What happened. The Prime Minister's Office announced a UK-wide digital ID scheme. According to the announcement, the ID will be free, will include name, date of birth, nationality or residency status and a photo, and will be stored on the holder's device, with a consultation to consider adding an address. It is to be mandatory as proof of the right to work by the end of the Parliament, but 'there will be no requirement for individuals to carry their ID'. The government presented three purposes: making illegal working harder, easing access to services such as driving licences, childcare and welfare, and reducing identity theft by sharing only the information needed in each situation. A public consultation, including groups such as older and homeless people, was promised, as was face-to-face support for people without smartphones.
Context. The UK abolished its previous national identity card scheme in 2010, when the Identity Documents Act repealed the Identity Cards Act 2006 and the national identity register was destroyed. The new proposal is narrower in form, a credential in a wallet rather than a central card register, but it would make a state-issued digital identity a precondition for lawful employment. Elsewhere in Europe, Estonia has made a state digital identity the backbone of public services since the early 2000s, and Swiss voters narrowly approved a voluntary state e-ID in September 2025, four years after rejecting a model built on private issuers.
Why it matters. Digital identity is becoming core state infrastructure, and the design choices are political: whether it is voluntary or mandatory, whether data are held centrally or on the device, who can demand it, and what happens to people who cannot or will not use it. Making it compulsory for one high-stakes transaction, employment, while voluntary elsewhere is a common route by which such systems become de facto universal.
Since then. In January 2026 ministers said the new digital ID would not be the only accepted proof: right-to-work checks would remain digital and mandatory, but eVisas and biometric passports would also count (Full Fact). The Cabinet Office consultation, open from 10 March to 5 May 2026, describes the digital ID as optional for all uses, with 'no legal obligation for people to have or present' it, and proposes legislation making digital right-to-work checks mandatory by the end of the Parliament, with documents such as birth certificates no longer accepted.
What to watch. The government's response to the consultation and the legislation needed to implement the scheme; technical choices on data minimisation and logging; oversight and redress for people wrongly refused; and how the scheme interacts with private digital identity providers already certified for right-to-work checks.