On September 26, the UK government announced plans to roll out a mandatory digital ID dubbed the “Britcard”. Under the proposal, a digital ID will be required for anyone in employment, with future extensions expected to cover driver’s licenses, welfare benefits, banking, and tax services.
Critics The plan has been described as Orwellian, warning that it will open the door to mass surveillance and expand government power over citizens.
The announcement also follows the UK Tax Authority’s (HMRC) confirming plans to extend its powers to Back off Funds directly from bank accounts to recover unpaid taxes.
Human rights groups Say it reflects a growing willingness of government to prioritize control over individual sovereignty and fiscal autonomy. While Digital ID is not yet directly linked to these financial powers, it is easy to see how the two could convert, allowing real-time tracking and enforcement through a unified identity system.
A petition Opposition to the UK Digital ID exceeded 2.9 million signatures, approximately 4.3% of the population, reflecting public concern.
Cybercrime Expert Professor Alan Woodward at the University of Surrey Warning ID data stored in a single database creates a “hacking target” that can expose millions of records and disrupt essential services.
Telegram Founder and CEO Pavel Durov recently warned That a “dark, dystopian world” is approaching, specifically citing the UKS Digital ID rollout, with the 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 payment, spreading false information, and minor public disturbances. The UK’s online safety bill led to Arrest Over online speech, and during the 2022 Canadian truck protests, authorities froze the bank accounts of dissenters.
Rolling out 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.
Can a digital ID work without taking away freedom and privacy?
A decentralized, blockchain-based framework can reduce many of the risks such as surveillance, cyberattacks, and unauthorized data access.
Projects like Ethereum, Hyperledger Indy, and Polygon ID are developing decentralized identifiers (DIDs), verified credentials, and zero-knowledge proofs to replace legacy databases with cryptographic authentication. These systems let individuals control their own data, limit institutional access, and lower the risk of major breaches.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin suggested “Pluralistic identityCarryinga model that protects privacy while enabling fair participation. It relies on multiple interoperable ID issuers, including governments, social platforms, and private institutions, to prevent any single entity from controlling issuance or oversight.
However, decentralized identity faces practical obstacles. The systems do not yet work well across platforms, and there are unresolved questions around recovery, management, and regulatory acceptance. Making sure they belong to the right person, fixing mistakes 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 stop any group from deciding who “counts”; If control concentrates, identities can be withheld from political opponents, critics, or entire communities.
Achieving this on a national scale remains complex. Even highly decentralized networks like Polkadot have only hundreds Validatorless than what a global identity framework might require. In practice, designing, managing, and regulating such infrastructure will be a challenge.
Pilot of Bhutan Digital identity The program, which has moved 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, whereas the UK’s Britcard proposal is mandatory for anyone working and relies on a central government database with more control.
If the UK truly values transparency, privacy, and security, it should explore similar decentralized pilots instead of rushing to deploy a centralized digital ID.
UK legal protections on privacy have weakened
Recent UK policy has increasingly prioritized state and business access to personal data over individual rights, as seen in the Data Use and Access Act 2025 (DUAA).
In a parliamentary briefing on DUAA, UK privacy group Big Brother warned MPS that the law expands state and corporate access to personal data while undermining individual rights, notably through broad “legitimate interest” exceptions 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, reflecting a legislative posture favoring ease in monitoring civil liberties.
Older frameworks such as 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 unclear legislation.
There is no clear law or legal protection in the UK to prevent governments from claiming digital IDs voluntarily while structuring society so that life without one is impossible, effectively forcing compliance under choice.
Big Brother Watch has warned It creates a “papers, please” system where participation in everyday life depends on digital authentication, a form of forced consent that screams legal. Scholarship such as the 2019 Washington University Law Review Study’The pathologies of digital consent’, who argued digital “consent” is often meaningless because people are coerced, tricked, or don’t understand what they’re consenting to.
Without decentralized systems and strong legal protections focused on privacy, digital ID risks becoming a control mechanism. This must be prevented until the technology and laws are sufficient to ensure that digital identity empowers citizens, rather than potentially taking away their rights and freedoms.
The growing public push 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 its government.
