Thank you for contacting me about identity cards.
The previous Labour Government introduced identity cards under the Identity Cards Act 2006. This legislation provided the legal basis for the cards as well as for a national identity register.
The Conservative-led Coalition Government abolished identity cards in 2010. ID cards ceased to be a legal form of documentation in 2011 and all data on the national identity register has been destroyed.
I believe that the introduction of identity cards would have been prohibitively expensive and would have represented a substantial infringement of civil liberties. There are no plans to re-introduce them.
I appreciate your argument in favour of a voluntary approach to national ID cards and I would be happy to discuss this with my Parliamentary colleagues. Research undertaken for the Cabinet Office on the prevalence of photographic ID among the general population, however, has found that nine in ten people already held a valid and recognisable form of photographic identification.
You may be aware that, in August 2021, the Government published its digital identity trust framework, which is part of plans to make it faster and easier for people to verify themselves using modern technology through a process as trusted as using drivers licenses or passports. The use of digital identities in the future could help facilitate legal transactions as well as help people to buy goods and access services online more easily. Digital identities would not create new ID cards such as those developed under the previous Labour Government.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.