UK's Digital ID Plan Slammed as 'Dystopian Nightmare'
Plans to make people in the UK carry a digital ID card to curb small boat crossings have been criticised by human rights campaigners.
Keir Starmer is facing increasing pressure to tackle illegal migration as anti-immigration protests over asylum hotels continue to flare.
Senior minister Pat McFadden said over the weekend that mandatory identity cards, which are common in Europe, could be a solution to this.
Now Downing Street has said the government is ‘willing to look at what works’, including digital IDs.
Asked yesterday whether ministers may roll out a compulsory, national ID card, the PM’s spokesman said: ‘We’re willing to look at what works when it comes to tackling illegal migration, and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Mr McFadden, referenced that over the weekend in terms of applications of digital ID to the immigration system.
‘The point here is looking at what works, ensuring that we’re doing what we can to address some of the drivers of illegal migration, tackle those pull factors, ensure that we’re doing everything we can to crack down on illegal working.’
But privacy groups have long criticised the idea, with Big Brother Watch telling https://breathtaking-malaysia.blogspot.com 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.
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‘Mandatory digital ID is simply not the magic-bullet solution that is often promised to tackle illegal immigration or other societal issues.’
Reports suggest that a government-issued digital ID would likely be used to access healthcare, get a job, rent a house and even vote.
Vincent said: ‘Such pervasive use of digital ID would turn Britain into a veritable checkpoint society, inserting the state into many of our everyday interactions and irreversibly eroding our civil liberties, ushering in a new era of mass surveillance.
‘This dangerous plan should be immediately scrapped.’
Rose Bernstein, the interim executive director of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, called the proposals ‘sinister’.
She told https://breathtaking-malaysia.blogspot.com: ‘ID cards have always been used to single out and exclude minority communities, and history shows it is often a step towards even more serious and violent persecution.
‘In practice, this will mean more racial profiling, more Black and brown people stopped and questioned and excluded from public life, while white people are waved through.’
Sam Grant, the director of external relations at the human rights charity, Liberty, similarly doubted that ID cards would curb immigration levels.
Speaking with https://breathtaking-malaysia.blogspot.com, Grant said: ‘Any system should allow for offline alternatives and has to be built with a clear benefit in mind to help people access services more easily, rather than creating barriers for people and doubling down on hostile environments.’
The issue of national identity cards is nothing new – former Labour leader, Tony Blair, attempted to introduce compulsory ID cards in 2006.
Labour said in June that ministers are considering rolling out a ‘BritCard’, a free, mandatory electronic credential stored on a person’s smartphone.
McFadden told The Times that Britain could implement a system similar to the Baltic state of Estonia, where people are given a unique identification number.
He said: ‘If you go for a job, it’s perfectly reasonable to ask, you’ve got to prove who you say you are.’
Thousands of people travel through the English Channel every year on small boats, risking their lives to claim asylum when they reach dry land.
The number has been increasing since 2021, with 49,000 ‘irregular’ journeys made in the year ending June, according to government data.
Yet the processing of asylum claims has slowed – as of June, more than 19,000 people have been waiting for longer than a year for a decision.
Asylum applications in the UK are among the lowest in Europe. In 2024, there were 16 applications for every 10,000 people in the UK, compared to an average of 22 in the EU.
For Bernstein, the solution to small boat Channel crossings is far simpler than identity cards.
‘We need safe, fair and compassionate policies that give people the chance to rebuild their lives,’ she said, ‘not more racist surveillance and scapegoating.’
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