the mandatory service will be delivered, as part of a public consultation to be launched later this year.