The far-right in Britain currently have their Union Jack pants in a twist over reports that the UK might soon introduce digital ID cards. Britons have never been required to have ID cards, and a scheme to introduce them 20 years ago was scrapped over public opposition.
The subject is now back on the agenda, touted as a way to help combat illegal migration. Yet while 57 per cent of Britons support ID cards, fewer support digital versions. Those on the right (and far-right) of British politics vehemently oppose them, claiming—somewhat ridiculously—that they are a threat to civil liberties and the beginning of a slippery slope towards a China-style social credit system.
This hysteria would be amusing if it weren’t so counterproductive. Digital IDs don’t threaten civil liberties; they enhance them. The proof lies not in paranoid fantasies but in observable reality. Estonia, that Baltic nation of 1.3 million people, has been running the world’s most advanced digital identity system since 2002. Rather than creating a dystopian surveillance state, it has built something resembling a libertarian’s dream: a government so efficient that citizens spend mere minutes each year on bureaucratic tasks that elsewhere consume hours.
The Estonian miracle
Estonia’s digital identity system is comprehensive in a way that would make British privacy campaigners reach for their smelling salts. Every Estonian over 15 has a digital ID card containing a microchip with their photograph, personal data, and two security certificates.
These cards can be used for everything from voting to banking to signing contracts. The result? Estonians file their tax returns in an average of three minutes. Setting up a company takes 18 minutes online. Each Estonian saves an average of five working days annually thanks to digital signatures and automated government services.
The economic benefits are huge, and so successful has Estonia’s digital identity become that in 2014 it made a version available to non-residents. Estonia’s e-Residency programme has since attracted over 121,600 foreign citizens from 185 countries. These digital residents have founded more than 33,800 Estonian enterprises, contributing 244 million euros to the country’s economy since the programme’s inception.
In 2024 alone, taxes from e-resident companies contributed 63.6 million euros to Estonia’s budget while the government spent just 7.5 million euros running the programme—a return on investment of nearly ten to one.
Consider what this means: Estonia has created a system so trusted and efficient that tens of thousands of foreigners voluntarily choose to become digital residents, paying taxes to a country they may never visit. They do this not because they’re coerced, but because Estonia’s digital government actually works better than their own bureaucratic systems.
Digital liberation in wartime
Ukraine’s Diia app provides an even more compelling case study. Launched in 2020, the app now has over 20 million users—every second Ukrainian. Citizens can access tens of services with a few smartphone taps, from renewing driving licences to paying taxes to registering businesses. Setting up a company takes just 30 minutes, and becoming an individual entrepreneur requires merely two seconds. The app has been so successful that Ukraine has made it open-source to help other countries build their own systems.
Ukraine’s digital identity system has proved its worth under the ultimate stress test: war. When Russia invaded in 2022, Ukrainians could prove their identity and access government services even when displaced from their homes. The app added wartime features like digital evacuation documents and compensation applications for war damage. It even allows citizens to share the geolocation of enemy tanks with authorities. This is digital identity as a tool of liberation, not oppression.
Most tellingly, in June, Ukraine became the first country to offer online marriage ceremonies through Diia. Couples can now marry with digital signatures, no physical documents required. This is the opposite of what digital ID opponents claim: rather than restricting freedom, the system enables new forms of personal liberty.
The efficiency dividend
The economic case for digital ID is overwhelming. Estonia’s direct economic impact from e-Residency amounted to 31 million euros in just the first half of 2024. Ukraine’s Diia has enabled one million private entrepreneurs and more than 14,000 companies to register online. These aren’t just convenience features; they represent fundamental improvements in how citizens relate to their governments.
Digital IDs eliminate the absurd inefficiencies that plague analogue bureaucracies. No more queuing at government offices. No more posting paper forms or keeping stacks of physical documents. No more being told to come back with additional paperwork. Instead, citizens can conduct all their government business from their phones while governments process requests automatically and instantly.
The cost savings are substantial. Digital signatures save Estonia’s government millions annually while reducing processing times from weeks to minutes. When governments don’t need armies of civil servants to process paper forms, tax bills shrink. When citizens don’t lose productive hours queuing in government offices, economies grow.
Trust, not surveillance
The British privacy lobby’s concerns about surveillance are precisely backwards. Analogue bureaucracies are opaque black boxes where citizens have no idea how their data is used or who has access to it. Digital systems, by contrast, can be designed with transparency and audits built in. Estonia’s system logs every access to personal data, giving citizens a complete audit trail of who has viewed their information and when.
Moreover, digital IDs reduce the need for surveillance. When identity verification is instant and reliable, governments needn’t resort to intrusive checks and physical document requirements. Citizens gain privacy through efficiency, not despite it.
The notion that digital IDs enable China-style social credit systems is particularly fatuous. China’s social credit system works by linking behavioural data across multiple platforms and institutions. It requires vast surveillance infrastructure and the willing participation of private companies in government monitoring. Britain already has extensive CCTV networks and digital surveillance capabilities; adding digital ID wouldn’t materially change this landscape.
Civil liberties groups warn that any digital ID system would create a ‘papers, please’ society, yet they ignore that the current analogue system already requires extensive documentation for basic activities.
The paper prison
Britain’s resistance to digital ID is ultimately a defence of inefficiency dressed up as a principled stand for liberty. The current system—requiring citizens to carry multiple physical documents, queue in government offices, and wait weeks for processing—is not freedom. It’s a paper prison that wastes citizens’ time and taxpayers’ money.
The real threat to civil liberties comes not from digital efficiency but from analogue dysfunction. When basic government services are deliberately cumbersome, citizens become dependent on expensive intermediaries and face barriers to exercising their rights. When bureaucracy is slow and opaque, corruption flourishes. When identity verification is unreliable, fraud proliferates.
Estonians understand this. Ukrainians understand this. Having experienced both Soviet bureaucracy and digital government, they recognise that technology properly deployed enhances rather than threatens human freedom. Their enthusiasm for digital services reflects lived experience, not techno-utopianism.
British opponents of digital ID might learn from Estonia and Ukraine’s example before dismissing something they’ve never tried. After all, it’s hard to argue with a system that gives citizens back five days of their lives each year while saving the government millions.
That’s not surveillance; it’s civilisation.
Photo: Dreamstime.
