Congratulations! It’s a boy. Or a girl. Or maybe it’s a biometric data point waiting to happen, ready for tagging and cataloging before it’s even burped.
That’s right, folks: the UK Government is now toying with the idea of slapping digital IDs on babies at birth. Not metaphorically. Literally.
This is the UK, where your child’s first toy might be a state-linked QR code.
Ministers, we are told, have been whispering about extending Keir Starmer’s beloved digital identity scheme to include every single British infant.
But yes, this is real. Cabinet Office minister Josh Simons, who seems to be suffering from a severe case of “government by Black Mirror,” has been conducting private meetings on the topic.
The sort of meetings where you’re told to leave your phone at the door and pretend nothing happened. According to people present, jaws were dropping. Probably because the conversation had leapt from employment verification to baby barcoding faster than you can say “authoritarian drift.”
But don’t worry, Starmer says this is all about simplifying bureaucracy.
Let’s not forget how this all started: the Government insisted, hand on heart, pinky swear, that the digital ID scheme was only about immigration. Stop illegal working. Crack down on dodgy landlords. Check the papers. You know the script.
But now, somehow, without so much as a public debate or even a badly photoshopped leaflet, we’ve leapt from immigration controls to putting every British citizen on a digital leash from cradle to grave.
One source said: “You could see jaws dropping around the room,” The Times reported.
Former Conservative minister Sir David Davis was less diplomatic, describing the scheme as “creeping state surveillance,” and the ministers behind it as “stupid” and dazzled by their own gadgets.
“This is creeping state surveillance. The idea that we should allocate children ID at birth is frankly an affront to centuries of British history, and is being put out by stupid ministers who really don’t understand the technology they are playing with,” he said.
Even Labour’s own supporters are starting to look like they’ve stepped into an episode of The Thick of It.
One moment it’s about border enforcement, the next you’re barcoding babies and explaining it all with a straight face.
The estimated cost? £1.8 billion ($2.4B). That’s billion with a “b.”
Whitehall has since gone into PR damage-control mode, wheeling out the usual line that it’s all “hypothetical.”
“The only mandatory use case will be right-to-work checks,” they say, as if that’s reassuring. Right. And when exactly did we start discussing “hypothetical” policies behind closed doors with no public consultation and NDA-level secrecy?
One source said, “In a hypothetical situation where children might have it, they wouldn’t be required to have it.” This is bureaucratic doublespeak at its best.
There’s something almost poetic about it, though. We’ve gone from a state that registers your birth to one that registers your existence, in code, forever. All to save a bit of time at the bank. Or make TikTok harder to open. Or whatever reason they cook up next week.
Let’s be blunt, this is about control. A slow, quiet build toward a future where your data isn’t just part of your life: it is your life. Where every choice, every breath is linked to a number you never asked for and can’t escape.
It starts with babies. But it doesn’t end there. Because once the Government owns your identity, it owns you.
