Fourteen months on, the Starmer Government is finally admitting the truth: it wants to launch a universal (and probably soon to be mandatory) digital identity system. The digital ID programme’s “efficacy depends on everyone having them”, they said, otherwise the government would have to contend with a combination of paper and digital systems. At the same time, digital identity systems pose serious threats to broader human rights. As the now-infamous WEF infographic makes clear, life without digital identity could become very cumbersome indeed. Digital identity systems are also a necessary prerequisite for the roll out of central bank digital currencies, as we have documented many times before.