Keir Starmer is considering making people in the UK carry a digital ID card in a bid to curb small boat crossings.
The prime minister is facing increasing pressure to tackle illegal migration as anti-immigration protests over asylum hotels continue to flare.
Senior minister Pat McFadden said over the weekend that mandatory identity cards, which are common in Europe, could be a solution to this.
Downing Street said yesterday that the government is ‘willing to look at what works’, including digital IDs.
Asked yesterday whether ministers may roll out a compulsory, national ID card, the PM’s spokesman said: ‘We’re willing to look at what works when it comes to tackling illegal migration, and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Mr McFadden, referenced that over the weekend in terms of applications of digital ID to the immigration system.
‘The point here is looking at what works, ensuring that we’re doing what we can to address some of the drivers of illegal migration, tackle those pull factors, ensure that we’re doing everything we can to crack down on illegal working.’
But privacy groups have long criticised the idea, with Big Brother Watch telling Metro today that mandatory digital ID cards are ‘dystopian’.
Interim director Rebecca Vincent said: ‘While Downing Street is scrambling to be seen as doing something about illegal immigration, we are sleepwalking into a dystopian nightmare where the entire population will be forced through myriad digital checkpoints to go about our everyday lives.
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‘Mandatory digital ID is simply not the magic-bullet solution that is often promised to tackle illegal immigration or other societal issues.
‘It will not stop small boat crossings, but it will create a burden on the already law-abiding population to prove our right to be here.
‘It will turn Britain into a “Papers, please” society and fundamentally reverse the nature of our relationship with the state.’
The issue of national identity cards is nothing new – former Labour leader, Tony Blair, attempted to introduce compulsory ID cards in 2006.
Labour said in June that ministers are considering rolling out a ‘BritCard’, a free, mandatory electronic credential stored on a person’s smartphone.
McFadden told The Times over the weekend that Britain could implement a system similar to the Baltic state of Estonia, where people are given a unique identification number.
‘If you go for a job, it’s perfectly reasonable to ask, you’ve got to prove who you say you are,’ he said to the newspaper.
Thousands of people travel through the English Channel every year on small boats, risking their lives to claim asylum when they reach dry land.
The number has been increasing since 2021, with 49,000 ‘irregular’ journeys made in the year ending June, according to government data.
Yet the processing of asylum claims has slowed – as of June, more than 19,000 people have been waiting for longer than a year for a decision.
Refugee rights groups previously told Metro that this backlog has left migrants in a ‘torturous asylum limbo’.
Asylum applications in the UK are among the lowest in Europe, however. In 2024, there were 16 applications for every 10,000 people in the UK, compared to an average of 22 in the EU.
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