Blair’s suggestion is already causing a headache for the U.K.’s new Labour government, where he retains considerable influence. His attempts to introduce compulsory ID cards while prime minister were deeply unpopular — and ultimately scrapped under the Coalition government.
After Blair argued that “we should move as the world is moving to digital ID” as a way to “control immigration,” ensuring “we know precisely who has a right to be here” in a Sunday Times article this week, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds appeared to rule it out over the weekend.
However, Technology Secretary Peter Kyle has said he wants to make it easier for people to access public services using a single log-in as part of his ambition to harness technology to improve how people interact with the state.
“Right now, the priority when it comes to accessing digital services or online services or services per se is actually about verification,” Kyle told ITV’s Peston on Monday. “ID cards conjure images of a universal service that affects everybody online and offline and everywhere else.”
Director for government innovation at the TBI, Jeegar Kakkad, told POLITICO the ideas have been misunderstood, and that the organization is not advocating for mandatory digital ID cards.
“Everyone loves to talk about ID cards or government ID. That’s not actually our proposal,” Kakkad said, noting that TBI’s vision is for people to be given “the ability to connect [their] data across the public sector.”
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