Gov.uk app could lead to ‘mandatory ID scheme’, claim privacy groups
Gov.uk app could lead to ‘mandatory ID scheme’, claim privacy groups
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App and wallet would allow people to carry digital versions of key documents such as driving licence on their phones. Convenient or intrusive? How Poland has embraced digital ID cards. A new app to hold citizens’ driving licences, passports and benefits documents risks being used as a “launchpad for a mandatory ID scheme”, privacy campaigners have claimed.
![[A mockup of a digital driving licence page stored in a Gov.uk ‘wallet’ on a smartphone.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/bb884aae39eafeeca1ee780e0fbb10200afb9567/0_0_498_636/master/498.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, last week unveiled plans for a gov.uk app and gov.uk wallet, intended to save time and hassle for millions by allowing them to carry on their phones digital versions of paper documents. These would include proofs of right to work in the UK, rights to benefits, veteran ID cards and DBS certificates, which employers use to check the criminal record of someone applying for a role. The technology will include biometric security such as face scans. Similar e-government apps are already in use in countries including Poland, Estonia and Iceland.
Kyle said the technology would be voluntary and paper documents would continue to be used, but added that he was striving to make the app’s convenience so “compelling” that people would consider its use “unavoidable”. The app will include a digital document wallet similar to those already installed on Apple and Google smartphones and will be “totally reminiscent of the way you shop, the way you bank, the way you travel and this is now the way you interact with your government”, Kyle said.
