Confidentiality experts criticized the British government’s project to create a mobile digital identity portfolio application, describing it as “putting Big Brother in your pocket”.
The Gov.uk portfolio and application are a means of “simplifying access to services and documents”, indicates the official announcement published on Wednesday January 21, 2025. Citizens may have identity documents issued by them issued by the government, such as their driving license or their driving license. Passport, directly on their phone – a bit like many of us are currently stored their bank cards.
The plan echoes the European digital identity portfolio program adopted last year despite criticism of expert protection experts. In the United Kingdom, as in the EU, concerns are the same: greater convenience should not be done to the detriment of increased monitoring and data security risks.
“Honey pot for hackers”
With the launch of the Gov.uk portfolio planned during the summer, the British will soon be able to digitize their identity documents digitally in the application in order to facilitate proof of their age or their identity, as needed.
The ID Wallet application will also allow citizens to easily manage all their government activities and access public services in one place.
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On December 4, 2024, the EU’s digital identity portfolio landed in Italy despite confidentiality problems, a local journalist considering the computer portfolio as “EU digital cage”. All Italians can now digitize their driving license and their health card directly from the IO application, if they wish, because the service is voluntary at the time of the editorial staff.
Despite the advantages, Silkie Carlo, director of the British Privacy Defense Group Big Brother Watch, is concerned about the enormous amount of personal information that will be recorded in the application.
“The government puts Big Brother in your pocket with a new application to access all your identity documents and much more,” she warns.
The government ensures that “technology will use the safety features integrated into modern smartphones, including facial recognition controls similar to those used when people pay with a digital bank card”.
However, Carlo remains concerned about the security risks linked to the storage of identification information so sensitive in a single application. She said: “The addition of our facial recognition data makes this sprawling system of sprawling identity, intrusive and a jar of honey for computer hackers. »»
After all, the British public system has a bad assessment in terms of personal data protection. In March of last year, for example, a ransomware gang hacked the NHS Dumfries and Galloway digital database and stole 3 TB of identification information belonging to both staff and patients.
📱The Government puts Big Brother in your pocket with a new application to access all your identity documents and more. “This is a proposal for a global digital identification system which will contain a huge amount of information on each of us, from taxes to health data, drawn from several … pic.twitter.com/nkgkwuf3eqJanuary 21, 2025
As mentioned above, the Gov.uk portfolio should be launched in the summer of 2025, for iOS and Android devices. The digital version of the veteran will be available first, followed by the mobile driving license later in the year. All other identity documents and digital services should be operational by 2027.
According to British transport secretary Heidi Alexander, this represents a “change of deal” for all the British using their driving license as an identity document. “This innovation puts power in the hands of citizens, making daily interactions faster, easier and more secure,” she added.
This is not what Carlo de Big Brother Watch feels. Even if the British government should modernize its identification system and offer citizens digital options, it believes that this approach may obtain the opposite result of that planned: “in fact reduce our choices and our control over our own data” , said Carlo.
Overall, Carlo thinks that this system will eventually disadvantage all people who are still based on non -digital identification forms. She said: “Despite our campaign, the government inevitably refuses to legally protect the right to use non -digital identification, and did not specify if we can control the quantity of our sensitive information which will be available via this portfolio.”
