Why I Refuse to Comply with Compulsory Digital ID (Britcard) in the UK

28 September 2025

By Andrew Lambert

Why I Refuse to Comply with Compulsory Digital ID (Britcard) in the UK featured image

TL:DR

A compulsory Digital ID in the UK would hit neurodivergent people hardest

Piling admin, deadlines, and exclusion on those already pushed out by badly designed systems. It also tramples GDPR and human rights law, and once built, these schemes always expand into surveillance and punishment. Half of Europe has them, but so do authoritarian states like China, Russia, and North Korea. The UK scrapped ID cards in 2010 for a reason. I won’t comply, and neither should you.

This Many People Can’t Be Wrong

The petition against Digital ID is now well over two million signatures and still climbing. That should tell the government everything it needs to know, but they’ll ignore it, because they always do. People don’t sign in those numbers for fun. They sign because they feel something isn’t right.

And they’re right.

What a Digital ID Actually Means

Forget the nice shiny pitch about fixing illegal immigration or making life easier. A compulsory Digital ID means another hoop you have to jump through before you can do anything. Get a job, open a bank account, shop online, prove yourself again and again. All tied to one profile that the state controls.

That’s another way of saying, “We don’t trust you, so show us your papers before you live your life.”

The immigration excuse is nonsense

They say it’s about stopping illegal immigration. How? The clue is in the word illegal. People who are already outside the system aren’t going to politely register. What it does instead is push things further into the shadows.

More cash jobs. More dodgy landlords. More street corners. More exploitation.

And this is where my alarm bells really go off. Because I know from coaching people who are autistic and/or those who struggle with executive function, with memory, and with decision-making, are more open to being manipulated. If you make the “official” way harder, you give more power to people who are ready to take advantage.

Why neurodivergent people get hit hardest

I see this all the time and it really gets my goat. People are already lready tripping over endless forms, admin, online portals that don’t work, and rules no one explained properly. Add another one, but this time make it compulsory, and what happens?

  • You miss a deadline, you’re fined.
  • You forget a password, you’re locked out.
  • You can’t afford a new phone or don’t have steady internet, you’re excluded.
  • You already feel judged everywhere you go, now you’re carrying a permanent record that decides if you can participate.

The Equality Act 2010 will be completely out of the window when designing the process, and sanctions, it always is.

That vulnerability to being exploited doesn’t go away, it gets worse. Because when official routes are locked behind new barriers, people who can’t keep up are left exposed to anyone offering “workarounds.” The kind of “help” that usually comes with strings attached.

And it’s not only neurodivergent people. Anyone without reliable tech or with limited literacy will be cut off too.

It’s just another barrier to us with a different label stuck on the front.

And the scope always grows

That’s the part nobody should ignore. This is the really sinister side of all this. It never stops at the first step. First, they tell you it’s just to prove you can work. Then it’s linked to your bank. Then your online shopping. Then, every day services.

And at some point, you wake up and realise your account is frozen because you missed a council tax payment, or your internet is disabled because something you said online upset the wrong person. Once the infrastructure exists, it gets used. That’s how it goes every single time. History has proven this time and time again.

⚫ID cards in authoritarian regimes - started with one purpose, expanded to track political dissent.

Electronic Frontier Foundation

⚫CCTV in the UK - sold as crime prevention, now used for everything from parking fines to monitoring protests and tracking when you go into a supermarket.

The Guardian

⚫COVID data apps - launched for health, but in some countries drifted into monitoring movement and enforcing restrictions long after the health emergency.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Mass data retention laws in the EU - struck down repeatedly by courts for being disproportionate, because once stored, governments tried to use the data for broader policing.

CORDIS

The legal mess waiting to happen

Even if you take the politics out of it, the law doesn’t support this.

How a compulsory Digital ID trashes GDPR

  • Data minimisation – GDPR literally says collect only what you need. This scheme would grab everything, tie it together, and hold it in one place. That’s not minimal. That’s hoarding.
  • Purpose limitation – Data is meant to be used for the reason it was collected. With a Digital ID, once it exists, it’ll be dragged into everything. Policing, debt collection, tracking what you do online. It always happens.
  • Fairness and transparency – People are supposed to have a choice and be told clearly how their data is used. If it’s compulsory, there is no choice. That’s the definition of unfair.
  • Proportionality – The law says any scheme has to be the least intrusive option. A national ID database isn’t the least intrusive. It’s the most.
  • Impact assessment – GDPR says high-risk stuff like this needs a proper risk assessment. Show me a DPIA that proves this is safe and proportionate. They won’t, because they can’t.
  • Rights of the individual – You’re supposed to be able to access your data, fix mistakes, or even erase it. Good luck doing that once it’s in one central ID system.

How a compulsory Digital ID breaks the Human Rights Act

  • Article 8 – Right to private and family life
    You’re meant to be able to live without the state monitoring every step. A compulsory Digital ID does the opposite. It builds a system where your access to work, money, and services depends on government permission. That’s surveillance, not privacy.
  • Article 14 – Freedom from discrimination
    If a system hits disabled people, neurodivergent people, or anyone who struggles with admin harder than the average person, that’s discrimination. Plain and simple.
  • Proportionality test
    Even if the government argues “public interest,” they still have to prove the interference with rights is necessary and proportionate. They can’t. There are already less invasive tools to prove identity. A national database is overkill.
  • Risk of abuse
    Once the infrastructure is in place, it can be expanded to punish people for unrelated things — debt, speech, protest. That’s not hypothetical. History shows it happens again and again.
  • The Human Rights Act says people have a right to private life. This doesn’t protect that. It destroys it.

Groups like Liberty, Big Brother Watch, Open Rights Group, and the Good Law Project can already see where this is heading. If the government tries to push it through, it will be challenged in court. And rightly so.

“Other countries have them” isn’t the point

It’s true, about half of Europe already has compulsory ID cards. Germany, Spain, Belgium, Italy… the list goes on. People there have grown up with them, and even then there are constant debates about privacy and scope creep.

Other countries include China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Venezuela, and that’s not a list we should want to join.

The UK made a very deliberate decision not to go down that road. ID cards were scrapped in 2010 after years of opposition. That wasn’t an accident. It was a choice to protect civil liberties.

It’s not just about whether a card exists, it’s about what it connects to. In some countries, IDs have drifted into linking everything from banking to mobile phones to housing. Once that link is made, you don’t get to pull it back.

The UK doesn’t have a culture of carrying papers. Forcing it now would be a massive shift towards state control. So pointing at Europe and saying “they do it” doesn’t make the case. It just shows how easy it is for governments to normalise something that chips away at freedom.

My stance

I work with people who are already excluded by systems not designed for them. Every day I see how bureaucracy, admin, and digital hoops push neurodivergent people to the margins. A compulsory Digital ID would be the worst example of that yet. It’s punishment disguised as policy.

But this isn’t only about ADHD, autism, or disability. It’s about everyone. If the state can decide when and how you access work, money, or services, then freedom becomes conditional. That’s not a free society, that’s permission-based living. Once you accept that, you don’t get to draw the line later.

I won’t comply. Because if I do, I’m saying it’s fine for other people like me to be pushed out too. And it isn’t. And more than that, I refuse to normalise a system that hands the state control over the basic functions of life. That’s intolerable, and it should be intolerable to anyone who cares about rights, privacy, and freedom.

If you think this won’t affect you, you’re wrong. It will........

What you can do right now

Final word

This isn’t about immigration or convenience. This is state control pure and simple. And once you give that power away, you never get it back.

Digital ID will not stop illegal immigration. It will not protect anyone. It will pile pressure on the most vulnerable, and it will hand more power to the state than it should ever have.

That’s why I won’t comply. And I’m not alone.

💬 Need ADHD Support?

ADHD isn’t just headlines, it’s real life.
If you’re looking for practical help, I offer affordable ADHD coaching across Newcastle, Sunderland, Durham, Gateshead, Northumberland and Teesside, and online UK-wide.
Sessions start from £75.

👉 Find out more about affordable ADHD coaching
👉 See coaching prices
👉 Book a free chat

Want more like this?

Subscribe Back to blog