Burnham to abandon UK digital ID scheme after taking office

Andy Burnham will scrap the United Kingdom’s proposed digital ID scheme shortly after taking office as prime minister, his office said. The decision ends a contested policy associated with outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer while leaving the government’s broader digital public services programme in place.

King Charles III is expected to formally invite Burnham to form a government on Monday, according to Al Jazeera. Burnham’s office said the government will abandon the universal, state-backed identity credential known as “BritCard,” rather than halt separate efforts to digitise public services.

The plan, announced last September, would have required UK residents to hold a digital identity, Al Jazeera reported. It was first presented as a mandatory tool for right-to-work checks, making it a flashpoint in debates over immigration enforcement, privacy and access to public services.

Opposition emerged quickly. Al Jazeera reported that a parliamentary petition against the scheme drew almost three million signatures, among the largest totals in British history, and pushed the government in January to drop the mandatory requirement in favour of a voluntary version.

That shift did not settle the dispute. Critics warned that a system created for employment and immigration checks could expand into healthcare, banking and travel, while supporters said it could update public services and cut fraud, according to Al Jazeera.

Money to be redirected

Burnham’s office said over the weekend that planned spending on the scheme, estimated at $2.4bn, or 1.8bn pounds, over three years, would be redirected to priorities including help with the cost of living. Al Jazeera reported that the figure amounted to about $807m, or 600m pounds, a year.

The move also puts Burnham on the other side of a policy area he once helped administer. Al Jazeera reported that, as a Home Office minister in 2006, he oversaw parts of Tony Blair’s ID card programme, which was later scrapped in 2010 after criticism over projected lifetime costs of several billion pounds.

Campaigners welcome the reversal

Elizabeth Anderson, chief executive of the Digital Poverty Alliance, told Al Jazeera that the collapse of the plan was welcome, though her concern centred on digital exclusion rather than only civil liberties. She said an estimated 19 million British adults lack device access, connectivity or the skills needed to use digital systems fully.

Anderson cited research by her organisation finding that one in five adults can use online government services only with help from another person. She said proposals to direct people to libraries and post offices for assistance would not work for those needing access at home, while travelling or outside opening hours.

Anderson also told Al Jazeera that public resistance reflected weak trust in how government stores and uses personal data, as well as shifting explanations of the scheme and an unclear case for how it would help ordinary people. She said some digital inclusion groups had hoped the project would draw attention and funding to their work, but she doubted savings from cancellation would reach those most in need.

Alan Miller, co-founder of the campaign group Together, said in a statement reported by Al Jazeera that the decision was welcome, but warned that other online government systems could still expand into a de facto digital ID.

Backers say the UK loses a tool

Supporters of digital ID criticised the reversal. The Tony Blair Institute, which has backed the policy, previously called it “long overdue” and warned against poor delivery turning it into another failed government IT project, according to comments from its director of government innovation, Alexander Iosad, reported by Al Jazeera.

Labour Together, whose 2025 white paper helped shape the BritCard proposal, has argued that a national digital identity could reduce identity exclusion for people with uncertain immigration status and help prevent a repeat of the Windrush scandal, Al Jazeera reported.

This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.