As a Finnish citizen living in the UK, I also come from a culture where a national ID system exists. I would not trust the UK to do theirs sensibly. Even the i

As a Finnish citizen living in the UK, I also come from a culture where a national ID system exists. I would not trust the UK to do theirs sensibly. Even the invoked name "Digital ID" makes it very clear that this system would rely on central databases. Only. In a country where the upcoming political parties are actively proposing stripping foreigners from their immigration status, it's pretty clear that all the parties learned at least one common message from the Windrush scandal: destroying documentation of immigrants was not the problem - leaving behind evidence of such action having happened was. EDIT: the Finnish system at least sets up _some_ guard rails around how the data is used, and mandates a physical document that one can use as a proof when (not if) the central DB is down or going through Windrush 2.0 purge.