Tony Blair and William Hague call for digital ID cards for all

Sir Tony Blair and Lord Hague have called for everyone in the UK to get digital ID cards as part of a “technological revolution”.

In a report, the former Labour prime minister and Conservative leader argue that government records “are still based in a different era”.

The idea of introducing ID cards has been controversial.

As PM, Sir Tony tried to introduce an ID card scheme but it was scrapped by the coalition government.

Opponents of identity cards have raised concerns about civil liberties and what they see as unnecessary data collection and intrusion by the state.

However, in their report, Sir Tony and Lord Hague, who faced each other at the dispatch box as party leaders, argue digital ID cards would make it easier and more secure for people to access services and for the government to understand their needs and better target support.

“In a world in which everything from vaccine status to aeroplane tickets and banking details are available on our personal devices, it is illogical that the same is not true of our individual public records,” they write.

They suggest such a scheme could allow people to prove their identity, age, driving licence, right to live and work in the UK and even their educational qualifications.

But Silkie Carlo, director of campaign group Big Brother Watch, said the “sprawling digital identity system” proposed by the pair “would be one of the biggest assaults on privacy ever seen in the UK”.

“Sir Tony and Lord Hague are absolutely right about the need for the UK to take leadership in technological innovation, but this means protecting people’s rights and privacy, not reviving failed proposals for an intrusive mass digital identity system and a database state,” she said.

“Technology is not some geeky side issue to be got to once the ‘real political debates’ have raged,” the pair write in The Times. “It is the issue.”

Many people believe the UK has chosen an overly cautious approach to the adoption of tech, while others argue that this is the only sensible option.

The Online Safety Bill, over five years in the making, continues to wrestle with the complexities of trying to regulate big tech and online behaviour.

Meanwhile, in everyday life, people are using their digital devices to make payments, do banking, manage diaries, run businesses and build communities.

At work they’re using the AI Chatbot ChatGPT to write marketing copy, speeches, and computer code. Whitehall, on the other hand, is warning its staff not to use it to write emails.

The fear of course is that when tech goes wrong, it can be catastrophic. Whether that’s huge queues at airports when the e-gates fail, or large-scale identity theft thanks to an unexpected data breach.

There’s a saying in the cybersecurity world: everything is unhackable, until it’s hacked. And if your identity is compromised, it can be very, very hard to get it back.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Lord Hague called for the UK to “redesign the state around technology”, warning that other countries were “forging ahead”.

“We’re in the fastest period of innovation in the history of human civilisation… The UK has to be one of the leaders in that field,” he said.

Sir Tony said countries ranging from Estonia to India already had digital ID systems.

He acknowledged there were “threats and difficulties with this technology revolution” but politicians also needed to understand its potential.

“You need a programme for government that is done on a basis that assembles a new national purpose so that it goes across the party lines and so that even through changes of government you’re still in the same direction, with the same ambition,” he told the programme.