According to TheRegister.com, the UK government has flatly rejected the Office for Budget Responsibility’s £1.8 billion (roughly $2.3B) cost forecast for its national digital identity scheme. Department for Science, Innovation and Technology permanent secretary Emran Mian told a committee on December 3 that the figure was a “very early estimate” and a proper cost won’t be known until after a delayed public consultation in the new year. That consultation, originally promised by the end of 2023, will define what the ID contains and how it’s used. The government still plans to make it compulsory for anyone starting a new job by the end of this Parliament. In written answers, minister Josh Simons revealed the government is considering a “digitally enabled physical alternative,” like an ID card, and plans to consult on issuing digital IDs to teenagers as young as 13.
Cost Confusion and Delay Tactics
Here’s the thing: rejecting a major, independent cost estimate without offering any alternative number is a classic political maneuver. It kicks the can down the road. Mian basically said, “We can’t tell you what it costs because we don’t know what ‘it’ is yet.” But that raises a huge question. If the scope is still so undefined that a £1.8B estimate is meaningless, how can the government possibly stick to its timeline of making it mandatory for new hires within the next year or so? The delay from “end of 2023” to “new year” for the consultation might seem small, but it signals this project is already slipping. It feels like they’re building the plane while flying it, and the OBR just gave everyone a terrifying look at the fuel bill.
The Physical and Teenage Twists
The most revealing details came from those written parliamentary answers. The mention of a “digitally enabled physical alternative” is a massive concession. For years, the UK has had a visceral opposition to national ID cards. So the idea that this digital scheme might spawn a physical card by the back door is politically explosive. It’s an admission that a purely digital system will exclude people, but it opens a whole new front in the privacy and civil liberties debate.
And then there’s the plan for 13 to 16-year-olds. Framing it as a way to “streamline” employing young people and aid “online safety” sounds sensible, right? But come on. Issuing a national digital ID to children is a huge expansion of the state’s reach. It normalizes digital identity tracking from a young age and creates a database of minors. The intentions might be wrapped in safety and convenience, but the implications are profound. Once the infrastructure exists for a 13-year-old to have a state digital ID, what stops it from being used for school attendance, library access, or social media monitoring far beyond the original intent?
A Trust Deficit in the Making
So what’s the trajectory here? We have a rejected cost, a delayed plan, a surprise physical component, and a rollout to teenagers. This isn’t a project radiating confidence and clear vision. It seems reactive and piecemeal. The technical challenge of building a secure, scalable system that holds data in UK clouds is one thing. But the bigger challenge is public trust. After high-profile government IT failures and constant data breaches in the private sector, convincing millions to adopt a compulsory digital ID was already a steep climb. This messy, opaque start isn’t helping. They need to be transparent about costs, scope, and safeguards now, not after a consultation. Otherwise, this £1.8B “early estimate” might start to look like a bargain compared to the final bill—both in pounds and in public goodwill.
