Government drops plans for mandatory digital ID to work in UK

The government has abandoned plans to make it mandatory to have a digital ID to prove the right to work, the BBC has learned.

Digital checks on people’s labor rights will be mandatory, but workers will not have to present a digital ID and will be able to use other documents such as passports.

This marks a change from last year, when the government first announced the policy and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told viewers: “If you don’t have a digital ID, you can’t work in the UK. It’s that simple.”

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said: “Good riddance. It was terrible policy anyway.”

He said Labour’s move represented “another U-turn”.

When the government first announced its policy plan, it argued that mandatory digital ID for workers would ease restrictions on immigrants working illegally.

It is understood the plan will now look more narrowly at immigration and focus more on improving access to public services.

Asked about the issue at an Institute of Government conference earlier on Tuesday, Darren Jones, the minister responsible for introducing the policy, said it would be “a pathway to the digital transformation of customer-facing public services”.

He said a consultation would be launched “very shortly”, adding: “I’m confident that by this time next year the vote will be in a much better place on digital identity than it is today.”

The Liberal Democrats said the policy was “doomed to fail” from the start and called for “billions of pounds earmarked for mandatory digital ID schemes” to be spent “on the NHS and frontline policing instead”.

Lisa Smart, the party’s Cabinet Office spokeswoman, said: “No 10 needs to order motion sickness tablets in bulk at this rate to cope with all the U-turns.”

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said in a post on

Green Party leader Zack Polanski welcomed the news about the X, saying: “The government changed ID cards to a U. Good.”