Digital ID will make life easier for millions, writes Sir Keir Starmer

With just the swipe of a finger, you can now easily organise your finances, buy your clothes, order a takeaway or book a holiday. And yet this often sits uneasily with the old bureaucracy that shapes our lives.

The passport photocopy you need to apply for job. That old electricity bill you need to open a bank account. The driving license – if you’re lucky enough to be baby-faced – you need just to buy a pint.

Such low-level bureaucracy has almost become part of our national fabric. We grumble and get on with it.

Keep calm and carry on. Yet the truth is it’s more than an inconvenience or a frustrating waste of time. It’s also a mark of a rigid state that does not take seriously the need to innovate and keep up with the modern world.

Think about it. In the age of the smartphone, why can’t we give people more control over their childcare, benefits, housing support, banking and so much more?

After all, that is the daily experience people have had in their lives as consumers. Why should we deny them the same convenience in their lives as citizens?

This is why I believe a digital ID system is right for Britain. It’s a simple argument. Digital ID can cut faff and make peoples’ lives easier.

It can give people greater control over their services. And it can help modernise the state, so it is finally ready to take on the great challenges of our times.

Take, for example, illegal migration. For a long time, the ease with which people can come to this country and disappear into the shadowy parts of our economy has been an invitation to the smuggling gangs.

Yes, illegal working arrests have already gone up 50% in the last year, as this Government has taken tough enforcement action. But digital ID checks will help us crackdown even more quickly on rogue employers who do not follow the rules.

But digital ID is about much more than tackling illegal migration. It can also be a great enabling technology for the whole of society.

Take banking.

Digital ID can help reduce online fraud, through the greater security it offers. It can be a social leveller for the millions of people who don’t have existing ID documents and are thus locked out of banking altogether. And it can also help people buying a house, by removing the need for your passport or driving licence to be provided on demand.

This isn’t just about speed, it can actually save you money. For example, I recently spoke with someone who was buying a house and said she was made to pay to verify who she was. With digital ID that could be done in seconds and wipe out the costs.

It’s the same story of convenience in our social and public services. In Denmark, digital ID means graduates can log into a portal that automatically links their qualifications to job applications, saving time for prospective employees and employers. Meanwhile, in Estonia, digital ID means that when a family welcomes a newborn baby into their lives, the parents do not even need apply for nursery places – they are automatically shown what is available with a seamless application process.

Meaning parents are free to focus on those precious first moments instead. Why shouldn’t that happen in Britain?

There is no good reason and we should aspire for better. Convenience should be the norm. So we will work across society to get this right. We will challenge the state to modernise and make people’s lives easier.

And we will use digital ID to help the people of this country take firm control of their future.

Sir Keir Starmer is Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and leader of the Labour Party

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