Digital ID – Sleepwalking Into a Totalitarian State?

Absolutely Zero Problems Solved by Digital ID

Let me guess, you’ve never struggled logging into Companies House. Your tax return gets filed without any drama. Banking works just fine as it is. Online services function without a hitch (usually).

You don’t need rescuing from administrative hell because you’re not trapped in one.

So why is the government forcing you into a Digital ID scheme that solves precisely zero problems in your life whilst creating surveillance infrastructure that would make Beijing’s technocrats jealous?

Nearly three million people signed a petition demanding this plan gets binned. The government’s response was a shrug and a promise to crack on regardless. Thousands marched through London with banners reading “A digital prison is being built around you.” Keir Starmer’s solution? Rebranded the scheme as a convenient timesaver and announced it’ll be mandatory for Right to Work checks by 2028. No job without Digital ID. Optional, they claim, whilst making it compulsory for employment. That’s some world-class Orwellian bollocks right there.

The irony stings hardest when you realise the UK Information Commissioner warned about “sleepwalking into a surveillance society” back in 2004 when Tony Blair tried pushing ID cards the first time. That scheme died in 2010 when Theresa May scrapped it as an intrusive civil liberties disaster. Fast forward fifteen years and Blair’s Institute has successfully lobbied Starmer into implementing the exact system that got rejected before.

The ICO, once the watchdog warning us about surveillance creep, now collaborates with the government on the Data Use and Access Act 2025 that enables this whole mess.

The Official Line Is Transparent Spin

The government claims three benefits:

• stopping illegal migrants from working,
• saving £2 billion annually from fraud reduction, and
• streamlining our access to services.

It’s all about convenience, you see. Of course it is…

On migration, it’s supposedly the silver bullet to end small boat crossings by removing the “pull factor” of employment. Except Kemi Badenoch called this a gimmick that’ll do sod all to stop boats, and Big Brother Watch warns it’ll push unauthorised migrants further underground into exploitation. The Home Office already proved their competence by cocking up immigration data-sharing so badly after Windrush that it got paused for four years. Trusting them with everyone’s data after that track record requires either amnesia or stupidity.

The £2 billion savings figure comes from the Tony Blair Institute, which has been bankrolled by Oracle founder Larry Ellison whilst Oracle holds £1 billion in government IT contracts. Not suspicious at all is it? The calculation assumes massive benefit fraud that Digital ID will magically prevent, but benefit fraud is tiny compared to tax avoidance by corporations and the wealthy. We’re building billion-pound surveillance infrastructure to catch pennies whilst ignoring pounds.

To be honest, I’d rather continue the teeny tiny risk of a rogue hacker sneaking into my Facebook account than the government being able to rummage around the drawers of my entire life at will.

The convenience argument is perhaps the most insulting. You’ll supposedly access driving licences, childcare applications, welfare benefits, rental agreements and tax records all on your phone, just like the NHS App.

Except you already have systems that work.

• Passports exist.
• Driving licences exist.
• HMRC, Companies House and banking logins function perfectly well.

The “problem” being solved is a fragmented system that actually provides privacy protection through separation. The real goal isn’t your convenience, it’s government efficiency in tracking you.

The Digital ID is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

What You’re Actually Signing Up For

The system will hold your

• name,
• age,
• address (optional, for now),
• biometrics (optional, for now),
• National Insurance number,
• immigration status,
• income,
• employment status,
• marital status,
• disability status,
• student status,
• qualifications,
• licences and
• voter eligibility.

No mention of bank details yet!

You’ll supposedly only share what’s necessary for each transaction, proving you’re over 18 without revealing your full birth date, for instance. But once that infrastructure exists, mission creep is inevitable.

Digital ID boosters already talk about storing health records, tax data, hunting licences, gun licences.

The data keeps expanding.

What starts optional and limited becomes mandatory and comprehensive. And what isn’t mandatory is forced through the back door like directors of companies having to sign up for One Login…

The ACLU warns this creates infrastructure for tracking every place you present ID, online and offline. A government might start using it in far more invasive ways than originally promised, and citizens might find themselves compelled to use it beyond the initial scope.

Cybersecurity experts warn the system could be vulnerable to attacks on back-end infrastructure (when not if) or direct targeting through deep-fake biometric spoofing (so easy for anyone to do thanks to unregulated AI) and AI algorithm exploitation.

If (sorry, I mean when) criminals breach the database, the impact would be catastrophic, orders of magnitude worse than losing a database of passwords. Meanwhile, “debanking” based on reputational and ideological factors is already accelerating, with people losing accounts without clear explanation. Couple mandatory Digital ID with existing debanking practices and you get a nightmare scenario where your entire economic life could be switched off algorithmically.

The Chinese Model Isn’t Hyperbole

The comparison to China’s system isn’t scaremongering, it’s a direct parallel that mainstream critics are drawing. China requires state-issued digital credentials for accessing essential services:

• buying food,
• using public transport,
• accessing the internet.

The grid-style social management system evolved from better communication between police bureaus into infrastructure for tracking and monitoring individuals. The stated purpose was helping Chinese people “trust each other again” after the Cultural Revolution. Sound familiar to the UK government’s rhetoric about fraud prevention?

Professor Matthias Desmet, author of The Psychology of Totalitarianism, told GB News that Britain is sleepwalking into a totalitarian state. He describes it as mass formation, a kind of collective hypnosis that destroys individual ethical self-awareness and critical thinking. He recognised the same phenomenon during COVID, when governments imposed sweeping restrictions whilst suppressing dissent. People caught in mass formation become incapable of critical distance from group beliefs. No matter how absurd the narratives are, they buy into them.

The Blair Institute argues that liberal democracies like New Zealand and Australia are implementing digital ID, proving it doesn’t lead to authoritarianism. Britain ranks 17th globally for democracy, they claim, providing strong cultural and institutional backstops against totalitarianism.

But every authoritarian measure starts in democracies.

The Chinese social credit system didn’t appear overnight. It evolved from seemingly reasonable administrative systems. India’s Aadhaar system, often cited as a success story, has been plagued by exclusion errors, biometric failures for manual labourers with worn fingerprints, and people dying after being denied rations due to technical glitches.

The Government’s IT Track Record Is Abysmal

Sky News describes this project as harder than what even Google or Amazon would struggle with, making HS2 look easy by comparison.

The NHS National Programme for IT launched in 2002 to integrate all electronic patient records. It was beset with technical difficulties and massive cost overruns before being abandoned in 2011 at over £10 billion. The Public Accounts Committee called it one of the worst and most expensive contracting fiascos in public-sector history.

Blair’s first attempt at ID cards passed Parliament in 2006. A small rollout in Manchester and London airports was abandoned in 2008 due to union opposition and cost overruns.

When the coalition government took power in 2010, Theresa May vowed to consign the intrusive ID card scheme to history, scrapping it alongside the National Identity Register and the ContactPoint child-protection database. The coalition called it a win for civil liberties and fiscal sanity, given the state’s appalling track record with large-scale IT projects.

Now Starmer wants you to trust the same government apparatus with your entire digital existence. The scheme will be built into the GOV.UK One Login programme and stored on your phone, free to download.

What could possibly go wrong?

The GDPR Bait and Switch

When GDPR came into force on 25 May 2018, it felt like a genuine step towards data protection and privacy. Organisations scrambled to get compliant, consent mechanisms appeared everywhere, subject access rights strengthened. Open Rights Group warned in 2021 that the government was planning a wholesale rollback of GDPR through their “Data: a new direction” proposal.

They described it as a multifaceted attack on hard-won privacy rights, with countless protections preventing data discrimination being lost.

The government proceeded anyway. The Data Use and Access Act 2025 introduces the most significant reforms to UK data protection law since GDPR. The Act prioritises

• data sharing,
• smart data schemes, and
• enabling private sector access to public sector data.

The stated objectives are harnessing data to grow the economy and improving public services.

Privacy comes third, if at all.

The Act also restructures the Information Commissioner’s Office, changing the very watchdog meant to protect us. Open Rights Group accused the government of installing a corporate shill who values business interests over individual rights, deliberately undermining the ICO’s independence.

The ICO’s 2021 response to the government’s Digital Identity consultation explicitly stated they “expressed our support for the introduction of a UK digital identity and attribute framework.” They welcomed the economic as well as privacy benefits.

By October 2025, the Information Commissioner told MPs that Digital ID won’t work without public trust, but she’s not opposing it. She’s highlighting implementation concerns whilst collaborating on the regulatory framework.

Twenty years ago the ICO warned about sleepwalking into surveillance. Now they’re helping build the infrastructure they once feared.

Who Benefits and Who Pays

The unbanked (not having access to the services of a bank or similar financial organisation) are used as emotional leverage. Government claims 900,000 adults struggle to access banking because they lack passports or utility bills, and Digital ID would solve this financial exclusion.

But most of us do have bank accounts so what’s the problem?

The unbanked aren’t waiting for Digital ID. They need better support services, not more digital infrastructure that requires smartphone ownership.

Apparently over 40% of over-65s and 25% of people earning under £30,000 don’t own smartphones. Homeless people, people with disabilities, and vulnerable communities disproportionately lack smartphone access. If Digital ID becomes de facto mandatory despite claims otherwise, these groups face exclusion from employment, services, and economic participation.

Meanwhile, who profits?

Oracle already has £1 billion in government IT contracts. The Tony Blair Institute produces reports justifying Digital ID whilst taking funding from tech billionaires with commercial interests in the outcome.

McKinsey (a global management consulting firm that provides professional services to corporations, governments, and other organisations to help them solve complex problems) estimates digital ID could unlock 3 to 13 per cent of global GDP by 2030. That’s trillions in economic activity funnelled through private-sector identity verification services that governments will mandate and citizens will be forced to use.

The friction-free economy they’re promising requires total surveillance of transactions, movements, and interactions. You’ll save 90 seconds proving your age at a bar by scanning your phone. In exchange, every purchase, every location, every service access gets logged in a government database. The tradeoff isn’t worth it, but you won’t get a choice.

The Right to Paper Matters

Digital isn’t always better. That’s why we use paper ballots instead of electronic voting. The right to paper protects against technical failure, cyberattacks, and centralised manipulation. Being forced into exclusively digital systems creates vulnerability. A single point of failure can lock you out of employment, banking, housing, healthcare.

When your phone breaks, gets stolen, or the system goes down, you’re stuffed.

The government promises exemptions for those who can’t or won’t use smartphones. But exemptions are second-class status. You’ll queue longer, fill out more forms, face more scrutiny. Opting out becomes a red flag.

• Why don’t you want Digital ID?
• What are you hiding?
• Why the heck do you want privacy?

The voluntary system becomes compulsory through social pressure and administrative punishment for refusal.

Some are exploring religious exemptions under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Christians cite Revelation 13:16-17 about the mark required for commerce and Acts 5:29 about obeying God rather than men. The Catholic Herald published a piece titled “Why I’m a conscientious objector to digital ID,” drawing on Britain’s history of principled dissenters who created parallel societies when the established Church made doctrinaire demands. Martin Luther King’s principle applies: one has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws, and conversely a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.

The Balanced Position Nobody’s Offering

Fraud reduction and service efficiency are legitimate goals. Of course they are. Benefits shouldn’t go to people who aren’t entitled to them. Identity verification matters for security. Public services should work smoothly. Nobody sensible disputes that.

But Digital ID is the wrong solution. It’s

• disproportionate,
• poorly designed,
• rushed through without proper safeguards, and
• fundamentally at odds with British traditions of civil liberty and limited government power.

You could improve identity verification without building totalitarian infrastructure. Strengthen existing systems. Better data-sharing protocols between departments that already hold information. Targeted fraud prevention in high-risk areas. Support services for people genuinely excluded from banking and employment. None of that requires linking your biometrics, immigration status, income, employment status, National Insurance number and voter eligibility in a single government-controlled database accessible by private-sector verification services with commercial incentives to monetise your data.

The petition hit nearly three million signatures, one of the fastest-growing in parliamentary history. The government’s response was a bland statement saying they’ll introduce it regardless, with a consultation coming later this year.

That’s not democracy.

That’s authoritarianism.

When millions of people say no and the government proceeds anyway, you don’t live in a country where consent matters. You live in a country where compliance is expected and resistance is ignored.

Former Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen led the march through London. Thousands walked from Marble Arch to Whitehall with placards reading “If You Accept Digital ID Today, You’ve Accepted Social Credit Tomorrow” and “Once Scanned, Never Free.” The Metropolitan Police imposed strict conditions but the protest passed peacefully with no arrests.

That’s Britain in 2025: peaceful dissent tolerated, but ultimately irrelevant. The infrastructure gets built regardless.

Tech giant Palantir refused to bid for the Digital ID contract due to lack of public support. When a company known for surveillance technology declines the work because it’s too controversial, that should tell you everything. But Starmer presses on, rebranding the scheme as empowering citizens and enabling growth.

The language is pure corporate-speak: frictionless, user-centric, digital transformation. It’s the same vocabulary used to justify every privacy violation and power grab of the last decade.

You’re being told this is inevitable. Digital is the future. Resistance is futile. Other countries have it, why not us?

• Because we rejected it in 2010 for good reasons.
• Because civil liberties matter.
• Because government incompetence with IT projects is legendary.
• Because once surveillance infrastructure exists, it never gets dismantled.
• Because the Chinese social credit system started with reasonable-sounding administrative efficiency arguments.
• Because privacy isn’t about hiding wrongdoing, it’s about preventing abuse of power.
• Because the burden should be on the state to justify surveillance, not on citizens to justify privacy.

Your life works without Digital ID. You file taxes, run a business, access banking, use online services. The system isn’t broken for you. This doesn’t solve your problems. It creates them.

The fear isn’t paranoia. It’s a rational response to authoritarian infrastructure being imposed without consent, offering you nothing whilst threatening everything you value about autonomy and privacy.

Social media rings with “I will not comply.” Whether that’s sustainable when non-compliance means unemployment, we’ll find out soon enough.

By 2028, if you want a new job, you’ll need Digital ID. Optional, they say. Mandatory, they mean.

That’s the state of Britain: sleepwalking into totalitarianism whilst being told it’s for our own good.

What You’re Not Being Told About Digital ID

Sources

New digital ID scheme to be rolled out across UK
gov.uk

Grim warning Britain is ‘sleepwalking into totalitarian state’
gbnews.com

Time for Digital ID: A New Consensus for a State That Works
institute.global

The pros and cons of digital IDs, and do we need them?
news.sky.com

Digital IDs Might Sound Like a Good Idea, But They Could Be a Privacy Nightmare
aclu.org

What is the plan for digital IDs and will they be mandatory?
bbc.com

Digital ID is a disaster in the making
spiked-online.com