Digital ID in the Cradle of Liberty (My Last EconLog Post)

On September 26, the British prime minister’s office announced that

“A new digital ID scheme will help combat illegal working while making it easier for the vast majority of people to use vital government services. Digital ID will be mandatory for Right to Work checks.”

I was getting ready to offer an argument against government ID papers when I realized that I had already done so in an EconLog post of more than five years ago: “The Danger of Government-Issued Photo ID” (January 8, 2019). I think my arguments are still valid, and I recommend this previous post. But I would like to emphasize a few points, especially in light of the British government’s push.

Digital ID is even more dangerous than photo ID, precisely because it further diminishes the cost of tyranny for the government. What about, as in China, attaching social-credit points to digital IDs to reward obedient citizens? There is always another good reason for Leviathan to increase its power and to make citizens believe that granting it is in their own individual interests.

Some readers may question my mention of Leviathan. But I ask them to reflect on how the general power of the state has, despite the correction of injustices against some minorities, grown to the point where it seems nobody can stop it. The fact that more and more people support it for different reasons makes its growth more dangerous, not less.

The British government only abolished the wartime national ID card seven years after the end of WWII, and only after a citizen resisted. In 1950, Clarence Henry Willcock, stopped by a policeman as he was driving, refused to show his ID card. “I am a Liberal and I am against this sort of thing,” he said. He lost twice in court, but the movement against ID cards he started persuaded the government to abolish them in 1951. (See Mark Pack, “Forgotten Liberal Heroes: Clarence Henry Wilcock.”)

One justification for official ID papers is that it assists citizens in doing something—working, in the current British situation—despite government regulations against foreigners. The control of foreigners ultimately justifies the control of citizens. Even those who support some control of immigration should realize that. If you are an American citizen and theoretically non-deportable, how can you prove it without official ID papers (and perhaps after spending a couple of hours or days in an immigration jail)?

The proliferation of government services is the second broad reason requiring beneficiaries to be tagged (I won’t say “like cattle” since it is already a cliché). Even one who supports these services should realize that tagging is one of their costs. This cost in terms of liberty and dignity increases if a unique, encompassing tag is required for all government services. The reason, of course, is again that it makes surveillance and coercion less expensive for the government.

My previous post explains that, in 1940, Philippe Pétain’s collaborationist government in non-occupied France used the excuse of citizens’ convenience to impose an official ID card on them, two decades after imposing one on foreigners. On his digital ID project, the British prime minister said that “it will also offer ordinary citizens countless benefits, like being able to prove your identity to access key services swiftly—rather than hunting around for an old utility bill.” It will also, he said, “help the Home Office take action on employers who are hiring illegally.”

Incidentally, the example of India, which the British government invokes in support of its project, shows that a single electronic ID may not have its supposed monopolistic effectiveness if it fuels an ID obsession. For one thing, this-or-that bureau can be tempted to build upon the “unique ID” by creating its own digital ID for a sub-clientele. (“India Is Obsessed With Giving Its People ‘Unique IDs,’” The Economist, May 20, 2025.)

In a free society, some tools should not be available to the state. Imperfections with liberty are better than perfection with servitude. But I fear we lost the ID-card battle—”we,” those who realize the need to constrain the state.

In the early 2000s, I spent some time in England. I was heartened to discover that one did not need to show any official ID in daily life—for example, when subscribing to a film rental service. A driver’s license was, of course, required to drive a car, which reminds us that this was how “real ID” has become accepted by most Americans. Two decades ago, the Labour government of Tony Blair was already planning a compulsory ID card, but, contrary to what a simple theory of Leviathan suggests, the project was killed by a coalition of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats after the 2010 election. Yet, nothing in the theory says that Leviathan (as an institution) will only try once to get the new powers it wants.

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This EconLog post (my 797th) will be my last. I want to thank Liberty Fund for the opportunity to be part of the blog. I am also grateful to my readers, whose comments have often influenced my thinking, even if perhaps it did not always show! You are most welcome to follow and discuss my posts at my Substack newsletter, Individual Liberty. On my barebones website, I maintain a list of (and links to) my other articles, including those at Regulation, where I am a contributing writer.

Featured image is from ID Card by Gareth Harper under a CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license.