In September 2025, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced that by the end of the current Parliament, the UK would have a new digital identity system. Professor Edgar Whitley argues that the government’s announcement, before conducting detailed policy development and consultation, undermined trust in the proposal from the start.
Over 20 years ago, I was the research coordinator for the LSE Identity Project which, in 2005, analysed the then Labour Government’s plans to introduce identity cards. The report we produced concluded that, while secure national identity cards could offer significant benefits to the country, the proposals were too complex, technically insecure and, importantly, lacking public trust. In 2026, a Labour government is again seeking to roll out a digital identity system for the UK.
Last November, I gave oral evidence to the Home Affairs Committee’s inquiry on these plans and the Committee has just released its report: Mandatory to manageable: the government’s plans for digital ID with the Committee’s chair, Dame Karen Bradley noting that “The government’s early attempts to set out its plans for digital ID were nothing short of a fiasco”.
The Committee’s report concludes that the government’s rushed announcement of this policy, before properly outlining the expected benefits, once again undermined public confidence. It seems lessons from the past have still not been learned.
Policy process failure and the importance of trust
Digital identity systems succeed or fail based on how they are introduced and governed, not the technology itself. The current government’s decision to announce the policy, before completing the groundwork of consultation, evidence gathering and public engagement, is a sequencing error that policymakers often make. It immediately undermines the legitimacy of the proposal and erodes public trust.
Public opposition to the proposals spiked after they were formally announced. A petition opposing the introduction of digital identity cards amassed nearly three million signatures and the recent report notes further declining public support and growing distrust around their implementation.
My work on digital identity systems has found that trust is cumulative, reversible (easily lost) and shaped by institutional signals. Digital identity is not simply a technology project; it is, fundamentally, an institutional trust project. Until this is recognised, efforts to build robust systems will fall short. Indeed, as we wrote in 2010, trust is achieved “when an identity policy is reliable and stable, and operates in conditions that provide genuine value and benefit to the individual and business” (p. 218).
The flawed narrative
The early government narrative around digital identity focused on it being a means to curtail illegal working through a compulsory system to prove right to work, an important issue but hardly a driver of a “useful” scheme for the general population.
Framing a policy like digital identity around a single instrumental goal isn’t enough to convince people and leaves the door open for the policy to be broadened retroactively. Indeed, the Committee’s report highlights later narrative shifts to “improving access to public services”, which shows policy goals were not stabilised before committing to a solution. Indeed, the government subsequently rolled back on its initial commitment to making a digital identity compulsory for right to work checks.
Why governance must come first
The report leaves open questions about institutional design choices which are core to digital identity scholarship. Namely:
- who controls identity?
- where does trust reside?
- how is accountability structured?
Without proper governance architecture, expansion and function creep can take place without effective scrutiny. This echoes long standing academic and public concerns about identity infrastructures becoming platforms of surveillance through incremental expansion.
When technical deployment is prioritised over well-designed governance, public trust and the legitimacy of the project itself are undermined. Transparency, accountability and active public engagement are not optional—they are essential for any digital identity scheme to succeed.
The report recommends the government implement sound roadmaps, public consultation, parliamentary oversight and clear staged expansion. This is absolutely the right direction, but it should have been put in place before the announcement.
The path forward for digital ID
There is a tendency within government to believe that technological fixes can resolve deeply rooted issues. This overestimation of capability, combined with a lack of appreciation for social and political nuances, leads to policies that are poorly equipped for real-world challenges.
Digital identity projects must be reframed as institutional trust projects. Their success depends not only on clever technology, but on building trustworthy institutions, transparent processes and inclusive governance. Digital identity plans work when policy is sequenced properly: governance first, announcement second.
Twenty years on from the LSE Identity Project, the diagnosis hasn’t changed. Neither, it appears, has the government’s reluctance to act on it. At some point, ignoring the evidence stops being an oversight and starts being a choice.
- This blog post represents the views of its author(s), not the position of the London School of Economics and Political Science Department of Management.
- Image credit: Loredana Sangiuliano on Shutterstock.
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