Prime Minister Keir Starmer is set to announce that all working adults in the UK will be required to have a government-issued digital ID card.
New plans, which Starmer will unveil tomorrow, are hoped to help tackle levels of illegal immigration and make it easier to identify if a person can live and work in the UK.
The so-called ‘Brit-card’ would be shown when starting a new job, and would be checked in a large database of people entitled to work in the UK.
Earlier this month, home secretary Shabana Mahmood said: ‘I think that a system of digital ID can also help with illegal working and the enforcement of other laws as well. I do think that has a role to play in dealing with our migration.
‘My long-term personal political view has always been in favour of ID cards.’
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Are the IDs safe?
Privacy groups have long criticised the idea, with Big Brother Watch previously telling Metro today that mandatory digital ID cards are ‘dystopian’.
Interim director Rebecca Vincent said: ‘While Downing Street is scrambling to be seen as doing something about illegal immigration, we are sleepwalking into a dystopian nightmare where the entire population will be forced through myriad digital checkpoints to go about our everyday lives.
‘Mandatory digital ID is simply not the magic-bullet solution that is often promised to tackle illegal immigration or other societal issues.’
How would the ID work and be used?
Initial mockups showed that the document would show whether the holder has the right to work or rent – either a citizen or foreign national.
Their driving licence would also be on the app, with hopes that the app could be used to order a passport, access NHS services or display your National Insurance number.
It could help curb visa overstayers, with 63,000 non-EU nationals recorded as not leaving the country before their documents expired in the four years to March 2020, or fewer than 4%.
Britain is the only country in Europe without an ID card, with those in the EU able to travel around the bloc with one instead of a passport.
Which countries already have digital ID?
- EU
- China
- Costa Rica
- Singapore
- South Korea
- UAE
- Canada
- Japan
- India
Sir Tony Blair attempted to introduce compulsory ID cards in 2006 after the September 11 and 7/7 bombings, only for it to be scrapped.
Labour Together estimated it would cost £400million to build the e-ID system and £10million to run the free-to-use phone app.
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