The British government announced last week that all employees will be required to hold a digital identity card, amid Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s attempts to curb undocumented immigration and reduce the apparent threat from the populist Reform UK party.

Addressing the Global Progress Action Summit on Friday – alongside leaders from Canada, Australia and Iceland – Starmer said his left-leaning Labour government had been overly “squeamish” about discussing voters’ concerns on immigration.

That, he added, has allowed parties such as Reform UK – which campaigns on a strongly anti-immigrant ticket – to gain popularity. Reform, which is led by Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, has been touted by polling groups as likely to be Labour’s main challenger at the next election, due in 2029.

“That is why today I am announcing this government will make a new, free-of-charge, digital ID mandatory for the right to work by the end of this parliament,” he said.

But Starmer’s move has led to a civil liberties row in the United Kingdom, where the concept of national identity cards has traditionally been unpopular. Here is what we know.

“There’s a battle for the soul of this country now as to what sort of country we want to be,” Starmer told a conference of left-wing and liberal Western leaders on September 26. “That’s why I want this to be out as an open fight between Labour and Reform.”

Reform UK, headed by the right-wing populist Farage, has moved ahead of Labour in public opinion polls amid growing concerns about immigration into the UK, fuelled by record numbers of illegal small-boat crossings from France to the UK this year.

In an effort to assuage right-wing voters concerned about immigration, Starmer wrote in an article in the conservative Telegraph newspaper on September 25: “There is no doubt that for years, left-wing parties, including my own, did shy away from people’s concerns around illegal immigration.”

A YouGov poll published on September 26 showed that in a general election, Reform would most likely win 311 seats in the British Parliament, far higher than the five that it holds currently, while Labour would slump to 144 from 399 currently.

There are a total of 650 seats in the UK’s House of Commons. To win a majority, a single party must win more than half, 326 seats.

If Reform does win the next election, it has promised to deport undocumented immigrants en masse.

The UK government’s website says: “The new digital ID scheme will make it easier for people across the UK to use vital government services.”

It will “improve access to public services like education and social benefits – by making it easier for everyone to quickly and easily prove their identity”, the website says. “It will also be available to use to prove your identity when voting in elections [and will] reduce identity fraud by minimising personal details you give out.”

However, Starmer told attendees at the Global Progress Action Summit that digital IDs would also “make it tougher to work illegally in this country, making our borders more secure” as it would make it much harder for people without permission to be in the country to find a job.

Starmer added that “digital ID is an enormous opportunity for the UK”.

Ministers argue that the relative ease of finding work without a visa is one of the key reasons that undocumented immigrants are attracted to the UK compared with other European countries, where ID cards are relatively common.

Germany, France, Greece, Spain and Italy require citizens and residents to hold them, and last weekend, Switzerland narrowly approved a plan to introduce voluntary electronic ID cards as well.

How would digital IDs work?

The idea of a digital “Brit Card” has been proposed by the Labour Together think tank, which is closely associated with the governing party. In June, it published a paper which put forward the concept of a free digital ID, stored on a person’s smartphone using a planned “gov.uk Wallet” app.

It is understood that information about a holder’s residency status, name, date of birth, nationality and a photo will be included. The card could then be presented to employers, immigration officials and banks to verify a person’s legal status in the country.

Currently, UK citizens have to present another form of ID, such as a passport or driving licence, to prove their identity when applying for services such as banking or when applying for a job. The government says, however, that about 10 percent of UK citizens have never held a passport, while 93 percent of adults own a smartphone.

Though Starmer’s proposal has not been fully fleshed out yet, the digital ID would be held by all UK citizens and legal residents. It is unclear whether self-employed people would be required to hold a digital ID, but unemployed people would not be required to obtain the digital ID unless they seek employment.

Over time, the ID could also provide users with access to services such as tax records, childcare and social welfare benefits.

According to the UK government’s website: “You will need just one ID in one secure place on your phone. This will make it easier to access some services without tracking down your physical passport, birth certificate or driving licence – as well as various utilities bills and council tax letters.

“It will prove who you are instantly, instead of waiting for manual checks and paperwork. That means you can get faster service across government departments.

“It will cut lengthy time spent filling in forms and document scanning by verifying your identity in seconds, rather than days or weeks for processing.”

Despite historical resistance to national ID cards among Brits, more than half – 57 percent – now support a national identity card scheme, polling by Ipsos found in July.

The Labour Party attempted to introduce an identity card when it was in power in the 2000s under then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, but the plan was dropped because of civil liberty concerns.

What are the criticisms of a digital ID?

Privacy issues

Although Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said the government had “no intention of pursuing a dystopian mess”, civil liberty groups say they are concerned about privacy issues as people would be required to provide personal information to be stored on a government app.

Even though more people are in favour of national digital ID today than they were in the past, there is still a good deal of resistance to the idea, said Tony Travers, professor in the government department at the London School of Economics.

“There is a deep cultural and political opposition to digital ID cards in the UK. Many people feel they are one short step from authoritarianism and state control,” he told Al Jazeera.

Indeed, more than 1.6 million people have already signed a petition against introducing digital ID cards on the UK Parliament’s website. Petitions which gain more than 100,000 signatures have to be considered for debate in Parliament.

The Liberal Democrats party has also said it will not support mandatory ID cards. Last week, party spokesperson Victoria Collins said people would be “forced to turn over their private data just to go about their daily lives”.

Marginalisation of already-vulnerable groups

Elsewhere, some research groups have suggested that digital IDs could create additional barriers for people already living on the margins, and exacerbate the risks of exploitation, social exclusion and poverty for undocumented migrants.

Alongside seven other organisations, Big Brother Watch – a non-partisan civil liberties organisation – has written to the prime minister urging him to abandon the plan, saying it will “push unauthorised migrants further into the shadows”.

Digital ID ‘won’t solve illegal immigration’

The leader of the Conservative Party, which governed the UK till last year, Kemi Badenoch, dismissed the plans for a digital ID as a “gimmick that will do nothing to stop the boats”.

Meanwhile, Reform UK called the plans a “cynical ploy” designed to “fool” voters into thinking something is being done about immigration.

Writing in the right-wing Daily Express newspaper last week, Farage said: “The Labour government’s plan to impose digital ID cards on all adults will do nothing to combat undocumented immigration. But it will give the state more power to control the British people.”

For Tony Travers, “Starmer’s proposal won’t do anything to curb illegal immigration in and of itself. It’s one of a series of proposals aimed at the issue.”

“We’re in a situation … where reducing the number of illegal immigrants may stave off the [electoral] threat of Reform,” he said, adding, “But there’s no guarantee.”

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