Keir Starmer expected to announce plans for digital ID cards

Keir Starmer is expected to set out plans for every adult to have digital ID cards in an attempt to tackle illegal migration to the UK.

The prime minister is likely to announce the plans as soon as Friday during a speech at a conference on how progressive politicians can tackle the problems facing the country, including addressing voter concerns around immigration.

The plans for what is being called a “Brit card” would require legislation and will probably face opposition from campaigners in favour of civil liberties.

However, No 10 is understood to believe that it is necessary to make sure people have the right to work in the UK, and that the national mood has moved on since Tony Blair’s plans for ID cards were abandoned in the 2000s.

Starmer said this month that digital IDs could “play an important part” in making Britain less attractive to illegal migrants and France has repeatedly claimed that the lack of official cards acts as a “pull factor”.

The Guardian revealed in June that Downing Street was exploring new proposals for a digital ID card to crack down on illegal migration, rogue landlords and exploitative work.

The idea came from a Labour Together paper given to the No 10 policy unit proposing a BritCard, which it claimed could help avoid another Windrush scandal.

The thinktank paper also said it would help reduce vast numbers of visa overstayers, saying half of those whose asylum claims were turned down over the past 14 years were probably still in the UK.

It proposed a free, secure digital ID, stored on a person’s smartphone using ministers’ planned gov.uk Wallet app, rebranded as the BritCard app. That could then be verified by employers, immigration, banks and landlords using a free verifier app.

The report’s author and the thinktank’s director of technology, Kirsty Innes, is now a special adviser to Liz Kendall, the technology secretary. When the paper was published, she said: “A progressive society can only work if we have meaningful borders. BritCard would make it far harder to flout the illegal work and illegal rent rules, and far easier to identify and punish exploitative illegal employers and landlords.”

More details soon …