The Prime Minister announced on Friday that the Government would introduce a new ID system by 2029 that would be mandatory for people working in the UK. More than two million people have signed a petition opposing the plans, calling them “a step towards mass surveillance and digital control”. She said any argument about the ID recording gender identity rather than biological sex would rely on privacy rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. “If Parliament passes a law that makes mandatory the carrying or possession of digital ID, that will be a prescribed lawful purpose, so the Article 8 argument will fail. “If it is Parliament’s intention that we will use digital ID to ensure that a person remains who they were for the purposes of, for example, migration, work and health, there is no reason at all why that consistency cannot be maintained on a digital ID.