UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has relaunched his digital ID scheme as something that will make people’s lives easier, less than four weeks after announcing it as a measure to tackle illegal working.
Digital ID will be compulsory for anyone taking a new job after the scheme goes live by the end of this parliamentary session, the prime minister said.
It will not, however, be used for surveillance or required for access to other services. “You’ll never need ID to go into a hospital or anything like that,” he said. “For people who simply don’t want it, well, they don’t need it – apart from the right to work.”
This means digital ID will be optional for groups such as retired people, but mandatory for the 30.3 million Britons in payrolled jobs, except those staying with their current employer until retirement.
Starmer visited a branch of Barclays bank in Brighton to promote the scheme, where he claimed customers were “really excited about it,” according to the Brighton Argus.
In a statement, the prime minister added: “The digital ID is about putting power back in people’s hands, cutting the faff out of rummaging through drawers for documents and pointless bureaucracy we have accepted for too long while bringing Britain into the modern age.”
The announcement also said the public consultation on the scheme “will launch by the end of the year,” a change of language from “later this year” when it was announced on September 26.
Separately, the government also confirmed that it was stripping the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) of responsibility for the scheme’s policy development, legislation, and oversight, although DSIT will still have to design, build, and deliver it.
Instead, digital ID work will be led by the Cabinet Office, which handles cross-government issues including efficiency and security.
The government’s plans for digital ID have attracted widespread opposition. An online petition calling for them to be scrapped has been signed by more than 2.9 million people.
Other political parties have opposed the scheme, threatening its future if Labour loses the next election due by 2029. Louis Mosley, UK boss of security technology firm Palantir, claimed this month it will not bid for work on digital ID as it was not in Labour’s 2024 general election manifesto. ®