Burnham ‘Scrapped’ Digital ID — So Why Is Its Machinery Now in 264 Government Services?

News | By Matt, Editor

They told you it was dead. In July, Andy Burnham’s new government killed off Keir Starmer’s national digital ID scheme, first sold as a way to make digital right-to-work checks compulsory for every new job. Campaigners celebrated. But officials have now told MPs what happened next: the machinery behind it never stopped. GOV.UK One Login is already wired into 264 government services, with around 500 planned within two years, and more than 23 million people are using it.

The figures came out at a Public Accounts Committee hearing on 19 October and were reported by Forbes, The Register and Computer Weekly. Two days later, on 21 October, the government quietly laid a draft code before Parliament that lets public data be shared with private ID-checking firms. Scrapped? Only in name, critics say.

Key facts

• National digital ID scheme cancelled on 21 July 2026, confirmed in September; GOV.UK One Login and GOV.UK Wallet carry on (Commons Library via THINK Digital Partners).
• One Login serves 264 of an estimated 500 government services, replacing about 44 separate ways of logging in; HMRC is now being onboarded (PAC hearing, 19 Oct).
• More than 23 million users on government figures from September; DCMS told Forbes on 22 October the number who have used it is now over 26 million.
• £752m in net benefits claimed for One Login from April 2022 to August 2026.
• GOV.UK Wallet moving from the veteran card to a digital driving licence; a sandbox for certified private firms opened in October, more testing in December, national rollout targeted for 2027 (The Register).
• More than 80 types of document earmarked for the wallet, including proof of benefits and DBS certificates (The Register).
• Draft code of practice laid 21 October on sharing public data with registered private verification services. It has no statutory review clause.
• No timetable for a digital identity strategy, and no estimate of future costs (DCMS permanent secretary).

“The programme is closed”

The official in charge insists nothing sinister is going on. Susannah Storey, permanent secretary at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, told MPs: “The national digital identity programme is closed.” She said One Login lets people prove who they are online but “that is not the same as a national digital identity strategy.”

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Yet the same hearing heard that the work carries on under a different banner. Christine Bellamy, interim director general at the Government Digital Service, called One Login the foundation for wider digital ID work. “The work here is around how we make it possible to see an individual across government as one person, and that bit doesn’t exist yet in government,” she said, according to Computer Weekly.

Rod Latham, the DCMS director for cyber security and digital identity, had a simple explanation for why so much was still standing. The government had only scrapped a new ID product. “We already had One Login and the Gov Wallet,” he told MPs.

So what was actually scrapped?

The part the public hated: the plan to make digital checks compulsory for anyone starting a job. What survived is the plumbing. One account across government. A phone wallet for official documents. A sandbox where private firms certified under the trust framework can plug in. GDS official Natalie Jones described the end goal: someone downloads their licence from the DVLA, shows it from their wallet, and it is checked “all the way to a pub or an online business”.

The One Login roadmap, updated in August, adds identity checks using DWP welfare records, with open banking checks expected in 2027. The system keeps activity logs for a year and a secure audit trail for seven years. Asked what digital ID now means, ministers have no published strategy, no cost estimate and no timetable.

And the data rules are moving too. Under the draft code laid on 21 October, public bodies will be able to share information with registered private verification firms once the government switches on the new “information gateway”. The code is only guidance that authorities must “have regard” to, and it contains no statutory review clause, according to an analysis of the memorandum.

The critics

Big Brother Watch, which campaigned against Starmer’s scheme, claimed victory when it was dropped but warned that “the dangers of a ‘papers please’ society have not gone away.” On 29 October its director Silkie Carlo attacked the separate ID-check plan for Labour’s social media ban as “a national ID system by the back door” (Big Brother Watch).

Its legal officer Jasleen Chaggar has warned the government “should ensure that digital ID does not become de facto mandatory as it would shut out millions of people” (Big Brother Watch, 14 Sept). Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice said back in March that the Gov.uk portal worked well but must not be used to bring in “a digital ID card system through the back door” (BBC).

About 9% of people hold neither a driving licence nor a passport, Bellamy told the committee. And MPs heard that the DWP can already share data with other departments to fight fraud without explicit consent.

The government’s side

DCMS says One Login and GOV.UK Wallet are separate from the cancelled scheme and voluntary. It told Forbes One Login does not link personal data with other government databases or track people for marketing or profiling, and that “people who cannot use GOV.UK One Login will continue to have an alternative way to access services.” It has promised a privacy impact assessment by the end of 2026.

Our view

Nobody has to sign up today. That is the point. A system that reaches 500 services, a wallet that pubs and websites can check, a gateway for passing public data to private firms, and no published strategy: that is how you build an ID system without ever announcing one. Burnham got the credit for killing digital ID. The voters who marched against it deserve straight answers on what replaces it, what it costs, and a legal right never to need it.

Do you believe digital ID is really dead? Vote in our poll below.

Sources

• Computer Weekly, 20 Oct 2026: PAC hearing; Storey, Bellamy, Jones quotes; £752m; HMRC onboarding
• Forbes, 22 Oct 2026: 264 / ~500 services; 23m users; roadmap; audit trail; DCMS statement
• The Register, 20 Oct 2026: 80+ document types; Latham and Storey quotes; December testing; 2027 rollout
• Pre-Mortem, 3 Nov 2026: draft code of 21 Oct; information gateway; ~44 logins; 9% without licence or passport; no review clause
• THINK Digital Partners, 8 Sept 2026: Commons Library briefing; cancellation on 21 July
• Big Brother Watch, 29 Oct 2026 and 14 Sept 2026; BBC, 10 Mar 2026 (Tice)
• Photo: Prime Minister Andy Burnham, official portrait, July 2026. No 10 Downing Street, Open Government Licence v3.0 (cropped)