The Government’s new digital identity card will not be known as a “BritCard”, Downing Street has confirmed.
The digital identity card – unveiled last week by Sir Keir Starmer – was immediately dubbed “the BritCard” as that was the name given to the scheme by Labour Together, the influential left-wing think tank close to No10, in the summer.
The concept of a “BritCard” immediately led to pushback from politicians in devolved UK regions, notably Northern Ireland, where nationalists would have boycotted the scheme if it were known as a “BritCard”.
In an interview with GB News’ Chopper’s Political Podcast, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said he had been given assurances that the new ID card would not be called the BritCard.
Mr Sarwar said: “I can confirm it’s not called a BritCard.
“I understand the civil liberties argument. And if this is something that would be used around stop and search and things of that, I think that would be a step too far.”
Mr Sarwar said he backed the scheme if it provided a simple way to access information about driving licences and National Insurance online.
“That digital platform can be used to verify your identification when you go for a job and for an employer to verify your identification, which they have to do anyway in paper form, and if they can do that on a digital form, I think that’s a very good thing.”
A No10 source said that the “BritCard” name had not been part of the announcement by the Prime Minister last week.
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Anas Sarwar told GB News that Labour’s new digital ID card will not be known as ‘BritCard’
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“We’ve not dropped anything because we didn’t call it that,” they said.
The digital ID cards – which will be mandatory, will include a name, date of birth, nationality or residency status, and a photo – have been mired in controversy since they were announced by the Prime Minister on Friday last week.
Starmer said then that the idea behind the cards – that all adults will have to have one to work legally in the UK – was to crack down on the illegal economy, which has acted as a magnet for migrants to travel to the UK by small boat.
Hours after the PM’s announcement, Darren Jones, the Chief Secretary to the PM, told the same audience conference that the digital ID cards would form “the bedrock of the modern state”, alarming civil liberties campaigners.
Anas Sarwar said he backed the digital ID scheme if it provided a simple way to access information about driving licences and National Insurance online
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There are also concerns about the safety of people’s data if the card were hacked or compromised. Jones also told the Global Progress Action conference: “The reason the system is rubbish is because all of the IT is rubbish.
“We have legacy IT systems, IT that doesn’t talk to each other. We have over 200 HR systems across Government, for example; the finance systems are not integrated.”
Support for the digital IDs appears to be plummeting. Polling by More in Common found that net support for digital ID cards fell from 35 per cent in early summer to minus 14 per cent in the days after the announcement.
Unveiling the plans for digital IDs in June, a paper for the Labour Together think tank said: “This paper makes the case for the introduction of BritCard: a mandatory national digital identity that would be issued free of charge to all those with the right to live or work in the UK, whether they are British-born nationals or legal migrants.
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“The BritCard would be a verifiable digital credential downloaded onto a user’s smartphone, which could be instantly checked by employers or landlords using a free verifier app.”
A Government source told GB News that the new ID card is not called BritCard and would be named after a public consultation.
They said: “The scheme is not referred to as and has never been called a ‘BritCard’.
“The policy is newly proposed, and we currently expect that the official name will be determined following the forthcoming public consultation.”
Listen to Chopper’s Political Podcast every Friday at 6am.