Why mandatory digital IDs are not the answer

Today the Prime Minister is announcing digital IDs will be mandatory for right to work checks by the end of the Parliament. 

Since the beginning of the EU Settlement Scheme, the3million has been raising the alarm about the precarious nature of digital-only immigration status, the system that we’ve had to use as EU citizens to prove our rights in the UK. Since January 2025, all other migrants in the UK now also need to use this system - rebranded as the eVisa system. 

We’ve been campaigning for a physical back-up of our rights, and have developed an alternative proposal, which could sit alongside the current eVisa system, providing a back-up through the form of a QR code. 

Why we are not in favour of digital IDs for everyone

In many EU countries, every citizen has a form of ID. The political backdrop to the creation of those ID systems was entirely different to where we find ourselves today in the UK. The ID is generally used to prove identity when travelling or when accessing different services. It is not used as a means of collecting and connecting vast amounts of data across all these services, or as a weapon of hostile environment policies.

We know the future is increasingly digital and we’ve learnt through researching people’s experiences of the eVisa system where the pitfalls are:

• Data integrity concerns: There are frequent problems with the Home Office databases. Entangled records display the wrong biodata, someone else’s photograph, or the wrong status details. Planned software updates accidently damage crucial eVisa data of thousands of people. The Government says status cannot be ‘lost, stolen, or tampered with’, yet that is exactly the impact that is felt by people when their status is corrupted at the Home Office end.
   
• Accessibility failures: Those who are digitally excluded and vulnerable are unable to navigate the system. Sometimes the two-factor authentication codes are sent to the third parties who originally helped set up the accounts, locking people out of their own status. For sight-impaired people, the system fails to work correctly with screen-to-voice tools, rendering the eVisa completely inaccessible. In areas with poor connectivity or no digital access, status becomes unreachable for everyone. This often happens at the border. The UKVI website has gone down for hours, locking out all ten million eVisa holders from proving their rights.
   
• Significant impact: When that happens, people are left unable to take up offers of work, are refused the right to rent, cannot access education, welfare or healthcare due to the inability to prove their status - paralleling the failures seen in the Windrush scandal. At the point of travel, people are refused boarding and are prevented from coming home to the UK. People are left feeling constantly insecure, and worried that their status won’t be available for them to prove when needed at critical moments.

This is why our alternative proposal is measured and takes into account security, privacy and cost efficiency for the government. 

However, we must carefully consider the context in which digital IDs are being proposed. The government is ignoring current mandatory right to work checks already exist, as well as countless punitive measures designed to make life unbearable for undocumented people. Introducing a new way of checking will not change the fact that black market employers don’t check. 

And the reality is these measures don’t work. They only create fear in people who have already been made vulnerable, driving them even further into exploitation. 

Extending digital IDs to the whole British population under yet another control and surveillance pretence will do nothing but create unintended consequences. 

What we are calling for 

We cannot in good conscience advocate for yet another measure of mandatory surveillance which does not consider the wishes and needs of the British public, and which invades the privacy of British citizens. 

We - ten million migrants who have made the UK our home - have no choice but to have our own data processed by the Home Office - and through this experience, we’ve seen how problematic this is. 

The eVisa system is clunky, involves a convoluted process, is inaccessible to many, and is subject to many data quality and data security issues - issues that we have been raising for years. The new digital ID system may inadvertently have positive consequences for migrants in proving their right to work, but only if the government learns from the flaws of the current process and implements a more streamlined one. Even then, there is no need to extend this system to all citizens. 

We continue to call for an independent review of the eVisa system, for the government to consider secure alternatives, and for compensation for people who incurred losses due to the system’s failure.