Overview
- Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced free digital identity documents will become compulsory for anyone with the right to work by the end of this parliament.
- Starmer said people would not be able to work in the United Kingdom without the new digital document.
- A petition on the UK Parliament website opposing mandatory digital IDs surpassed two million signatures within a day of the announcement.
- Hundreds of demonstrators rallied in central Liverpool near the Labour Party conference to protest the proposal.
- The Times reported plans for a single database that employers would be required to check, intensifying privacy concerns voiced by groups such as Big Brother Watch, which called the idea dystopian and warned of daily digital checkpoints.