Digital ID: The Trojan Horse We Can’t Afford to Ignore

The UK government is once again seriously exploring a national digital ID system – not just pitched as a tool for efficient public services, but as a lever to control immigration and employment.

The danger? These systems rarely stay small. What begins as a convenience tool can evolve into a permanent surveillance infrastructure…

Digital ID schemes centralise identity in one system – initially framed for limited use, but ripe for expansion.

• More than 40 Labour MPs recently co-signed an open letter backing digital IDs to streamline access to services and crack down on illegal employment (The Guardian).
• The “BritCard” proposal – envisaged as a mandatory, universal digital identity stored on smartphones – could be used to access healthcare, pay taxes, and prevent immigration-related fraud (Financial Times)

We’re already living in a climate where the legal definition of “woman” has been narrowed to mean biological sex only (Reuters).

Combine that with groups openly lobbying for birth sex to be prioritised in law, and you can see how a national ID system risks hardcoding discrimination into the infrastructure of the state.

You can just imagine certain services and facilities having a ‘scan in’ function, preventing trans people – even with a GRC – to access those spaces that match their legal gender.

On Monday (1/9/25), Prime Minister Keir Starmer appointed Tim Allan as his new Director of Communications

Here’s why that matters:

• Allan was a trustee of Sex Matters, the group leading the charge to remove trans rights from UK law, until immediately before taking up this role.
• He is now responsible for shaping the public narrative around government policy – including digital ID, equality, and “safeguarding.”
• He has a reputation as a master message-disciplinarian, honed under New Labour, and his appointment suggests a deliberate hardening of tone.

When the person crafting the government’s message comes from a group lobbying to erase trans rights, you don’t just worry – you recognise the writing on the wall.

Digital ID systems bundle everything about you into a single point of truth. At first, it might just be for work checks or healthcare access. But once the database exists, adding more data fields – and linking them across more parts of your life – becomes the path of least resistance.

History shows this over and over:

• India’s Aadhaar scheme began as voluntary, but it soon became mandatory for welfare, banking, even buying a SIM card.
• In the UK, ID cards were scrapped in 2010 because they concentrated too much power in the hands of the state.

The idea that today’s “limited” system will stay limited is fantasy. Every digital ID system follows a similar trajectory:

1. Limited launch – for immigration checks, payroll, or service access.
2. Linkage expansion – integrating healthcare, banking, voting mechanisms.
3. Mandatory data scope – new “safeguarding” pressures demand fields like birth sex.

Once included, sensitive data – like “sex at birth” – becomes a permanent fixture, and removing it later is nearly impossible.

We Need to Fight This NOW

Because digital ID infrastructures are so sticky, the only viable strategy is pushback early and hard:

• Demand transparency: What data will be stored? Under what legal protections? Who controls it?
• Insist on legal safeguards: No storage or sharing of sensitive data without explicit consent. Gender should be used over ‘birth sex’.
• Support civil libertarian resistance, such as a group following in the footsteps of NO2ID – who were successful back in 2010 helping to scrap physical ID cards.
• Elevate the risks to trans people: Show that what might look like a benign identity tool today could become a tool of erasure tomorrow.