Britain’s Digital ID Push Is Premature and Dangerous

On September 26, the British government announced plans to launch a mandatory digital ID called “BritCard.” Under the proposal, digital ID would be required for everyone in work, with future extensions planned to cover driver’s licenses, welfare benefits, banking and tax services.

Criticism they described the plan as Orwellian, warning that it would open the door to mass surveillance and expand government power over citizens.

The announcement also follows plans confirmed by the British tax authority (HMRC) to expand its powers for withdraw funds directly from bank accounts to recover unpaid taxes.

Human rights groups say that this reflects a growing willingness by the government to prioritize control over individual sovereignty and financial autonomy. While digital ID has not yet been directly linked to these financial powers, it is easy to see how the two could converge, allowing for real-time monitoring and enforcement through a unified identity system.

A petition oppose the UK’s digital ID exceeded 2.9 million signatures, about 4.3% of the population, reflecting the public’s growing concern.

Cybercrime expert Professor Alan Woodward at the University of Surrey notice that ID data stored in a single database creates a “hacking target” that could expose millions of records and disrupt essential services.

Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov recently warned that a “dark and dystopian world” is looming, mentioning in particular the launch of the UK’s digital ID, with a warning that “We are running out of time to save the free internet”.

The warning signs are already visible. China’s social credit system punishes citizens for behavior such as late bill payments, spreading misinformation, and minor public disturbances. The United Kingdom’s Online Security Bill has led to arrests over online speech, and during Canada’s trucker protests in 2022, authorities froze dissidents’ bank accounts.

The implementation of a centralized digital ID in the UK could create obvious opportunities for similar overreach in the future if access to essential services depended on it.

Could a digital ID ever work without eroding freedom and privacy?

A decentralized, blockchain-based framework could reduce many of the risks such as surveillance, cyber-attacks and unauthorized data access.

Projects like Ethereum, Hyperledger Indy, and Polygon ID are developing decentralized identifiers (DIDs), verifiable credentials, and zero-knowledge proofs to replace legacy databases with cryptographic verification. These systems allow individuals to control their data, limit institutional access and reduce the risk of large-scale breaches.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed “pluralistic identity“a model that protects privacy while allowing fair participation. It relies on multiple interoperable ID issuers, including governments, social platforms and private institutions, to prevent any entity from controlling issuance or surveillance.

However, decentralized identity faces practical obstacles. Systems do not yet work well across platforms, and there are unresolved questions about recovery, governance and regulatory acceptance. Ensuring that they belong to the right person, correcting errors or reversing changes, and stopping fraud are still challenging problems that the Web3 space has not fully resolved.

Governance remains one of the biggest challenges. Decentralized systems require trusted issuers and independent validators to prevent any one group from deciding who “counts”; if the control concentrates, the identity could be retained by political opponents, critics, or whole communities.

Achieving this on a national scale remains complex. Even highly decentralized networks like Polkadot only have hundreds of validatorsmuch less than what a global identity framework might require. In practice, the design, management and regulation of such infrastructure will be a challenge.

The pilot of Bhutan digital identity program, now migrated from Polygon to Ethereum, shows how blockchain-based systems can work in real environments. Crucially, Bhutan’s approach is voluntary and built on decentralized technology, while the UK’s BritCard proposal would be mandatory for all employees and relies on a central government database with much greater control.

If the UK really values ​​transparency, privacy and security, it should be exploring similar decentralized pilots instead of rushing to implement a centralized digital ID.

The UK’s legal safeguards on privacy are weakening

Recent UK policy increasingly prioritizes state and commercial access to personal data over individual rights, as seen with the Data Use and Access Act 2025 (DUAA).

In a parliamentary briefing on the DUAA, UK privacy group Big Brother Watch warned MPs that the legislation widens state and corporate access to personal data while weakening individual rights, particularly through broad “legitimate interests” exemptions that allow organizations to process personal data without consent if they claim it serves a general purpose.

The Act received Royal Assent in June 2025, which reflects a legislative position favoring the convention of surveillance over civil liberties.

Older frameworks like GDPR, and the Human Rights Act, aim to protect privacy and civil liberties. However, they can be bypassed by national security clauses, technicalities, emergency powers and vague legislation.

There is no explicit law or legal protection in the UK to prevent governments from claiming that digital IDs are voluntary while structuring society so that life without one becomes impractical, effectively forcing compliance under the guise of choice.

Big Brother Watch has warned This creates a system of “papers, please” where participation in daily life depends on digital verification, a form of coerced consent found in legalese. scholarship as the University of Washington Law Review Study 2019″The Pathologies of Digital Consensus’, that supported the digital “consensus” is often meaningless because people are pressured, deceived or unable to understand what they accept.

Without decentralized systems and strong privacy-oriented legal safeguards, the digital ID risks becoming a control mechanism. It must be resisted until the technology and laws are mature enough to guarantee that digital identity gives power to citizens, instead of potentially stripping them of their rights and freedoms.

The growing public pushback against a mandatory digital ID should serve as a warning; if these systems are implemented without proper safeguards, a successful rollout in the UK could mark the last time the British public has a real chance to say no to their government.