UK Gov’t launches Digital ID “consultation”
Kit Knightly
Yesterday, Keir Starmer’s Government officially launched their “consultation” on Digital ID.
The language in the press release is hilariously partisan…
Government launches consultation on making public services quicker, easier and more secure to access with digital ID
The government wants to know if you’re in favour Digital ID making public services quicker easer and more secure? Or would you like them to stay slow, difficult and unsafe?
For those unversed in vernacular of British politics, a “Consultation” occurs after the government has decided to do something, but before they’ve actually done it. After the “consultation” comes the “panel”:
‘People’s Panel for Digital ID’ – an in-depth deliberative engagement process with a broadly UK representative sample of 100-120 individuals to discuss the policy in detail.
…which is a 120-person focus group of totally real people selected at random. Honest.
The supposed aim of this long and drawn-out process is to get vital feedback about the thing that’s definitely going to happen, and therefore be able to best benefit the public when it happens.
The real aim is an extended PR tour creating a façade of conversation and compromise prior to the roll-out of the entirely unchanged plan.
The technology is all built, the app designed, the services locked in. What they’re waiting for is the brief process of normalisation to elapse so that not too many people complain.
And complain we should, because a cursory reading of the full consultation is a little alarming.
There’s a part about facial recognition technology, for example:
…there is a legal basis for police use of facial recognition, which may include access to biometric data held by government. The government recognises that the current legal framework is complicated, and has launched a consultation (which concluded in February 2026) on reviewing the legal framework for using facial recognition in law enforcement. That consultation proposes a new legal framework that will create consistent, durable rules and appropriate safeguards for facial recognition and similar technologies which are likely to follow it in relation to biometric data held by government in the future. The national digital ID will be subject to any new legal framework introduced.
A word salad which roughly translates to:
>strong>“We’re going to put everyone with a digital ID into a police database for facial recognition technology.”
But the good news is that you don’t have to pay to be put on a facial recognition database, the UK Digital ID will be free:
We expect there to be no direct costs to households from the introduction of the digital ID system, as households will not be charged any fees to create, access or use their digital ID.
How this will work with passports and drivers’ licences – both of which you do have to pay to receive – will be interesting. But making one free and one expensive is a very efficient method of blurring the line between non-compulsory and mandatory.
As the old saying goes, “if you’re not paying for the product, you ARE the product.”
So, how do you feel about this idea? Would you like to be part of the consultation?
Because, if you want to leave some feedback…there’s a survey. Have at it.
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Passports or drivers’ licences and utility bill from previous place and 3 months of bank statement and 2 x references and paying 400 euro for a background check in what I had to do to live in a apartment. 6 weeks rent upfront and an month deposit.
They also wanted to see a work contract.
Notice the switch, no longer do they just want a passport or driving license they now also want utility bills that is less 3 months old.
Really angers me.
And try not to offend anyone in the process, Sharia’s gonna get ya.
“Schools in parts of northern England have been warned that some pupils’ drawings could be viewed as blasphemous under Islamic law, according to media reports.
A guidance document titled “Sharing the Journey,” first produced in 2022 by councils in Leeds, Calderdale, Oldham, and Wakefield and recently reissued to teachers, says several subjects – including art, dance, drama, music, physical education, religious education and Relationships, Health and Sex Education – could trigger “sensitivities… for some Muslim parents.””